Anniversary snapshots: 28th May 1978

On May 28^th 1978 Adam & the Ants were booked to play at my local venue.  I was barely able to contain my excitement when I heard.  It was only five months since I’d been to my first gig, when Siouxsie & the Banshees had played at the same place.  Five months is a long time when you’re 14 and in that interim the venue had become my regular haunt, usually twice a week (depending on the demands of homework).  My three friends and I always went together to watch bands, drink cider and mingle with fellow punk fans.

We felt at home there in a way we rarely did anywhere else; we were all outsiders together.  Mostly punks, a few rock types, a couple of hippies and one or two general oddballs.  The club occasionally played host to artists who were not too well-known to overcrowd its intimate small-town setting, but were established or culty enough to have made it into the music papers or perhaps recorded sessions for John Peel.  Bands like Adam & the Ants who, in spite of not even having recorded their first single yet, had gained an underground following I’d read about.

And they were coming to my town!  Presumably with Jordan – the embodiment of London art punk outrageousness, the most outstanding looking woman I’d seen in the whole of this brave new underworld  - I was in awe.

But my friends couldn’t come that night.  At fourteen, and female, was I brave enough to go on my own and spend the whole evening there without them? 

“Well we’re going down to the Jazz Club later, so you can come home with us,” my mum said – meaning that she and my dad would be in the adjacent bar for the latter part of the night and my lift home was assured.  It was a deal.  (I was deprived of any excuse to rebel against them - they were too liberal!)

It was a warm, light evening as  I walked across town on my own, then waited nervously outside the door to get in, along with some unfamiliar faces who’d clearly come down from London - but the queue wasn’t as big as I’d expected.  And then I noticed the hand-written sign and overheard the conversation filtering through the line:  Adam & the Ants had cancelled.

So on this date 40 years ago I didn't actually see Adam & the Ants, or Jordan.  I saw The Automatics on my own instead.  Regulars at the Marquee and with a vocalist who'd briefly been a member of the Boys beforehand,  they were pretty good (listening to them again now, they sound quite power pop too).  And being on my own had its advantages;  I got chatted up by the guitarist from a local band who was also there on his own, a bloke a fair bit older than me, about 20.

 “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked. 

“Oh yes, a pint please”.   

“A pint of what…?” 

“Beer”, I replied helpfully, thinking myself very grown up.

And then we stood together with our drinks, hardly able to talk above the noise.  I think the ‘beer’ went to my head a bit, because it wasn’t long before I turned round and kissed him full on the lips. Well, he looked like Mick Jones.  I think I took him a little by surprise.

When the evening ended, it was a little awkward, as I had to wait for my parents, which didn’t seem very cool.  But ‘Mick Jones’ and me said lovely if slightly clumsy goodbyes and, even without Adam & The Ants, I’d had a great evening.  Then I waited there in the foyer alone, as the last few people filed out of the hall.  A great big older punk bloke whom I’d never seen before – a Londoner, I think, maybe he'd been part of the Automatics' entourage – stopped and looked at me. 

“Do you wanna fuck?”  he asked, just like that.  Straight to the point.

I don’t think he was too chuffed when I said a polite “No thank you”, trying not to show my disbelief.

With that, he called me a “boiler” and marched out the door – just before my mum and dad appeared and drove me home - I didn't tell them.

It felt like I’d grown up pretty fast that night.

Adam & The Ants did come to my town in the end – in March the following year, six months before the release of  Dirk Wears White Sox.; they were great.  And I stood and watched them with the bloke who’d bought me that pint, as we'd been going out together for 2 weeks.

The Automatics: When The Tanks Roll Over Poland Again b/w Watch Her

1978

Adam & The Ants: Zerox Machine 

1979

Random access memory #4

The Summer of 1978 seemed a strange, transitional time, musically as well as personally.  I’d just turned 15 and punk was rapidly becoming my main thing, but there was so much still at odds with it.   For instance, I was never going to hear it down the little fortnightly disco at the cricket pavilion (unless you counted the Boomtown Rats), yet I still went that Summer, and I still danced.  My friends and I went to see 'Grease'; we wore our Jam badges, we giggled at John Travolta.  It shouldn’t have been our kind of film but there’s no denying, we enjoyed it.  The boys we fancied rode Yamaha FS1Es and only the most daring of them had an ear pierced.   I’d ventured into what seemed like the dark, adult realm of Sex Pistols and safety pins,  but the residue of the pre-punk, blue eye-shadow, strawberry lipgloss, Starsky & Hutch fan still lingered in me and my world.  I owned a plastic belt with the Coca-Cola logo all over it and a razorblade necklace.

