Author: Paul Lewis

The Jam returned again to The Nag’s Head on Thursday 12^th May 1977 supported by relatively new outfit Wire.

The Jam had released their debut single and album in the two weeks leading up to the gig and the local fan base of the band meant the busiest night down The Nag’s Head since the USA Rock Weekend in March.

Wire were formed in October 1976 by Colin Newman (vocals, guitar), Graham Lewis (bass, vocals), Bruce Gilbert (guitar), and Robert Gotobed, real name Robert Grey (drums). Their recognised live debut with this line-up was at London’s Roxy on 1st April 1977.

Wire released their first single on EMI offshoot label, Harvest later in 1977 with three diverse tracks:  ‘Mannequin’, ‘Feeling Called Love’ and ‘12XU’. Their second single, ‘I am the Fly’ was apparently an early favourite of Jam lead singer Paul Weller.

In a interview with Rolling Stone magazine, ahead of their March 2017 release of LP Silver/Lead, leader singer Colin Newman quipped:

“We’re the most famous band you’ve never heard of. Our fans assume that Wire is massive – like, we’ve all got mansions. And then there are lots of people who know groups who are more successful than Wire who’ve been influenced by Wire – yet they’ve never heard of Wire. It’s a very strange kind of fame.”

Meanwhile, The Jam were on the road the fame, or at least an appearance on Top of the Pops.  Their performance of the single ‘In The City’ on Thursday 19^th May 1977 (a week after their Nag’s Head) appearance is widely recognised as the first by ‘punk’ group on the BBC programme.  The arguments about whether The Jam are a ‘punk’ band, or not, will go on forever.

Paul Weller commented on the punk scene in the NME published on the day of The Nag’s Head gig:

“I don’t see any point in going against your own country. All this ‘change the world’ thing is becoming a bit too trendy. I realise that we’re not going to change anything unless it’s on a national scale. We’ll be voting Conservative at the next election.”

Weller later claimed it was a bit of wind-up and he went on to support the Labour party in the years ahead.

Since the above article was first published, local High Wycombe music fan, Dave Tapping, got in touch and sent the clipping below published in Sounds magazine the week before the gig at The Nag’s Head on 12th May 1977.

The gig preview, says, ‘The Jam are at High Wycombe Nag’s Head on Thursday for a one-off before rejoining the White Riot ’77 tour next week. Try and catch them before they’re rich and famous!’ Dave says ‘indeed, I was glad I did!’.

Here’s Wire performing the punky ’12XU’ from their first single:

And here’s The Jam ‘punking it up’ on Top of the Pops.

Were you one of the punters who queued up the Nag’s Head stairs and paid £1 (75p for members!) to see these two hugely influential bands?

Pub Rockers’, Bees Make Honey returned to The Nag’s Head for another headline performance on Saturday 7^th May 1977.  The London based band had previously played on 24^th March 1977.  Their prompt return suggests that promoter Ron Watts was suitably impressed with their crowd pulling power to warrant a rare Saturday night gig at the London Road venue.

The following week would see The Jam, Chelsea and XTC take to the boards at The Nag’s Head as an explosion of gigs was set to run throughout the summer of 1977.

The Banshees returned to The Nag’s Head on Thursday 5^th May 1977 as they continued their first steps on the live circuit. Their appearance supporting Johnny Thunders at The Nag’s in March ’77 was only their 4^th ever live outing – the May ’77 show in High Wycombe was still only their 8^th venture in front of live audience.  Other dates in-between their two Nag’s Head dates included a show in Worcester and two gigs at London’s Roxy.

The Nag’s Head date was another low key affair promoted by Ron Watts.  There was with very little advance publicity and the audience was made up of the Nag’s Head Thursday ‘rock night’ regulars plus those curious to see a ‘punk’ band on their door-step.

Banshees bassist Steve Severin explained in Mark Paytress’s 2003 biography of the band, “We stepped into a void left by the Pistols because they weren’t allowed to play anywhere.  For a lot of people we were probably the first ‘punk’ band they ever saw live.  Musically we were very different from the Pistols, but then was a huge diversity of sound among all the bands.  No one sounded like Subway Sect, or Buzzcocks, or even The Clash, at that point.”

The Banshees line-up at the time still consisted of Siouxsie Sioux (vocals),  Steve Severin,  Kenny Morris (drums) and Peter Fenton (guitar).  Fenton was proving a problem in Sioux and Severin’s vision for the band.

Siouxsie (from the Paytress biog): “Fenton didn’t really fit in.  He had an orange lead on his guitar and that really annoyed me.  He was a real rock guitarist, always trying to put licks into songs and pulling funny faces when he played.  We spent most of the time trying to make him forget what he’d learned.”

Fenton would make his final appearance for The Banshees at London Dingwalls on 19 May 1977.  The guitarist was sacked on stage, Sioux explaining, “He’d gone into this terrible wailing guitar solo in the middle of a song, so I said, ‘That is f**king sh*t’ and pulled the lead out of his guitar. Afterwards we had this enormous fight backstage.  The management at Dingwalls told us, ‘You’ll never work here again.’”

There may have been fights backstage at Dingwalls but violence among the crowd and with band members were common place during the early days of ‘punk’ gigs.  The trouble was not necessarily caused by the teenage/early 20’s, ‘punks’ but typically by the older crowd struggling to come to terms with the new craze. The violence was often very tribal.

Severin recalls: “You could guarantee that at just about every gig there’d be a fight by the end of the third song. Someone would try to drag Siouxsie into the audience. She’d kick them, Kenny would jump over his drum kit and pile in, and it would all go off.”  But Severin remembers the Nag’s appearance as being slightly unusual: “At The Nag’s Head in High Wycombe they had the grace to wait until Kenny was clearing away his drum kit before they threw the first glass.”

John McKay would replace Fenton on guitar and played his first gig with the band at London’s Vortex on 11 July 1977.  It proved to be the final piece in the Banshees jigsaw – their sound dynamic changed overnight and by the end of 1977 were the one of the most popular live bands on the circuit but bizarrely, at a time when every marginally new wave act was being signed, were still without a record deal.  Even when Ron Watts brought them back to High Wycombe for a gig at The Town Hall in April 1978, they were still a month away from signing a deal with Polydor records.

This is a Banshees demo recorded in March 1977 of a track called ‘Captain Scarlet’ – a crowd favourite at the time.

With a least one Nag’s Head performance to their credit, The Jam released their debut single, ‘In The City’, on Saturday 29^th April 1977 on Polydor records.  The song took its title from the ‘B side’ of The Who single ‘I’m a Boy, released in August 1966.

The Jam had appeared at The Nag’s Head earlier in 1977 but as the single gradually made an impact on the UK charts, you would have had another chance to see them at the High Wycombe venue on 12^th May 1977.  They would also perform the single on Top of the Pops a week later.  The single reached No.40 in the UK charts.

The debut album, also titled ‘In The City’, would be released a week before their 2nd Nag’s Head appearance.

The YouTube clip below is The Jam performing In The City at Manchester’s Electric Circus in 1977. It shows the pure energy of their live performances at the time.