Well last week I bit the bullet and bought Gunta and I a ticket to see The Stranglers and The Pistols in Margate. The Glasgow billing is more attractive but the cost of travel and accommodation meant that Margate (being drivable) made more sense.
These two punk all dayers I guess have in part been inspired by similar short festivals that have cropped up in California in the last few years, here I am thinking ‘Punk Rock Bowling’ and the ‘Cruel World’ Festival. I am also guessing that other than the format, the similarities may be few and far between. Imagine a festival taking place under the heat of the Californian sun and compare that to the possibility of standing in the shadow of funfair rides as the rain of an English summer falls and dilutes your £8 pint of Harp lager! Or an I just being a curmudgeonly old Englishman here!?
I went to Margate once in 2011 to see The Specials. It was terribly run down. The hotel that we stayed in made Fawlty Towers appear modern. I remember the walls of the communal areas being adorned with photographs of the hosts of ‘Cash In The Attic’, ‘Flog It’ and a host of other daytime TV programmes that must have been filmed in the town one week. However, I am led to believe that Margate has had something of a revival in its fortunes. As the popularity of a number of resort towns, most notably Brighton, have increased, property prices have soared, pricing many out of the market. Those still wishing a regular dose of sea air have sought out the likes of Margate and Folkestone as alternatives and these places are starting to prosper more.
I am looking forward to seeing The Pistols. I kind of regret not chasing down a ticket to see them in the summer (but then I was stuck in a hospital bed in July and August and a bit wobbly in the legs in September) since the comments that I heard from mates who had seen them around the UK were all very positive.
Inevitably, such a billing has generated a lot of comment and opinion. I saw one comment on a Stranglers Facebook page that implied that it was not right that The Stranglers were supporting ‘a second hand Sex Pistols’. Interesting. I don’t know if that particular poster visits this site, if so I would just say that I am not angling for an argument here, but I cannot agree. I nailed my colours firmly to the Stranglers’ mast many years ago but I also appreciate the Pistols, but gigwise, the numbers speak for themselves… The Stranglers (+ Hugh, Helmets etc): 300+, Sex Pistols: 1. Nevertheless, is the current Pistols set up ‘secondhand’ by virtue of the fact that Lydon is missing?…. At the end of the day there are three original Pistols in the line up compared with one original Strangler, but that is kind of irrelevant. The important fact is that the name Sex Pistols reverberates ten times more than that of The Stranglers. To my mind it is incontrovertible that without the Pistols, what we know as British punk would have been very different, if indeed it would have existed (as a scene/style whatever) at all.
I can think of no other band at all that instantly changed audience members lives, propelled them to start bands etc. It wasn’t that they were any kind of masters of their instruments but nobody else had such attitude. What musical path would The Stranglers have followed were it not for the cleansing fire that the Sex Pistols ignited in London. Perhaps the Pub Rock scene would have survived for a few more years and The Stranglers, well maybe they would have turned out like The Motors or something like that, competent and melodic… but nothing like what actually transpired. Without a London scene coalescing around the Sex Pistols, music in the UK would not have taken the course that it did, the record companies would not have been clamoring to sign any band that claimed any kind of allegiance with punk rock, bands that under another circumstances would not have has a cat’s chance in hell of getting a recording contract.
Now look, I wasn’t there in the summer of ’76… I was 7 and I was more interested in playing three and in than gobbing or pogoing, but I think that I am sufficiently versed in the history of punk to say with absolute conviction that, like them or loathe them, be that one of them or even all four of them, as music fans we all owe a huge debt to that band.
As for those who say that they will leave after The Stranglers have played (Pidge being but one!) I would say give an hour of your time to three musicians who changed the face of music for 15 years or more.
This has been a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Sex Pistols.