Anyway, there was this song.  I really liked it, but the thing was - it wasn’t punk, it was disco.   Disco seemed to be at the opposite end of the spectrum to punk then.  Discos - proper big discos in town, I mean, not our cut price cricket pavilion ones - were full of cliques of mean girls and the sort of blokes who'd beat up anyone in straight trousers.  But still I liked this song - it had a relentless bass-line and a nagging chorus with a lyric that was so not my thing;  we’re gonna boogie oogie oogie ‘til we just can’t boogie no more. 

Haha, do you remember it too?!

Well I’d forgotten all about it until I came across a UK singles chart list from July 1978 the other day and then got mildly obsessed with it and the memories it evoked: Boogie Oogie Oogie (the clue was in the lyric) by A Taste Of Honey.    That week in the charts, You’re the One That I Want was No 1,  and the Smurf Song was No. 2.    A few places down there was quite a diverse mix of artists, in fact it seems weird to think of it now as I wouldn't have remembered them being in the same timeframe: James Galway, Showaddywaddy, Lindisfarne, Boney M, Renaissance, ELO.   Then further down – in the 30s -  it got really quite cool and definitely up my street with Buzzcocks, Sham 69, Xray Spex and Steel Pulse.  With all that going on, Boogie Oogie Oogie was not a song I “should” have favoured at all.

But memories of it, like so many things, are inextricably linked to the personal landscapes they inhabit, and I can’t separate this song from a week in July 1978 spent in Sussex on a Geography field trip with my school year.   Like something from the (wonderful) Please Sir! film, it was that peculiar marriage of school life and away-from-home freedom.  It was a week of giggling fits (those truly painful ones, when your lungs feel as if they're going to burst through your ribcage), of  bags of Chipsticks smuggled in satchels for midnight feasting, of sneaking out of places we should have been and sneaking into places we shouldn’t, the covert smoking of Rothmans in the woods, ghost stories and glow-worms, packed lunches and sunburn, and seeing teachers drinking beer. Well, you know, I’m sure.   

Boogie Oogie Oogie always seemed to be playing on the little radio my schoolgirl friends and I took into our accommodation block, a long wooden chalet with greasy windows.  It was next door to one with German students, both male and female, who reportedly wandered around in it with no clothes on and weren’t embarrassed.  Oh, those liberal Europeans!

That month, I bought Buzzcocks Love You More.  I’d never have bought Boogie Oogie Oogie. 

What I didn’t realise at the time, though, was just how cool the two front women from A Taste Of Honey were.  The single peaked at No. 3 in the charts here, and while I remember hearing it all the time I don’t recall ever seeing any footage of them - I'm sure I’d have been so chuffed to see them play their guitars.   So, finding this performance below was quite a treat, even if it is nearly 40 years too late.  That smiling confidence, the fast funky bass, the bendy guitar solos (there’s a kind of Isley Brothers sound coming out of that Stratocaster).  Even if you don’t like the song, I promise you the way they play their instruments is a joy to watch.  

Plus they were right, lyrically - weren't they?!

If you're thinkin' you're too cool to boogie

Boy, oh boy, have I got news for you

Everybody here tonight must boogie

Let me tell ya, you are no exception to the rule.

Gig memories

Scott, over at the excellent Spools Paradise, recently wrote a thought-provoking post about first, last and favourite gigs.  My first 'proper' one was in January 1978 when I saw Siouxsie & The Banshees at my local venue at the other end of town.  I've written about this before here so I won't repeat myself but it started me thinking specifically about how lucky I was to be going to gigs at the tender age of 14.  It was never accompanied by adults, just two or three friends the same age.  Our parents had no qualms about letting us go to these events, where we drank pints of cider, smoked and flirted with boys... we could've been doing just the same at a disco, I guess, but we had no interest in those.  It was live bands we wanted to see, not DJs, and punk we wanted to hear, not Boney M - and we were incredibly fortunate to have a safe and easy little venue in our home town which provided both on a regular basis.  The bloke on the door, who was a dead ringer for Dave Vanian at the time, never asked us our age.

