The early tours
Hugh Cornwell (guitar, vocals) / Dave Greenfield (keyboards, vocals) / Jean-Jacques Burnel (bass, vocals) / Jet Black (drums, percussion)
NB. This is a large scale re-write of the original post that I put up, indicating that I thought that I had seen them on 25th February 1977: I was wrong. However, there is no record anywhere at all of them having played this 1976 gig but I’m convinced it had to be this night; the small Penthouse poster for August lists The Smiggs Band on the 27th, but the large celebratory poster omits that band altogether, instead placing The Stranglers after Gryphon on the 20th and before Medicine Head on 3rd September. I know for certain that I saw the band and it is more likely that I saw them before I went to Doncaster college in September rather than my coming back on the train the following February to see a band that didn’t much interest me. So I’m as sure as I can be that this gig is correct.
Now then, here’s a question: The Stranglers – punk or not? For me it’s always been “not”. Cornwell’s snarling and the racy lyrics aside, they were simply too – ahem! – talented, with way too much melody and ability to be classed as punk. That said, I certainly didn’t enjoy the evening when I saw them.
Originally formed back in September 1974 as The Guildford Stranglers, almost two years later the band still had no recorded output (their debut album wouldn’t be released until 15th April 1977). However, the band was already building a steady reputation based on their energetic stage show.
The place was very busy and I think that there might have been a few punks on the dance floor. My major memory of the gig, however, involves singer Cornwell’s crass masturbation mime where he frantically rubbed his throat before spitting on the assembled throng as he ‘climaxed’. Very funny, mate – not. That said, his acolytes loved every second. Not me, though – I really hated everything punk back then as it attacked all forms of the music that I loved. Nowadays I quite like elements of it (and I’m listening to my Stranglers compilation LP as I type this) but back then I had no time for punks or their caterwauling ‘songs’.
So why did you go? I hear you ask… Well, I suppose it was a combination of it being a Friday night – which was always band night – and curiosity getting the better of me. Mind you, I had never bowed to curiosity when Sex Pistols came to town (more fool me, it would seem 😥 )
History tells us that the Stranglers would go on to achieve world stardom (and are still touring now, although severely depleted in terms of original members) and that punk was clearly what the music world of the late ’70s was crying out for – a burning of the dead wood, if you will. But at the time to me, as a fully paid-up member of the classic rock fan club, it was just bloody awful. I suppose that I should now count myself quite fortunate to have caught the band on the up, before it had actually released achieved anything, but at the time it really didn’t feel that way.
Ah, well – another box ticked, I suppose.
As regards a setlist, I can find nothing online so I’ll go with what they seemed to be playing around this time.
Possible setlist: (Get a) Grip (on Yourself); Sometimes; Bitching; Peasant in the Big Shitty; Hanging Around; Peaches; Ugly, London Lady; Down in the Sewer; Walk on By; Go Buddy Go (Nashville Room, London, 10th October)
And here’s a sew-on patch that I bought many years later…
Gigs'n'Stuff 