Beat the Blues Festival 1980: 'Post punk Woodstock' at the Ally Pally

The Beat the Blues Festival was a one day event at the Alexandra Palace in north London on 15 June 1980, held to mark the 50th birthday of the Morning Star - the daily paper associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain (technically the Morning Star had only been so named since 1966 but its predecessor, The Daily Worker, was founded in 1930).

I was still at school at Luton Sixth Form and went down to London on a coach which I presume was put on by the local branch of the Young Communist League. I had been to a couple of their meetings and done some fly posting against cruise missiles with them in the underpass near their Crawley Green Road HQ in Luton though I never joined up. They only had a handful of active members in the town but they pulled more of a crowd down to the Ally Pally on account of the fantastic line up. 

Looking now I can see that I could have checked out folk acts including Dick Gaughan and Leon Rosselson not to mention jazz from Humphrey Littleton and others, and even 'fire defying motorcycle stuntmen'. But for me at the time it was all about the great post punk line up featuring some of the best acts of that time - The Au Pairs, Raincoats, The Slits, The Pop Group, Essential Logic and John Cooper Clarke. It blew me away,  The Slits and The Pop Group in particular had an amazing funky energy- drummer Bruce Smith played with both bands that day, while The Pop Group played with two bassists! I was lucky enough to see the Raincoats, the Au Pairs and The Pop Group again in that period, as well as other great post punk heavyweights including The Gang of Four and Delta 5 but for me this day will always stand out as the pinnacle of that scene and one of the musical highlights of my life. Somebody else who was there recallled:  'I'd just turned 15, Metal Box had just come out and was playing over the PA between bands at this outdoor festival- I guess this was the post-punk Woodstock for me!'. All of this for £2.50. The only thing that could have improved it for me would have been if Scritti Politti had played too, sadly not though I remember standing behind their drummer Tom Morley in the crowd.

A ticket for the day signed by John Cooper Clarke (from ivaninblack)

The politics of it were a little contradictory, the CPGB was generally quite staid and sympathetic to the regimes of Eastern Europe where  autonomous music scenes were often the target of state repression. In his NME review of the gig, Graham Lock mentions Czechoslovakia 'where musicians from the bands DG307 and The Plastic People of the Universe have been jailed for playing rock'n'roll without a state licence'. While the cream of innovative English bands played on the stage elsewhere there was an 'International City' - 'about ten tents filled with travel brochures for Eastern Europe'. I think there were also brass bands from that part of the world, and lots of stalls indoors from various left groups.

The Pop Group, with their more independent radical left perspective called these contradictions out on the day, 'dedicating 'Forces of Oppression' to "all the Stalinists in the audience" and "For How Much Longer do we Tolerate Mass Murder' to Leonid Brezhnev' (Lock). In fact I recall a thrilling moment when Mark Stewart smashed up a portrait of then Soviet leader Brezhnev on the stage. 

Lock describes the festival, or at least the main stage music as 'the result of a tentative alliance between Rough Trade - freewheeling, anti-biz collectivists [...] and the Morning Star'. Elsewhere Dick O'Dell - who I think managed The Slits and The Pop Group at the time, as well as founding Y records which released their stuff - has said that he organised it with Shirley O’Loughlin, manager of The Raincoats and who worked at Rough Trade setting up their booking agency.

There were many iconic photos taken that day, perhaps most famously David Corio's picture of The Slits' Viv Albertine;

 I really like these colour ones snapped by Bruce Crawford which he shared on twitter a while back.

The Pop Group

The Slits 

The gig was reviewed in issue number 6 of Vague  zine:

'June 15 Morning Star 50th anniversary festival at Alexandra Palace, featuring the Slits, the Pop Group, the Raincoats, Essential Logic, the Au-Pairs and John Cooper-Clarke: Alexandra Palace is full of communist propaganda. The punters are a mixture of Rastas, biker types, punks and old age pensioners. I spent 4 hours walking round the stalls, which was fairly interesting because there were stalls selling souvenirs from Russia, Greece, etc. I won’t go into details though because even the Pop Group aren’t into politics like this. Whether left or right it amounts to the same thing, an authoritarian state that subjugates the weak, poor and minorities...