That night at the Banshees, my close friend met her husband-to-be.  And not long after that, I first saw the man whom I later married, playing guitar up on the stage there.  Not that we spoke for a while, I thought he was too old (!) and he had a girlfriend.  But it was where we first hung out.

A few weeks after the Banshees' gig, Generation X were booked to play.  I was so excited, I could hardly believe it.  I spent about an hour drawing big hooks around my eyes with a kohl pencil and filling them in with garish colours, quite a work of art, just for Derwood.  And I was then so disappointed on turning up that evening to find that they'd cancelled.  Derwood had broken his arm or something.  The Jolt played in their place and I didn't think that much of them.  Not long after, Wayne County & The Electric Chairs came to town, opened by Levi and the Rockats.  We were all given Eddie & Sheena badges as we filed in; I wore mine with such pride.

One time none of my friends could make it but the headline band were The Automatics and I was keen to go, so I just went on my own.  Would a 14-year old girl be allowed to go to a gig unaccompanied now?  I don't know.  To be fair, my parents came down later that evening to see the local jazz combo who were playing in the adjacent bar, so they weren't far away.  At the end of the Automatics' set I waited alone in the foyer for them.  A big punk bloke who wasn't one of the usual crowd stopped when he saw me and asked, very nonchalantly,  "Do you want a fuck?"

Local groups played every Tuesday too.  The Newtown Neurotics were like the house band.  I must've flung myself around to their version of Blitzkrieg Bop more times than I can remember.  It's Colin Masters/Dredd's funeral tomorrow... a sad day.  But let's dwell on the good stuff - they were an important band to many and they certainly were in my formative years - decent blokes too.

In fact, the whole place was incredibly important, and I have to wonder if I'd be who I am today without it.

Here's a photo from those days.  I'm afraid I can't remember how I came to be in possession of it so I can't credit the photographer, but if it's MM and you're reading this, then thank you - and I hope it's ok to include it here!

I believe it was taken shortly before my 16th birthday.

In fond memory of AS too, pictured left.

Whatever happened to Norman Stanley Fletcher?

The other day Mr SDS picked up a DVD of the British TV comedy series 'Going Straight' from a charity shop in town.  We decided to watch one episode of it each evening before passing it on to a new home, and we've just finished all six.

I remember when it was first aired, in 1978, and being interested to see this follow-up to the much-loved 'Porridge', which really was a staple of the British sitcom diet in the '70s.  The now ex-con Fletcher, played by Ronnie Barker, was the star of 'Going Straight' which also featured his young cell-mate Lennie Godber.  This, I have to say, was a bonus for a teenage girl who had the hots for Richard Beckinsale...

In this short-lived series (sadly a second was never to be, due to Beckinsale's early death), both Fletcher and Godber have been released from prison and have vowed to stay away from crime, with the unerring support of Fletcher's sweet, toothy daughter Ingrid (played by Patricia Brake).  Ingrid just happens to be going out with Godber too.  Fletcher's gormless son Raymond also makes an appearance, providing an early role for Nicholas Lyndhurst.  Each episode's storyline is surprisingly heartwarming and relatively simple, but what really works about 'Going Straight', just as with 'Porridge', is the dialogue.

Scriptwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais are such masters in the art of writing dialogue which is not only funny but frequently reflective.  Their characterisations are never one-dimensional, but are full of natural and believable human contradictions, conveyed with intelligence and just the right degree of emotion.  They toy with words in puns and double-entendres, with rich vocabulary and playful turns of phrase.  Whilst gentle in tone, nothing is dumbed down and poignancy and pathos sit happily alongside more obvious comedic and farcical moments.  As in other Clement and La Frenais favourites like '(Whatever Happened To) 'The Likely Lads' and 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet', we feel as if we know the characters through their conversations alone, and we root for them, warts'n'all.

I don't know whether a comedy series like this, 'Porridge', 'The Likely Lads' et al would get commissioned now - they might seem too mild and too wordy... and perhaps a large part of their appeal is that they can't be separated from their respective eras.

Passing references to punk and Margaret Thatcher place 'Going Straight' firmly against its 1978 backdrop and tiny details evoked memories for me that shocked me into realising just how long ago it was.  Ingrid's elasticated belt with little metal clasps (I'd forgotten until now that I had one too), the Probation Officer smoking at her desk and offering Fletcher a Rich Osborne biscuit, the wallpapered kitchen and those net curtains made up of oval-shaped holes...  Looking at the décor and fashions now it really does seem ancient.  Then again, I guess I am too: in 1978 I was going to my first proper gig (Siouxsie & The Banshees) and choosing the subjects I'd be doing for 'O' Levels the following year.

