DISCO fans are in for a treat when The Real Thing play Bolton Octagon tomorrow.
The Liverpool-based band had three number one million-selling singles in the 70s and 80s - You To Me Are Everything, Can't Get By Without You and Can You Feel The Force - after getting their big break after a performance on Opportunity Knocks.
Three of the four original vocalists - Dave Smith and brothers Chris and Eddy Amoo - plus their five-piece band will be playing all their hits, including covers of classics such as Celebration, Ladies Night and Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now.
In the run-up to the gig, Eddie Amoo shared his first...
MEMORY: I remember being a toddler living in a big house in Toxteth. My whole family used to live together in an extended house. I remember they used to let me play in the cellar which was huge and full of stuff. I remember slugs crawling up the walls.
HOME: 16 Tennyson Street, Toxteth. I lived there until I was 11. It was a wonderful, multi-racial street but when you're a kid you don't take any notice of that - you think everyone's the same.
HOLIDAY: A school trip to Abergele in Wales. I remember walking along the sea wall picking ladybirds off it. That was my first introduction to fresh air I think!
JOB: I left school at 15 and went straight into work at Grays, a sheet metal factory. Boy was it horrible. I worked there for six months and I still have scars from cuts I got from the metal sheets.
RECORD: Why Do Fools Fall in Love by Frankie Lyman and the Teenagers. They were the Jackson Five of the 1950s. He was a child prodigy and they had world-wide hits. They came to the UK to do a tour and my mum ended up taking me to Liverpool Empire to see them. I loved it - that was one of the reasons I decided I wanted to be in the music business.
CAR: A little red Vauxhall 1100, a real banger. I was about 27 when I got my first car which I suppose is pretty late.
DATE: When I was 15 I used to go to a local dance in Liverpool called Rialto. My and my friend used to take it in turns to walk this girl home. I can see the girl in my mind but I can't remember her name. In those days walking a girl home meant you stood outside the ballroom and the girl would come out and start walking towards home and you'd catch up with her and walk alongside her - innocent times.
PET: We always had a dog. I think that's a big reason why my brother Chris went on to show dogs - he won Crufts in 1987 with a wolfhound. When we were kids we always had mongrels so our first pet would have been one of those. I think my mum thought we were safer from burglars with a dog.
REALISATION I WAS FAMOUS: When You To Me went to number one. I'd been struggling for 13 years. I remember walking down the street in Liverpool past NEMS record shop, it was a boiling hot summer, and I heard the song being played. I wanted to run up to the shop shouting "it's me!".
l See Eddie perform with The Real Thing at Bolton Octagon tomorrow. For tickets call 01204 520661 or book online at www.octagonbolton.co.uk.
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