I can lay claim to uploading the rare videos to YouTube of Martyn performing at SWF3 Festival from Ludwigshafen 1983. Originally from Forfar Scotland, I knew his music since 1977 and saw him perform many times in both Scotland and Hamburg (my new home away from home). Through a mutual Glaswegian friend of Johns in Hamburg I was backstage several times during the 80s and 90s when he played at the Fabrik and Markthalle in Hamburg and also shared a few beers before and after those gigs.
I was fortunate on one such occasion to enjoy a long and delightful blether with Annie Furlong RIP. In his company I found him a larger than life personality, made me laugh and smile at his quick fire wit and on each and every occasion in good spirits and in a happy place. That he could be very different I am well aware of from others comments, but we can or should only make comments on the persons that stand before us and how they conducted themselves in our presence. This is why I have nothing negative to say about John as mines were all positive encounters.
Last time I saw John play live was when he played with a broken little toe at a venue in Sauchiehall Street Glasgow. Love the music he made and although he himself appears to have accepted what befell him in later years (and in no small part to his chosen lifestyle) I found it hard but thank him for the unique and original music that he gave us.

I was at the JM gig at Edinburgh Uni on 4/11/77 (in the Potterrow centre). He was fairly stoned (as were many of the audience) but played a great relaxed set, just him and the echoplex. At the end he said "Can't be bothered with all that walking off and coming back on shit, so do you want another one". Obviously we all cheered and he said "How about Solid Air?" (more cheering) and he played a great version of it, the highlight of the night.

It doesn't appear on your tour pages, but Martyn played a show at a hotel, the Eagle Mountain House in Jackson, New Hampshire. All these years later I'm not sure of the exact date, but I'm guessing it has to be in 1985 when he was doing a small number of shows in New York, Boston and Montreal. Sometime in between those shows he must have made the detour to New Hampshsire.
No idea how or why he played there, other than what I heard at the time, that the hotel owner at the time was a huge fan, he had some connections in the industry as he had managed one or two folk-ish musicians for a time, and somehow booked John to play the show.
I was a latecomer as a fan, my introduction being Glorious Fool, but I wasn't gonna miss this show. He played as a trio, Alan Thomson and I assume Spencer Cozens, and a drum machine. I have no memory of what songs he played, but remember him as being very funny and outgoing, with that sort of dry English humor. There were maybe about 100 people who showed up for the show in the hotel's ballroom.

Hi - I was at this gig and photographed John and the support - one Tracy Chapman. She played her debut album basically form what I can remember.

1988-10-01 UK, Manchester, International 2. Saturday. Greenpeace benefit as part of the Manchester Festival.

Keep up the great work,
Best, Will

Regarding the 30 November 1977 Newcastle Polytechnic show: This was a tiny, totally informal gig. John Martyn sat on the floor and we sat around him in a circle. There was almost no light at all except from the city behind through the huge glass panes. He seemed very relaxed and the first thing he said was "Anybody got a spliff?" - to which request we (the small audience) rapidly responded with conspiratorial laughter. It was just like being in a front room or a bar, with friends, but with the most enthralling and original music, ever.
Thanks for your site and all the interesting information and for reminding me of the date.

Saw John perform Ophelia with The Band at The Apollo Hammersmith in the 90s..

Dear Big Muff, I saw John Martyn many times both in New Zealand and England and interviewed him once for The University of Auckland student newspaper Craccum. The first time I saw him was at The University of Victoria (Wellington, New Zealand) Union Hall, on Friday 26 August 1977. I wish to add some information to your comprehensive gig history and correct elements of the review by Raymond Jones. It was after he had toured Australia and not before. He drank a bottle of Coruba rum (not Bourbon) straight followed by the Coca-Cola. I sent you the review for your pages separately. Thank you for a great website and keeping the spirit of a great musician alive.

Hi. I was intrigued to find your site. The exhaustive list of gigs particularly interested me because as a 19 year old lad living in Leeds, I caught a JM gig in Leeds Town Hall the night before I went to live in Spain for six months. It was in the last few days on January 1985. I remember it clearly because I was nervous about the move to Spain the following day and therefore the gig is clearly fixed in my mind, with JM on stage in front of the iconic Leeds Town Hall organ. So I was perturbed to see no listing in your site. You have him playing dates in Ireland at that time. Am I wrong or are you? Let me know please.

I loved seeing John play and saw him several times in the eighties, it's funny I saw him at the gig at Zeffirellis in Ambleside in October 1984. Everyone has different experiences of gigs but I thought it was a fabulous intimate performance, just him hanging really loose and jamming. Perhaps not to everyone’s taste. Great project.

Looking through the gig guide, I note you have Durrutti Column as support act for the October 1982 show at Hammersmith Odeon. However, I was at this show and I believe that Any Trouble were the support. I think DC had been due to support but were unable to due to Vini Reilly’s ill health.

