Big Country - Steeltown Rehearsal Demos - June, 1984

Recorded in a rented rehearsal room in Edinburgh in June of 1984, this was the band convening for the first time at the conclusion of all of The Crossing promotional activities & tours, getting together to jam ideas for the second album before heading to Sweden to begin recording it in July. The music in this clip was recorded on a cassette player placed at the foot of Mark’s kit, according to Bruce Watson in a 2023 interview. Stuart had said in an interview from Wembley Stadium on June 30 (when the band filled in last minute for a sick Paul Young at the Summer of ‘84 Concert) that the album was 90% written even by that stage. What we have here is four rehearsal demo instrumentals that were originally to be included as bonus material on the 2014 Steeltown Deluxe reissue. These tracks are lifted from a promo CD with the originally proposed track list. They were not included on the eventual finished product, perhaps due to the fact that they weren’t studio quality recordings (being recorded ambiently on a tape deck) and so extra rough mixes from the Polar Studio sessions were instead added. These instrumentals were likely recorded at different times as the sound quality varies from one track to the next. There are no studio recorded demos of any Steeltown songs because none were recorded. First public appearance of these tracks was on The Great Divide - The Big Country Podcast: https://bigcountryinfo.com/podcasts/i... https://m.facebook.com/groups/thegrea... 00:00 Flame Of the West 04:06 Just A Shadow 07:38 Where the Rose Is Sown 12:12 The Great Divide Included in the clip pictures is a recent photograph of Grangemouth Refinery on the Firth of Forth where the famous Steeltown photos were taken - pic courtesy of Stuart Menzies. Steeltown “live picture” album art interpretations courtesy of the very talented Keith Lewington. Just when you thought you’d heard it all. Remembering Stuart Adamson, always. Stay Alive