And this was released in '78 too.

Blasts from a taped past

By way of a musical interlude, here are three songs that I've just revisited after looking at the one remaining cassette compilation I still have of some recordings from '77/'78.  Most of the tracks are from John Peel shows, and include two from the first Wire session (January '78).  I was so excited to hear this as they were booked to play at the local technical college that March and I wanted to familiarise myself before seeing them.  They were like nothing I'd ever heard before.  It was a great gig and then I was delighted to get 'Pink Flag' for my fifteenth birthday a few months later.

I think this selection gives a real flavour of Peel's broadcasting at the time - the only way I (and many others) would ever have heard most of these bands - and why it appealed so much to this wide-eyed teenager.

Also on the tape is a classic interview with Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious - added after the original broadcast but which I asked my parents to record for me because I was out that afternoon - and, bless 'em, they did.  In fact John came across so well that my mum wasn't averse to the idea of inviting him over for tea one day.  Unfortunately no sound bites from that here but in the meantime I hope you enjoy these little tasters of the time from Tetrack, Blunt Instrument and Wire.

Fantasy punk band

I was never going to make it as a Slit or a Raincoat but that didn’t stop me fantasising about forming an all-girl punk band with my schoolfriends in ’78.  We couldn’t play any instruments (apart from the recorder on which I was at least adept at Greensleeves and the theme from The Wombles) and we couldn’t have afforded guitars and drums even if we’d intended to learn.  Hope had glimmered briefly the previous Autumn upon finding a discarded electric bass thrown onto the huge communal bonfire down the road before its potential incineration on Guy Fawkes’ Night but, seeing as it had been stripped of its pickups, strings and electrics etc., it wasn’t going to be easy to do much with.  So we just looked at it admiringly and wondered if it could be used as a prop one day in our promo photo-shoots.

With or without instruments, promo photo-shoots were a must.  Most were posed outside my mate’s dad’s garage, made of grey breeze-block and thus looking suitably cold and urban, with us trying to look unapproachably snotty while her dear mum took the pictures and tried not to laugh.  Fortunately she knew it was vital to keep the adjacent hanging baskets out of shot.

Finding a name was of the utmost importance – far more of a priority than actually playing anything.  I borrowed mum’s thesaurus and looked up words like dirt  and chaos and noise etc. to get ideas.  A long-list was compiled – names like The Dregs, The Deranged,  The Blasts… nothing really seemed to fit.  Then we got a bit more imaginative and for a while called ourselves The Xtremists - never mind that we were 14-year-old schoolgirls from nice suburban homes and the most extreme thing we could do was to swear within earshot of a Geography teacher.  Some time later I preferred the name The Arseknickers.  I thought it was a neat play on words and it sounded a bit rude – it looked good written on the cover of my school rough book too.

But our fantasy punk band remained just that. 

One day we made the mistake of telling the older blokes who worked in our local jeans shop that we were in a group.  “Oh, have you got many songs?  Do you have any tapes?” one enquired.  I think he must have had something in his eye because it sort of twitched when he looked at his colleague as he said it. Desperate not to lose face we told them that we’d recorded loads of songs.  I frantically searched my brain for lyrics I’d scrawled out in school break-times, most of which went along the lines of  “I hate teachers, they don’t understand, they just want to rule, they’re so bland”…

“Well, bring a tape in next Saturday and we’ll play it in the shop”.  Whatever it was he’d got in his eye was seriously troubling him by now and causing his mouth to twitch at the corners too.  “Okay…” we replied with brash outer confidence, whilst wondering inside what the fuck we were going to do.

An emergency plan was quickly scrambled.  We gathered round my house the next evening with all the equipment we needed to make our tape:  my dad’s TEAC portable cassette machine with its little microphone, a Maxell C60, the Clash album on the turntable of the family stereogram, and a few pages of hastily scribbled lyrics - Clash album lyrics.  The mic was carefully positioned to pick up both the record playing and our voices singing over the top, fingers poised to press the clunky Record and Play keys just as the needle dropped on the vinyl.  Yes, you’ve got it: we just did Karaoke Clash.  “No-one will know”, we thought.

