There are lots of 20th anniversaries to celebrate this year: ‘Going Blank Again’, ‘Honey’s Dead’, the Rollercoaster tour. Today is also the 20th anniversary of bassist Phil King’s first ever gig with Lush, which he recalls here…

“It was 20 years ago today that I played my first show with Lush in Dublin. The first of over 120 that year. What are my memories of it you ask? Rather fragmentary, I reply. I remember a radio interview with an ex-member of Horslips, feeling rather conspicuous in the back of a limo (our label was a major in Ireland and could afford it – it was all going on our bill anyway), a correspondent from Melody Maker asking me if I was nervous playing my first show with Lush (I wasn’t), a support group who were in the midst of an A&R bidding war (one of them had been in box-office smash The Commitments), a post-gig drink in a private members’ club popular with Irish politicians where our manager ordered the most expensive bottle of champagne possible (over £100) and then hid it under the table, loath to share it with anyone else. I remember us all rising early the next morning very hungover for a photo session for Melody Maker down near the banks of the Liffey and then having lunch at our hotel where we found out that our album ‘Spooky’, released four days earlier, had gone not quite toppermost of the poppermost, but definitely Top 10. ‘Not a bad start to the year,’ I thought.

“The photo above is my first with the band. It was taken in December 1991 in Kentish Town. I was still working at NME at the time and had to take a few hours off work to do it!”