The Divine Toyah

April 27, 2019 yodamo 1 Comment

The Thunder In The Highlands Tour

Edinburgh Liquid Room 25.04.19

Back in the olden days, when I were a lad. Music was everything to me it was a natural progression of my inner Superhero and I held my first musical inspirations in the same light. It was the costume that I loved and Toyah matched that in real life. Bringing fantasy to life through theatre, Rock N Roll, make up and style. I loved Toyahs first three albums. Sheep Farming in Barnett, Anthem and The Changeling. The Changeling was my fave, a Pixie concept Album that brought Miss Wilcox’s magical creativity to life.

I was 14 at the time and best mates with Jengerisers, my partner in crime and musical sparing companion. At that point in my life “1982” I had only ever been to WMC Gigs. Toyah was coming to town, to Bradford St Georges Hall, I saved up my dinner money and bought a ticket. Jengerisers did the same. As you can guess I was very very excited as this was my first proper gig ever and I was about to see Toyah in real life. It was fantastic performance art that still resonates with me 38 years on. The Changeling brought to life while visiting all her earlier hits. I fell in love with the big gig experience that night. The morning after the gig, Me and Jengerisers bunked off school and headed down to the Norfolk Gardens Hotel to see if we could meet Toyah and her band. Our mission was successful Toyah was Lovely and we got autographs from all of the band, It was then that I became a fan for life.

This was when the evolution of Makeup began for me too Toyah set the benchmark for looking brilliant. I soon learned that looking that good took a lot of time and effort to achieve. It was The Its A Mystery EP and Toyahs makeup on the cover that was what I was aiming for. Both Toyah and Steve Strange enthralled me for the same reasons. Where faces became canvases for rich expression of Temporary Art. The style that easily transcended gender and looking as good as possible was an evolving process.

Bradford, back in the early 80’s was a pretty grim place, still held in the fear of The Yorkshire Ripper, 3 day weeks, unemployment and being in the hell hole of a school called Grange. Toyah, Gary Numan Bowie and Visage gave me the escape that I needed. I never adhered to be a rock star. But I did adhere to looking that good. That was the key inspiration. It didn’t come easy, the makeup I mean, it took many years and countless hours of practice, I even did a beauty therapy course to perfect the look. Dressing up became a full-time occupation. A big colourful fuck you to Thatchers Britain and an education system that failed me. , Dance, Style, Makeup, Music and making love, were my reasons for living and escaping in equal measure.

As I write this preview and look back at the photographs of Toyah that I fell in love with as a kid, I can still feel the inspiration to be creative that gripped me 38 years ago and completely understand why I was so excited and inspired. Its been a lifelong inspiration, even now at 52 years old I put just as much effort into doing my makeup as I did when pushing the boundaries of Northern Working Class Culture, Back in the early 80’s Homophobia was rife and this was one of the reasons that made my school life hell. This all started before I began wearing makeup, I never have been Gay, men and cock never has done it for me so I would have made a crap puff. However, I found the strength and courage to start a personal transformation that would indeed give people cause to think that I might have been Gay. The funny thing was that the more makeup I wore, the more girls wanted to get off with me. This turned my tormentors blue with fury. And the echos of “Calvert ya Queer” echoed around my consciousness for the best part of a decade. It certainly opened my eyes at a young age that being Gay was not a bad thing. I always felt safe in Gay Clubs and Bars. The torment and abuse did have an effect on me, I knew I might have looked femme but I knew I wasnae gay, so I set about proving that I wasn’t and that involved getting off with as many beautiful Ladies as I could, I guess to prove to the world that I wasnae gay. I loved sex and there was a lot of it. When one looks that fabulous it goes hand in hand with having a Good Time ❤ Toyah shaped my life. I love her. ❤

Investigating Toyah has been a rich experience in understanding what makes a person be themselves in the face of absurdity. Indeed looking amazing seems to go hand in hand with healing the inner child. Beginning her life with a physical disability and a lisp. Both of which Toyah overcame to become a fully formed successful artist and pioneer. How Toyah has the healing power of the Divine. and Spirituality came to her at the age of 4 with the realisation that we are all just a speck of dust in relation to the vast infinity of the Universe. What an inspiration she is. ❤ Make up, Divinity, Creativity and Performance Art. My first inspiration and the longest lasting. It is only just now that I realise why. Toyah had the answer. Toyah is a Spiritual Healer too. Make Up and fruity coloured hair has Powers. beyond being Punk As Fuck.