I don’t think our girly choruses of ‘I’m so bored with the USA’ really drowned out Joe Strummer’s vocals and I’m not sure that the finger-tapping on the sideboard added much to the drumming either.  Of course it sounded horrendous, not helped by the fact that the crappy little mic probably picked up the sound of my mum hoovering halfway through Protex Blue better than it did my “he’s in love with Janie Jones, whoa”.

When it came to Saturday morning, I seemed to have developed that twitching condition myself…  So we did what any self-respecting rebels would do – we bottled out and went back to posing instead.

Don't forget the menthol...

It’s such a very long time since I last placed a thin white stick gently between my lips, held a flame to its end until it glowed with an almost throbbing intensity,  and then inhaled, feeling that hot tingly sensation at the back of my throat and a momentary light-headed rush.  I’m glad I stopped smoking – over twenty years ago now – and I have absolutely zero desire to ever start up again.  But I can’t pretend I didn’t enjoy it when I did. 

Smoking sporadically through my late teenage years, during college, and on and off for some time after was just part of normal life.  You could smoke just about anywhere for a start, certainly in all the places I frequented: gig venues, pubs and clubs, shops, train carriages.  It was as if everybody indulged in it – although I realise they didn’t.  I find it interesting to watch those old TV interviews, when both host and guest would happily puff away in between the probing questions and their responses, smoke visibly curling up into the air between them as if to illustrate their words.

Anyway, whatever you think about smoking, I really just wanted an excuse to post a single on here today which deserves to be listened to again because I think it’s great.  Its lyrics could only have come from a very different time (in this case, 1978).  It’s hard to imagine a song that is purely about the ‘evil weed’ ever being written again, well, certainly not in quite such a charming way as this one.  Enjoy.  With or without a cigarette.

Prag VEC - Cigarettes

The first T-shirt you ever wore...?

I don’t know about you but I find I just can’t wear band-name T-shirts any more.  I can wear other logos, art and random images across my chest when I’m in the right mood, but band names - no.   The funny thing is that I don’t wear them now for exactly the same reason that I did wear them once: because the name you’re displaying immediately puts you into a very specific box.

The first T-shirt of that ilk that I ever had was one I loved wearing ‘til it was almost threadbare.  I even remember getting it - I had just turned 15 and I’d gone to London on the train (with my mum!) with the sole purpose of coming home with something special for my birthday.  The Clash T-shirt that I found in a little shop in Carnaby Street fitted the bill - as well as me - perfectly. It was special – and, yes, it put me into a very specific box. 

It was a tone-reduced black and white photo of the band standing in a street looking seriously cool, all zippy jackets and skinny trousers, with The Clash above (same typeface as on the first album) in a screen printed rainbow of neon colours.  I can remember looking through the rack, and even though there were several of the same main design, the colours were all very slightly different, so I could pick my favourite.  I wore that T-shirt frequently (if only I could have worn it to school…)  and thought it went very well with both leopard-print and paint-splattered trousers or those early straight-legged jeans which I wore over black monkey boots.

So that was my first…. I wish I had a photo with me in (or out of) it, and maybe someone else does somewhere, but sadly I don’t.   No doubt if I had kept it I could sell it on ebay now as a vintage item for an extortionate sum, but instead it went the way of all my subsequent band-name T-shirts, i.e. to one of three places – the charity shop, the rubbish bin, or the cupboard under the sink to fulfil a new role as a cleaning rag…

I have hardly any decent photographic records of other T-shirts either but there have certainly been a few since that one bought in 1978.   Here we have the rather mixed bunch of Crass, Bauhaus and the Dread Broadcasting Corporation (so not strictly a band  but it shouted to the world that you liked a bit of dub…)

Later I sometimes designed my own one-offs too, using Dylon and a fine paintbrush, or the basic screen-printing kit bought from a craft shop.   But whether bought or studiously painted, they all meant something important for a while.  They told the world who you were into - really into.  I mean, back then, wearing a Ramones T-shirt meant you were into the Ramones. You know what I’m saying…

Addendum: Hysteria in the making

If you’ve just read my last post ‘The first gig you ever went to…?’ then you may understand my excitement at having been sent a scan of the actual editorial piece from the local paper that I referred to.  HUGE thanks to good friend Pete (to whom I would willingly award my home-made Jam badge if only I still had it) for unearthing a photocopy of this from all those years ago.  I never thought I’d see it again and I’m glad my memory hadn’t distorted it too much!