Anyway most people came to hear the music and this particular music says a lot more than we ever could. The gig was behind the palace and started at 3pm. The Au-pairs came on first and did a very exciting set which got some of the crowd going. The Raincoats came on next and all the crowd were dancing and being friendly with each other. Half way through their set an announcement was made: “Somebody got bottled. So if you want this gig to go on, report anyone who looks as if they might get violent.” Big Brother is watching you. Where have you heard remarks like that before? Even this didn’t do it, after that announcement 2 more people got bottled. John Cooper-Clarke was on next, minus musicians, which I think is much better, because that guy has so much stage presence…

The Pop Group were on next and Mark came on stage with a picture of Brezhnev, shouted “We don’t want communism!” and stamped on the picture. They did all the stuff off the second album which got the crowd shouting and Gareth was doing some brilliant disco-dancing… Apparently the Pop Group stole the show and Iggy didn’t have much (anything?) to say about the Slits, which is a shame, but this is the Pop Group’s piece, feeble as it is. The Pop Group have a highly original style of their own, if you didn’t like them at Ally Pally give them a second chance, they deserve it. They also deserve a better article than this. Their lyrics make Crass seem like failed Cockney Rejects (they are aren’t they?) and their funky dance beat is better than the Crusaders. Sorry we couldn’t do them more justice'.

It was also reviewed in the NME (21 June 1980) by Gavin Lock:

There is some good footage of The Pop Group on the day shot by Don Letts on the stage. If you look carefully you can see a cricket match going on in the background elsewhere in the park.

He also captured The Slits, great clip here of them doing 'Man Next Door' on the day with the young Nenah Cherry on the stage with them (in red beret). I think you can see members of other bands standing around on the edge of stage watching them, including Gina from The Raincoats and maybe Jeannette Lee of Public Image Ltd and later Rough Trade.

 

The Ally Pally itself was seriously damaged by fire just a month later which broke out during a Capital Radio Jazz Festival there, resulting in it being closed for a number of years.

See also:

Au Pairs interview 1981

The Pop Group at CND Protest and Survive rally 1980

(I used to have a poster for this event on my teenage bedroom wall, can't find that particular image online, anybody have a copy?)

An advert for Beat the Blues festival from The Leveller magazine, May 1980. At that point looks like only John Cooper Clarke was confirmed of the post-punk acts, the advert highlighting jazz and folk artists as well as mentioning Kent miners brass band and Bulgarian puppet theatre. On the same page of magazine an ad for Gang of Four single and for the great Compendium Bookshop in Camden.

 

Protest and Survive- CND reborn, October 1980

The massive October 1980 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament 'Protest and Survive' demonstration in London represented the rebirth of the 'Ban the Bomb' movement that had been largely dormant since its previous high point in the 1960s. The reason for this revival was that nuclear war was once again seeming a real possibility as the Cold War began to hot up. 

In 1979 Russian forces had entered Afghanistan in support of the beleaguered  pro-soviet government. The ascendancy of the new right to power in Britain and the USA saw a cranking up of anti-Russian rhetoric from Thatcher and Reagan, soon to be followed up with the deployment of a new generation of nuclear missiles in Europe.

The British Government's publication of its 'Protect and Survive' booklet in May 1980 only made the nuclear nightmare more tangible, with its absurd advice for turning your home into a fall out shelter amidst nuclear war. This was parodied by EP Thompson in his 'Protest and Survive' pamphlet published by CND shortly afterwards.

'We must protest if we are to survive. Protest is the only realistic form of civil defence. We must generate an alternative logic, an opposition at every level of society. This opposition must be international and it must win the support of multitudes' (E.P. Thompson, Protest and Survive, 1980)

Photomontage artist Peter Kennard produced a memorable image of a skeleton reading the Government publication as well as designing the leaflet/poster for the demonstration set for 26th October 1980.