I got to The Liquid Rooms in time to see the support band Gothzilla. A local Edinburgh Goth Band that got me boogying straight away, Gothzilla are like a Veteran Sisters Of Mercy, Three guitars and a drum machine. Aye they really rocked tonight the perfect warm up for Toyah. I was having such a Good Time. Once the support band had finished, the place was rammed in anticipation of The High Priestess Of Punks return to Aulde Reekie. She looked marvellous and I was much closer to the front of the stage than I was at St Georges Hall, back in the olden days. Toyah looked Marvelous with a tight-fitting mirror ball dress, she looked strong and majestic. The penny really dropped tonight, Toyah set the benchmark for my ideal Woman back in 1982. and she still has it, fit as fuck, with Punk Rock attitude.

She performed a balanced set of classics and songs from her new Release. In The Court Of The Crimson Queen, perfect for live performance and taking its lead from classic Led Zepplin. There were a few first-night gremlins and on the whole I think the performance was too big for the club, The Sound even cut out completely on Good Morning Universe, apart from the vocals and only briefly, as you can guess Toyah was more than a little miffed.

She really wrestled with the sound all night. Not that it hampered our enjoyment the sound was perfect for the audience. My favourite moment was Brave New World. Indeed it was Brave New Worlds art that I fell in love with as a kid, as she sang I could see the picture disc that I had when I was 14. I think I lived that song more than any of the others. Aye Awesome Stuff.

Toyah still held the same beauty tonight as she did back then. She was just as sassy and sexy. Robert Fripp is one lucky man. Toyah eventually got over her sound issues and ripped into the classic singles. Ieya, Its A Mystery, I Want To Be Free, she did a marvellous rendition of Martha And Muffins Echo Beach and some really nice album tracks like Danced and Angel And Me from The Changeling. It was fantastic, Toyah had me completely, I couldn’t stop singing it was really really good fun.

Slipping in a new song called Come, Toyah got all sexy and I fell in love with her that little bit more. the last time I saw her live was 38 years ago and Toyah thrilled me tonight just as much as she did back in the olden days. My guess is that the sound glitches will have been worked out over the rest of The Thunder In The Highlands Tour. If you get the chance go and see Toyah. A True Divine Nemesis.

Mark ‘Divine’ Calvert

Bands

Paris Street Rebels: Kings of Balado

April 12, 2019 yodamo Leave a comment

Capture 3

First-class Fife band, Paris Street Rebels, have just released their new single – Kings of Balado

Where are you all from and where are you all at geographically speaking?
Grant: Myself, Jazz and Kev all grew up together in a discarded, derided and forgotten ex-mining town in Fife, Scotland. Ballingry brought us up mean and showed us the best and worst life has to offer dangerously young. Cammy was different he found us after years of growing up in a slightly less violent village just 10 minutes from us. He always maintains that place was no good for him. Nowhere near enough trouble he says haha. The truth is all 4 of us have always been outsiders, even in our own communities. All hung up on Little Richard when everyone else was busy fitting in.

Hello Kevin, so where does your love of music come from?
Kevin: My love of music comes from a generation of music lovers. A lot of my family members have always had music on around me and you could say it stemmed from there. I really got to know music when I started writing and understanding that it doesn’t just come from the radio or the beautiful people on tv, it comes from depths of the heart.

How did the band’s line-up come together?
Cameron: The band’s line up as it is now took some time to come together. We were initially a six-piece group which after three months quickly turned to five. Around six months later, after weeks of discussion, we made the decision that being a four piece band would be the best line up for Paris Street Rebels. We’ve never looked back since.

Can you tell us about the earlier incarnations of the band?
Kevin: The band at its earliest stage looked and sounded completely different from what you would see and hear today. Having started as a 6 piece we found ourselves building a sound to satisfy the various members as opposed to focusing on one singular vision. After becoming a 4 piece we watched ourselves become a far more single minded, focused, dangerous rock’n’roll group. With a united ethos and hell bent on changing the world, the four of us have become something else entirely.

