big country's first single was "harvest home", recorded and released in 1982. it was a modest success, although it did not reach the uk singles chart. their next single was 1983's "fields of fire (400 miles)", which reached the uk's top ten and was rapidly followed by the album "the crossing". the album was a hit in the united states (reaching the top 20 in the "billboard" 200), powered by "in a big country", their only us top 40 hit single. the song featured heavily engineered guitar playing, strongly reminiscent of bagpipes; adamson and fellow guitarist, watson, achieved this through the use of the mxr pitch transposer 129 guitar effect. also contributing to the band's unique sound was their use of the e-bow, a device which allows a guitar to sound more like strings or synthesizer. "the crossing" sold over a million copies in the uk and obtained gold record status (sales of over 500,000) in the us. the band performed at the grammy awards and on "saturday night live".