I was at sixth form and with a group of friends that year had set up Luton Peace Campaign (soon to be Luton Nuclear Disarmament Campaign) which quickly grew to having over 100 members. Similar groups were springing up all over the country. We organised a couple of coach loads to go to London for the march and were amazed at the turn out, variously estimated as between 50,000 (the police) and 100,000 (Socialist Organiser). For the first time I had a real sense of how the efforts of small groups of people meeting in pubs and kitchens could coalesce into a mass social movement.

As reported in the Daily Mirror (27 October 2020):

'Britain’s ban the bomb movement was reborn yesterday with a massive show of strength. More than 60,000 demonstrators jammed London streets for the biggest nuclear disarmament rally in 17 years. The day started with a huge inflatable mushroom ‘cloud’ being floated above Hyde Park as the demonstrators gathered under a sea of banners. The protesters then brought traffic to a standstill as they marched to Trafalgar Square…

There were hippies, punk rockers, skinheads and supporters of all ages. A girl on rollerskates joined the protest. So did a band of Buddhist monks. 12 people were arrested and charged with minor offences such as threatening behaviour and obstruction. Scuffles broke out as one group tried to march down Whitehall towards Downing Street and Parliament. But a line of policeman headed them off and the rest of the demonstration was peaceful'. 

The NME (1 November 1980) gave the demo a full page report which likewise highlighted the diversity of the crowd:

'There were punks and 'Schoolkids against the Bomb' and nuns and MPs and messages of support from intellectuals in the USA. There were youthful banners bearing slogans like “Grow up or Blow up“ and “Don’t Cruise to Oblivion”... Peggy Seeger sang. The Pop group and Killing Joke played... E.P. Thompson was the smash hit, though, earning a huge ovation with his characteristically stirring words: “I wasn’t sure about this six months ago” he said. “But we can win. I want you to sense and feel your strength".  An NME photo showed 'Buddhist monks from Milton Keynes'  perambulating 'pacifist veterans including Philip Noel Baker and first CND secretary Peggy Duff' in their wheelchairs.

The mushroom cloud inflatable in Hyde Park
(from 'Socialist Organiser', 8 Nov. 1980)

Luton Nuclear Disarmament Campaign banner on demo

'Heavy armour, little brain - died out' - dinosaur on demo

The speakers included MPs Tony Benn and Neil Kinnock, actor Susannah York, EP Thompson and Bruce Kent of CND. I was excited that The Pop Group and Killing Joke were playing in Trafalgar Square at the end of the rally, though it was one of those occasions when the crowd was so big (and the PA so small) that you had to be up front to really experience the music - and I wasn't.  Luckily I got to see The Pop Group at their peak earlier that year at the Beat the Blues Festival at Alexandra Palace.

The Pop Group on stage in Trafalgar Square

Apparently The Specials had also been due to play but this didn't happen due to Department of Environment restrictions about the extent and volume of the music. As the Government department responsible for Trafalgar Square the DoE  'ruled that the event is a rally and not a concert, and therefore the PA must not exceed 2.5 kilowatts' (NME, 25 October 1980).  A poster also mentions Peggy Seeger and Mikey Dread as being on the bill.

Another Peter Kennard design

A poster from Liverpool advertising the demo

Killing Joke played five tracks including Wardance and Requiem.  The Pop Group set was their last live performance (at least until they reformed in 2010) and included an early version  of 'Jerusalem', a dub retake on Blake's poem which vocalist Mark Stewart would later record.  The  early prototype version played in Trafalgar Square can be heard on 'The Lost Tapes', included as part of the Mute reissue of Stewart's 'Learning To Cope With Cowardice'.

Crass later sampled EP Thompson's speech on the day on their great anti-war track 'Major General Despair' (Fight War, not Wars) including these lines 'We don't have civilisation any more. We have a state of barbarism. A state of barbarism in which we are daily, hourly, threatening with annihilation our fellow citizens. Now, looking at you, I know one thing: We can win. We can win! I want you to, I want you to sense your own strength'.