What would you say are the band’s biggest influences?
Jazz: It’s very hard to pin down influences for us I’d say, I suppose most people would compare us with the punk scene, The Clash etc but we take influence from so much more than that. What makes us different is that if you asked any member his top 5 bands they’d all be totally different. That’s what makes us unique I think.

Which singers and styles have influenced your own voice?
Grant: When I think of the singers who have directly influenced me throughout the years it’s clear I’ve always connected more with vocalists who had their own unique voice. The type of singers who you could instantly recognise and identify in any setting. That authenticity of expression has always been important to me. To name but a few Ray Davis, Joey Ramone, Bob Dylan, Joe Strummer, Patti Smith, Jam era Paul Weller, John Lennon, Leonard Cohen. These artists could not be confused with any over-manufactured, mass produced, reality tv talent show fodder of today and that in and of itself proves their worth.

Do the band members socialise outwith the music?
Jazz: Constantly, probably too much to be honest. Me, Kev and Grant all grew up together, same village, went through school together and have been through a lot together. Cammy was the missing cog and although in the grand scheme of things he’s relatively new in the social circle. He’s just made everything click. He’s the glue needed to hold the other three maniacs together.

What does your perfect Sunday afternoon look like?
Kevin: My perfect Sunday afternoon could look like a day in the rarity of the sun playing guitar drinking beer or even a ‘black out blind’ day listening to the rain with no worry at all.

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In 20 seconds sell the Paris Street Rebels speed dating style.
Grant: Well Cilla I think people should listen to our little rock’n’roll band Paris Street Rebels. Deranged? Yes. Professional? Debatable. Legendary? We soon will be sister.

You’ve got three famous bass players from history coming round for dinner. Who would they be & what would you cook; starters, mains & dessert?
Jazz: James Jamerson (Motown), Paul Simonon (The Clash) and Mani (The Stone Roses). Beer starter, Gin and Tonic main, Sambuca for desert.

You’ve just been deserted on an island with a solar-powered DVD-TV combo – which 3 films would you have with you?
Grant: I could’ have chosen 3 pretentious Italian arthouse films by the way… and on another day I may well have…but on this occasion I thought it best to tell you it like it is. Cinema has always been the real Rock’n’Roll and its not to be trifled with. Apocalypse Now. Its long as fuck and has Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper and Marlon Brando among others playing out the tragedy and comedy of the Vietnam War. All whilst one of the greatest soundtracks in cinematic history makes the death filled jungle’s of North Vietnam…. almost funky. Trainspotting. Hard to avoid really. Would seem cliche if not for the fact that even in 2019 it is still undoubtedly that good. It told the story of heroin addicts of course but also of working class Scottish culture trapped in a cage of its own design. Iconic then, iconic now. The names Danny Boyle and Irvine Welsh will forever be etched on my heart. Pulp Fiction. For a pre-teen in the late 90s seeing this for the first time its effect can not be understated. The strange world of Tarantino’s LA might as well have been Alpha Centauri for all I knew. The way the thing was structured, crafted, shot and the way Pulp Fiction was built around dialogue and its characters strange interpersonal relationships within this mythical 50’s American dreamland knocked me dead. It still does.

Can you describe the band’s sound?
Cameron: We take inspiration from all sorts of different bands and music. We like to fuse a blend of The Clash, The Libertines sort of angst along with the glam rock of 70’s Stones and T-Rex, with some David Bowie in there for good measure. Having said that ask me another day and all those would be different again. Schizophrenia runs wild in this group.

Is the band focused more on recording or gigging?
Kevin: As we plan our years we tend to take one year foccused solely on writing and recording and preparing for a new year full of gigs to showcase our recordings which helps us hold our fans gaze.

Capture — Jordan Mclean: ‘Jazz,’ Bass / Cameron Gaudin: ‘Cammy,’ Drums / Grant Malcolm: ‘G,’ Vocals & Guitar / Kevin Murphy Jnr: ‘Trev,’ Vocals & Guitar

Can you describe the dynamics of the band’s musicianship?
Cameron: We put the song first. Whatever we create as independent musicians within the group is to serve the song we’re working on. Paris Street Rebels aren’t a group that allow pretentious 10 minute guitar solos. It’s all about the story we’re trying to tell at that time.

