Gig: 12/9/1981, The Alarm, Upstairs At Ronnies, London

Responding to the double chart failure of “The Deceiver” and “The Chant”, the Alarm attempt to quickly regain momentum by recording a new song at Good Earth with Alan Shacklock. “Absolute Reality” end-up sounding much like the best songs from Declaration. The song came from demos for their next album.

There’s this old U2 bootleg out there somewhere, and on it is a one-of-a-kind version of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door from New Year’s Eve 1982. Trading verses on the song were Bono of U2, Stuart Adamson of Big Country and Mike Peters of The Alarm. “‘The new breed,’ as Bono described us,” Peters says with a chuckle. The fascinating thing is that at the time, any of the three could [read more]

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