Went to Morrisons at lunch-time and checked out the magazines. My eyes were drawn to the free CD with Uncut, a compilation from Damon Albarn's Honest Jon's label. Non Blur lovers do not scoff.
In truth the magazine's crap and £4.50 for a CD it's even money I won't play is big bucks so I thought I'd have a flick through to see if anything caught my eye. Crikey mick before my eyes a 4 article (mainly photos thankfully) about the Futurama festival from 1979. Ian Curtis, Mark E Smith, Julian Cope, Peter Perrott, John Lydon and Scritti Politti.
It was billed as the world's first science-fiction music festival and took place on 8 and 9 September. Photographer Kevin Cummins accurately describes it as follows - "To be honest the event was grim. The venue was squalid, the sound was muddy , the lighting was terrible. It felt like being shut up in prison for 2 days..... " He then went on about how great Joy Division were and I suppose they probably were. Ian Curtis certainly put the shits up me. And we were all there and we must be in the photo of Scritti Politti (it's taken from the side of the stage facing the audience) because they were one of the few bands we watched on day 2. Do you remember them improvising every other song? In truth we were into SP more than JD and although I go around telling people I invented indie with our Immortalisation EP I blagged all the diy stuff about making your own record off Scritti Politti cover sleeves.
I remember being appalled by the £3000 PIL were allegedly paid for their 25 minutes set. I remember being disappointed by the pathetic laser show and the squaller....? Yeah absolutely! I also remember falling asleep on the Leeds to Darlo train, falling asleep in Darlo Station waiting room and then again on the Darlo to Middlesbrough train. God only knows how we made it home!
But this was our festival, they were all our bands. Wonderful memories and in truth almost certainly better than it actually was.
That was my last festival and how weird's this? In a moment of (possible) madness I've bought a ticket for this! I'm going on my own but if anybody who was at the Futurama Festival or anybody else for that matter wants to join me you are very welcome. I think this might be my festival too.
Happy days.
PS By the way I'm going to post every day in June
I'll have to get this issue. Thanks Geoff. Going to MML - we are.
ReplyDeleteI think I can get Uncut here at Empik-the Polish WHSmiths- fancy that Futurama thing. I went the next year too. U2 were on and me and Ronny Burke were at the front of the stage shouting NANU NANU at the singer who looked like Mork from Ork...My only other festival was Hartlepools Dock rock ...
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