Roksnaps are photograph’s taken by fans which captured the atmosphere of concerts in the North East during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Already posted are fan pix of Motorhead, Fist, Penetration, The Damned, Whitesnake, Tygers of Pan Tang and much more.

Gig t-shirt’s, programme’s and autographs were hunted down to collect as souvenirs – and some people took photograph’s of meeting their musical heroes.

One fan who kept his pics and shared them on the blog is Wavis O’Shave…

On some days when I got bored I’d pop out to see visiting music celebs for a bit of fun and settle for having a nice cup of tea with them and take a snap – not a ginger one. Here’s a few I managed to find.

The punkies! I’ve popped out and met Iggy Pop a few times – once walked past him on the Portobello Road, carried on walking for 500’ and thought’ That’s Iggy! before whizzing after him.

Here he is in the pic above signing stuff for fans before he suddenly exploded and ripped up a fan’s album.

Here’s a young Toyah below – she was living in a warehouse in Battersea and sleeping in a coffin at the time. She once asked me to record one of my songs with her!

A bit of rock next – that looks like the world’s thinnest man, Lynott innit?

‘Phil, can you get me in the show tonight?’ ‘I can’t, it’s sold out.’ ‘I know, that’s why I’m asking you!’ He did though, bless him. All I had to do was let the security on the door know that I knew the number of his hotel room.

After standing at the wrong arrivals at the airport and letting David silently walk past me, after a car chase I finally caught up with Bowie at his hotel where he gave me the scoop – ‘Life on Mars is about parallel dimensions’.

He signed my collectors original Space Oddity album – shamefully sold for £50 in 1985. Imagine its value now. Here’s a pic from his show that night.

The Queenies. Met them twice. This pic is from Sunderland Locarno a while before they had ‘made it’, six years later in 1980 I saw them at a hotel and Freddie kept calling me ‘Dear.’

I’d gotten hassle from hotel security as I was not a paying guest. I told Roger but all he did was squeak like a mouse!

Excuse me while my knees weaken. It’s Debbie whom I’ve met twice. Very pretty lass. I was allowed permission for the pix from Chris who had to ask her first after promising them I wouldn’t sell them – they were extremely fussy about who should have free gratis pix of Debs and were signed up to exclusive photographers for that purpose.

I’ve met dozens of ‘big names’ accumulating dozens of pix and autographs – that’s wot you do, yeah? and sadly over the decades losing or misplacing 99.9 percent of them.

All pix copyright of O’Shave.

Alikivi   December 2020.