Anti Nazi League concert Edinburgh housing estate Craigmillar summer 78  courtesy of Ross Galloway

"The Deleted were started by 3 very good friends - Colin Craigie, John and Derek McVay whilst at school. We used to rehearse in my Dad's garage - a true Garage Band - playing songs by The Clash, Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks, Wire, Magazine, Ultravox,etc. as well as our own songs.

Playing in the Edinburgh music scene we attracted the attention of a number of promoters and entrepreneurs such as Bruce Findlay (then manager of Simple Minds) and Pete Irvine and Barry Wright of Regular Music who were the main concert promoters in Scotland. Soon we were being offered gigs across Scotland such as the Anti-Nazi Carnival in Edinburgh's Craigmillar Park in 1978. This was a big gig for us since the headline act was The Clash***. There was a crowd of 10,000 people there and we gained significant exposure from that.

 We used to gig around with a few other bands like The Skids, Neutral Blue (with Roddy Frame - later to form Aztec Camera), Orange Juice, Joseph K, and Delinx (featuring Bruce Watson of Big Country). Things in the music scene were moving on however and it was not long before we realised that our own music was developing and leaving our Punk roots behind. It was time to move on.

We changed our name to Visitors and proceeded to develop our music in a different direction. Whilst it still had a discernible Punk influence our sound was more akin to Joy Division, Teardrop Explodes and Wire rather than any Punk band."

Band: John McVay - Organ & Vocals, Alan Laing Drums, Colin Craigie - Guitar & Vocals.
Derek McVay - Bass & Vocals.

Article from Kingdom Come #12 - Sep 78