Where do the band’s songs come from?
Jazz: Our songs are all about what’s happening around us, growing up in a place like we did you seen a lot of shit. They’re about our experiences and what we’ve seen other people go through, as well as all the shit that’s happening in the world today. Bands have always been social speakers, the times were living in now we need to speak up more than ever.

Can you tell us about the new single – what its about, where it came from?
Cameron: Kings Of Balado is the story of two perfect strangers spending a night lost in the festival campsite of Balado which was the long-term site of Scotlands legendary T in the Park. It pulls directly from our own lives and experiences and explores the importance of music festivals in general but also the spiritual connections we can all feel for each other in mass gatherings of these types. A unity. A temporary lifestyle lived briefly throughout the summer months. Festivals and other outdoor, hedonistic events like them serve as a blueprint for alternative society for young and old dis-satisfied with day-time TV and uneventful barbecues.

Can you describe the writing process of Kings of Balado?
Grant: When we were first writing ‘Kings Of Balado’ it started to sound like some ancient, pagan chant or incantation of some kind. There seemed to be something primal about that pounding, maddening mantra building to a crescendo like that. That mystical aspect really influenced the lyrical content of the tune. I immediately made a connection between that and a strange night I had spent years ago, one night when the Scottish weather was uncharacteristically sublime. Perfectly lost in the campsite of the T In Park festival held at Balado, ten minutes from my front door. I spent the whole night walking and talking with a complete stranger who I felt like I’d known forever. We talked about hopes, love, fears, politics, Stanley Kubrick and revelled in the human carnival going on all around us. It sure was a trip.

Can you tell us about the recording process?
Jazz: The track itself was a piece of piss to record. Once we locked into the feel of it we rattled the thing off without much fuss. Shout out to Chris Marshall & Johnny Madden of &West Studios who smashed it out of the park once again on production duties. The Wizards we call them…. magicians man.

What does the rest of 2019 have in store for the band?
Cameron: At the moment we are currently working on our next single release for our track ‘Kings of Balado’ which will be released April 12th along with a steady stream of gigs around Scotland. We also have several other singles set to be released steadily throughout the rest of 2019 which we cannot wait for you all to hear. Stay tuned.

www.facebook.com/ParisStreetRebelsUK

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Teenage Funkland 6: On the Road

April 8, 2019 yodamo Leave a comment

“I’m quintessentially English. I’m quintessentially French. When we go to Germany I’ll be quintessentially Kraut.” Jarvis Cocker

Continuing Damian Beeson Bullen’s retrospective adventure thro’ the Birth of Britpop; with a trip back to Burnley for his 18th birthday (11-06-94), on which occasion Oasis had kindly obliged to play a free concert in Preston for all his pals…

After being surrounded by so many familiar accents, suddenly we felt a little homesick. I then realised I was just about to turn eighteen – June 11th – & mentioned to Nick going back up North for a few days. We had been in Wales for a month, half of our free-rent-time, & so far we had done some pretty mad stuff. We had some proper tales to tell. Besides, there wasn’t a decent chippy for miles around Ynyssdu & Nick was growing sick of fish finger butties.

“Reyt idea!”

One of those stories was of course I meeting with The Stone Roses, a garbled account of which was now leaking out into the world – or perhaps the Geffen boys actually thought we were members of the band.

1994 was a very different place – the height of the analogue age, but on the cusp of the digital revolution. In 1994, for example, there were 67 mobile phones for every 1,000 people in Britain. By 2004, there were more mobiles than people. Back in 94 the metrosexual revolution was in fill swing with Oddbins making wine-tasting available to anyone via 200 wines being quaff’d by the ‘less civilised’ members of society, leading to a serious surge in street-mooning & gutter-puking.

Meanwhile, out in the world of golf, the 19-year-old Tiger Woods was hurtling around gossipy player circles as ‘that brilliant black kid.’ Tiger, real-names Eldrick (his nick-name came from his dad’s Vietnam War buddy) was from Cypress, California, & at the age of 3 was shooting his dad’s 9-hole course in 48 shots.

