The Auchinlea Rock Festivals were held in Auchinlea Park in Easterhouse, it was part of the Easterhouse Festival Society (EFS) in cooperation with Radio Clyde They were often hosted by Radio Clyde DJ Tom Russell.

The concerts threw up many interesting situations such as before the 1983 concert GLASGOW and The Dolphins played a football match to determine which band played later on in the bill as they would have the visual advantage of stage lights, also in 1982 Easterhouse band Syndicate nearly didn’t play at all as the van with their equipment was stolen from the car park, half a mile down the road the theft was disrupted as the bad guys discovered that two of the band’s girlfriends where still in the back of the van.

The 1984 Festival was nearly abandoned when Tom Russell had to announce to the crowd that an expensive part of the PA equipment had been stolen and the concert could not continue until the equipment was returned, fortunately it eventually turned up and the show did go on. In 1982, Easterhouse band The Condemned where not happy at only being allowed to play a 25 minute set, the drummer tipped his drums all over the stage in a rage when the band had to come off.

The Festivals where relatively successful and gave the scheme an amazing atmosphere as the music rang through the streets from Provenhall, Lochend, Garthamloch and Wellhouse from bands such as Scheme, Glasgow, The Dolphins, Menace, Dickie Bow and the Collars and a very early version of Blind Allez who would later go on to form the band GUN.

Massive thanks to Alex and Simon Dickson for providing most of the photos for this Auchinlea Festival page.

Below - Scheme from 1983.

GLASGOW.

Below - The Dolphins 1983.

Below - Menace from 1983.

Blind Allez from 1983, The band later became Phobia and then formed GUN.

Scheme at Auchinlea in 1984

Scheme playing to 5000 fans at the Forte next to Auchinlea Park in 2018.

Left - Easterhouse Punk band The Condemned from 1983. The band also played in the first Auchinlea Concert in 1982 after entering a local Battle of the Bands competition held in the Easterhouse Community Centre, the other Easterhouse band to get through was Syndicate, both successful entrants would get to play at Auchinlea that summer.

The Condemned also supported Scheme at their famous Glasgow Apollo concert in 1984.

Below - Youngsters from Easterhouse - Syndicate from the first Aunchinlea Concert in 1982.

In the foreground of this photo is local writer, poet and musician Rab Mathieson (red hair and beard) Rab wrote an award winning Edinburgh Fringe play that year called “G31 OJX” starring Gary Lewis.

Below a recent aerial shot of the park where the Festival was held (Top left corner of the photo)

The person standing next to John MacCalman in the black coat and glasses in this photo is Alex Dickson. Alex along with his son Simon took almost all of the photos on this Auchinlea Festival page so a massive thanks to Alex and Simon for these excellent photos.