Also, I saw JM at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry in June 1985 but this is missing from your list. I was hoping to find out the date but it seems to be a ghost gig as unable to find it listed on the internet so far!

Best wishes, Martin

The Leeds festival JM played at in 1983 was over the weekend of 9, 10 & 11 September. I think John was on Saturday's programme (so the 10th). John did indeed play a superb solo set, one of the best I ever saw him do. Despite it pissing down all weekend and the site becoming a swamp, it was a great festival. Runrig headlined on the Friday night (and were ace) and Stockton's Wing and (if I recall correctly through a haze of Guinness and snakebite) Moving Hearts were the other two headliners. There were also excellent sets from Dick Gaughan (another highlight), Martin Simpson and the Battlefield Band. The latter had to play an extra long stint because the electrics failed due to the deluge and they could carry on acoustically, which whoever was supposed to follow them couldn't. A fantastic weekend.

12 Feb 1975 - I attended this Liverpool University gig also and Paul Kossoff was supposed to play there too but was 'ill' supposedly. We only went to see Paul Kossoff being mad Free fans, but John Martyn was so good that we all became fans. Also I was at Zeffirellis Ambleside and my wife and had a pizza on the table next to John and the boss of Zeffirellis I presume. The gig was good but yes he was pretty drunk!

I saw John play live about six times, some good, some not so. Our local venue Alnwick Playhouse were casting around for suggestions of who to put on in the late 90's? I said try JM. They booked him but made the mistake of paying him before he played. Town painted tartan… He only just made the stage an hour late. Amazingly he could still stand and make beautiful music but only for about half an hour. We'll never see his like again, songwriting of a god…

I remember being at a John Martyn concert [unaccompanied, no backing musicians/ singers]. Think it was at the university but possibly the NOTTINGHAM Polytech. He was a bit nervy but in between drinking his beer, breaking a guitar string and talking in a nervously fidgety manner, he played and sang quite beautifully. I remember everyone was sat on the wooden floor, in not a very big venue/ room. Do you have anything on this gig at all?
Saw him many years later at the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil in May 97. Said he was just getting over a bout of cold/ flu but was absolutely brilliant, vocals wonderful. Anyone else there that night would testify the same. Hope to hear from you.

Hi, saw John at 1994-12-02 UK, Ashburton (Devon), Lanterns. Jason Feddy was the support act, and he played a few more gigs on that tour with John. Jason was successful in his own right and is now a Cantor, radio presenter and musician in California.

Although my memory of the seventies is patchy (for various reasons!) I remember seeing John at Leeds University in November 1979 - I remember it was snowing and the buses went off! It was a solo performance - and jolly splendid it was too! The Leeds University website has it recorded under Autumn term 1979/80 https://alumni.leeds.ac.uk/Live-at-Leeds

John Martyn and Hamish Imlach both performed in The Glen [Carradale] at The Antares Memorial Concert, an evening that will take quite some beating. [The fishing boat Antares sank in the night of 21 November 1990 after it’s nets came in contact with a nuclear submarine, ed.] Gerry Singal who owned the Glen Bar and Restaurant got Hamish Imlach (a friend of his) and John Martyn to Carradale where they did a fantastic gig in the packed Glen, all in aid of the 'Antares Fund'. John broke off his tour to Spain to do this benefit gig.
Apart from the music, there was a surreal moment where a dead sheep wrapped in binliners was raffled while JM cradled it in his arms. Then Hamish crooned an impromptu blues about the sheep which had a call and response, which John then joined in with!

You have missed out a gig at Battersea Town Hall, somewhere in the Summer of 76/77. Definitely around the release of One World. Opening act was Stan Tracey, doing Under Milk Wood. John was doing a benefit for Danny Thompson, who apparently had had a heart attack (although rumour has it he was compering the Cambridge Folk Festival at the time). The concert was called F.M.O.B. Fond Memories of Battersea, where Danny was in a Dr Barnardos Home. John renamed it Fuck My Old Boots.

Now I come to think of it, this was the first time I heard Small Hours and One World and Big Muff, so I guess it must have been before the release. It was the upstairs of Battersea Town Hall. Can't have been more than a hundred people.

Naturally the amplifier screwed up. Is there an engineer in the audience? After much cursing from John, one was found. While John was provided with various 'gifts' from the audience, playing resumed and we were treated to an amazing, chest reverberating, One World.

I think this has to be my fave concert. I reminded John about it when he was over here in New York in 1998. I think he remembered!

In 1971/ 1972 I was Social Secretary at Brighton Poly. John did a solo gig at the Friday Night Club. If memory serves me it was during February 1972. He was outstanding and everyone had an excellent time.