I’ve never been materialistic at all. I just want to be the best golfer around. And I don’t mean the greatest black golfer around, I mean the best, period. Tiger Woods

Unfortunately Tiger was living in the same era as Kim Jung-Il, whose biography tells us he first picked up a golf club in 1994, at North Korea’s only golf course, and shot a 38-under par round that included no fewer than 11 holes in one. Satisfied with his performance, he reportedly immediately declared his retirement from the sport.

Before we headed north, we had to back to Wales first to sign on, so we decided to break up the train-jump with our first visit to Stonehenge. We got off the train at Salisbury, dominated by her cathedral’s massive spire, then caught a bus up to the stones. It was nice enough, but fenced off so we couldn’t get stoned among those ancient monoliths, & like kiss ’em or summat. Instead we skinned up a couple of spliffs & spent a nice hour on a little rise not far away from the circle, the wide sweep of Salisbury plain all around us. In our reefer-haze we even wrote a new tune, called Blowin’ a Reefer on Salisbury Plain – tho’ lacking Weed’s classic status, we thought it would make a perfect b-side.

Meanwhile, in the world of philandering royalty, we were all still trying to get our heads around the separation of Prince Charles and Princess Diana. In June, Charles finally admitted his extramarital affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. He’d been secretly seeing her for years, but had been forced by higher powers to create heirs with Diana Spencer, some crazy Zionistic shit most likely.

After signing our souls away to the Man, we set off for Lancashire, knowing there would be couple of fat giros waiting for us when we got back. On the way up we heard that the Scottish MP Gordon Brown had pulled out of the Labour leadership race, leaving the door wide open for Tony Blair. They had decided to share the power, Blair getting first ‘dibs’ on the premiership, while Brown got the house next door.With hindsight, if Brown had realised he would have to play understudy for well over a decade, he might have changed his mind. But to two young lads in the middle of a Teenage Funkland, the news might as well have been in French. One bit of news did catch my attention, however.

“Yo Nick, Oasis are doing a free gig on my birthday in Preston.”

“That’s lucky Damo,”

“Aye, it is innit!”

So we set off, me & Nick, plus a few friends in tow, including Jane – the girl I was seeing before I set off to Skegness. She was a bonny blonde & suffice it to say I woke up on the first full morning of my nineteenth year with her beside me. It was in the attic bedroom of her mum’s house in Brierfield, which is no longer standing. It was not far from a bridge over the Leeds-Liverpool Canal, & a year or so later, when we split up, I remember after one last night of farewell lovemaking, I took a ‘couple-photo’ from her room & threw it symbolically into the canal from the bridge – where it might be to this day!

Back in 1994, on the morning of my 18th birthday we had all bobbed along the East Lancashire train-line the 20 miles to Preston, where I quickly realised that train-jumping with 8 people was a lot trickier than with two. In the confusion half of us got there without paying, & we were soon approaching Preston’s Avernam Park. It was a free festival in the old Castlemorton tradition, sponsored by Heineken Festival – a huge inflatable beer-can of whose over-shadowed the site. It was a Saturday & the third day out of four – The Charlatans had played on the Friday. This was also the first Heineken Festival of the summer, they’d be up & down the country for months.

It was interesting to see that in a matter of a month or so since Newport, the Oasis crowd was getting bigger & more boisterous. When they took to the stage, a deep mooing footie chant kick’d off, the first time I had heard the now famous “O-A-SIS, O-A-SIS!” terrace-song. One prat chucked a beer at the stage, with Liam throwing a wobbler; “we’re not fuckin’ ‘aving that – were not playing,” he spurted out, but of course they played. kicking off with Shaker Maker.

Altho’ we were too young & bouncy to notice, the tent was also full of critics from ‘That London,‘ all finding themselves tapping their feet to the cultural phenomenon exploding before their eyes. The fact that none of them could understand Liam’s incoherent ramblings between numbers made them like the band even more. By the end everyone was buzzing, including a guy who climbed 50 feet to damce precariously on a metal strut on the roof of the marquee, before being chased Beny-Hill style by two security men off the park.