I don’t need to add any more – this just says it all.  Click on it and enlarge to get the full effect!

The first gig you ever went to...?

As with the first album you ever bought, the first gig you ever went to is something of a rite of passage.   Perhaps you were, as I was, under-age and with tender ear-drums.  Getting through the doors past the bouncer, in spite of being nearly four years under eighteen (and him being the size of a house), wasn’t a problem (perhaps because I was a girl…?)  Even the process of buying a pint of cider at the bar was painless.  Coping with the volume was something that got easier as the night wore on.  But concealing my excitement at seeing a band I really admired up there on the stage, in all their real, raw glory, playing songs I had only previously heard in session on John Peel’s radio show, was impossible.  For my first, proper gig was (cue drum-roll)…. Siouxsie & the Banshees at a little club called Triad in  Bishop’s Stortford, January 1978.

I say ‘proper’ here because, to be honest, I had sort of seen a few live musical performances prior to this.  The very first ‘grown-up’ one was a few months before when my friends and I stumbled into a 'Rock Club' night and caught a few numbers being played by some local bunch of long-hairs about whom every detail except that escapes me.  The hall was sparsely populated and most of the punters were sitting on the floor, so it wasn’t exactly what you’d call wild.  And as we were being picked up at 9.30pm by my friend’s over-anxious dad (we had school next day) the evening was a bit of a dead loss.  So I’m not going to count that, particularly as I haven’t a clue who the group was.  However my overwhelming delight and incredulity when I heard that Siouxsie and co. were coming to our small, provincial home is something I can’t forget.

I grew up in that quiet Hertfordshire market town, and had been to Triad many times before as a kid – it started out as an Arts Centre and my mum got very involved in it, so I got taken along to see arty puppet shows, strange plays, an evening with Richard Nixon (the ‘70s newsreader) and even an Indian sitar performance which I like to think might have been Ravi Shankar but which I suspect was very probably not…  Then in the late ‘70s it became more of a rock music venue.  It must have had a pretty on-the-ball team doing the bookings because in the space of just a couple of years not only the Banshees but also Motorhead and Adam & the Ants played there (yeah I was lucky enough to see the early Ants too -  pre-mainstream fame, pre-white nose stripe and pre-two drummers…)  Later it became a regular haunt for local punks and was where I spent every Tuesday and Saturday night, taking in bands as diverse as the Newtown Neurotics (local heroes of the time), Wayne County and the Electric Chairs, Crass (who hailed from just up the road), and the Passions.

Siouxsie & the Banshees were seminal, though.  Siouxsie was dressed just as I’d seen her in music mag pics (striped t-shirt and thigh-length boots, black hair short and glossy and  characteristic eye make-up) and performed to an enthusiastic audience.   I bet if somebody was to do a TV drama on early punk they'd show the crowd at an early 1978 Banshees gig in band-name t-shirts, boutique bondage and spiky crazy-coloured hair but it really wasn’t like that then.  There were loads of blokes with longish hair wearing great-coats, and those of us who had just started to adopt a very embryonic punk look were deemed outrageous simply for wearing straight trousers and baggy shirts, etc.   The look was so shocking, apparently, that the local paper sent a photographer along to take some shots of the kids enjoying themselves, including me and my friends. 

We pulled faces for the charming camera man and posed as defiantly as (really rather sweet) fourteen-year-old girls at their first gig could. 

"Don't tell my mum I've drunk a pint of cider"



It all seemed like good, harmless fun.  Funny, then, how the event made front page news in the next issue with a very questionable editorial which suggested that “…these disgusting punks should have been aborted at birth..”   Such was the mood in the media at the time (and it’s really quite hard to believe that anyone should make such a fuss, but it was a common occurrence in the newspapers then.)  My experience, however, was of a truly great night – very much as real, raw and glorious as I had hoped.  I’d got past the burly bouncers, drunk a little too much and passed my initiation into the world of proper, live music with nothing worse than perhaps slightly ringing ear-drums the next morning, seeing a band I had admired from afar.  The excitement lived on for a long while and it’s been fun to revisit it here.  (Thank you, Siouxsie!) 

Maybe it’ll bring back some memories for you too?

Siouxsie & the Banshees a few months beforehand - see what I mean about the crowd?