I feel a real twat with Oasis, because the’re the first other band I’ve really loved since I joined a band myself. We’ve played with them a lot lately & I love hanging around with ’em, but I can’t talk to ’em properly cos I keep thinking ‘You bunch are fucking ace!” Martin Carr (The Boo Radleys)

After another barnstorming, intoxicating, belligerent, blistering, mouth-full-of-chips-AND-gravy gig, me & Nick got the Gallagher brother’s autographs on the back of the same sheet of paper that the Stone Roses had signed, like proper starry-eyed fans. After Oasis came the Boo Radleys, who were alright. As Avenham Park began to empty me at the end, Jane & I said our goodbyes as Nick toddled off to Barlick with Ezy Ste, while my other mates went back to Burnley.

So I was off on a romantic birthday surprise trip to Blackpool, to where we caught a train at Preston.. As it was so packed after the free festy, the conductor never came & soon we were soon searching for a B&B in the English Vegas. As it was so packed the conductor never came & soon we were searching for a B&B in the English Vegas. Finding a suitably cheap & cheery one, we rushed to the Pleasure Beach for a birthday go on the recently opened Big One. It had put the Pleasure Beach back on the map after a decade of Alton Towers’ supremacy & was – for a while – the tallest roller-coaster in the world. It was also a good place to splice a wee snog with your girlfriend with innuendos about big ones – teenage foreplay at its most effective.

Back at the B&B & indulging in some drunken pillow-talk, Jane she mentioned she was going to Newquay with six other girls for a weeks holiday at the beginning of July.

“Wanna come?”

“Is the Pope polish?”

The day after the day after my birthday, Oasis released their second single – the cocky superior sonic sneer of the copelling & addictive Shakermaker – & the Pyramid Stage burnt fireball-down at Glastonbury. The former, recorded & mixed in only 8 hours, would reach #11, while the latter was gone forever. Also released on June 13th was Shed Seven’s second single, Dolphin, two months before their debut ‘Change Giver’ album. I love Shed Seven me – the city of York’s wicked wee, pimp-rolling contribution to the 90’s soundscape -; Rick Witter was an oddball, dusky pixie with a stunning voice, whose Dolphin is a well funky track & A Maximum High (1996) is a fantastic album. Brit Pop at it most pearliest – beautifully posed, epic music that brought the movement’s ethos to a true perfection.

Not having a TV in Ynyssdu, I watched a bit of telly while up in Lancashire, including Chris Evans’ Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush. Between his stints fronting The Big Breakfast and the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, Chris Evans had devised and began hosting a Saturday night gameshow that bundled winning contestants off on holiday directly at the end of the show. It was a conceit that generated unprecedented levels of hysteria in the studio, not least on the occasion when they revealed they were sending the entire audience on a coach trip to EuroDisney. Suddenly the atmosphere was something akin to the away end when your team’s just scored a last minute winner. The only person not going completely wild was the somewhat perplexed studio guest, Barry White. Only in 1994.

Me & Nick were now buzzin’ about another gig that had rolled onto the horizon, like they do in the seemingly endless roll of parties that is the English Summer. Both Bjork & Oasis were playing the Saturday night at Glastonbury. We had never been to a proper festival before, but the time seemed right, especially with Jane & the Girls being a only a short train jump away in Cornwall just afterwards. We were young & at liberty to enjoy the keenly-felt experiences which were piling rapid-fire into our lives.

After a week or so we borrowed Ezy Ste’s tent & set off South. We spent a couple of nights in Stratford-Upon-Avon en route, calling on an old mate of mine from Accy Road, Mark Hancock. We found him in this candlelit park where a load of actors were having a rather la-de-da party. He was raving about Prozac, popping open a blister pack of green-and-white capsules and declaring he had seen the light. We declined – we preferred pills that made us dance, preferably to Techno. But we had some beers & it was reyt enough to see him – I had just turned eighteen after all, & felt like a proper adult talking about Shakespeare & all that stuff. So Mark got us tickets to see a play called Peer Gynt at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre.

It would be hard to imagine a face less likely to stoop to gloating than the noble wreckage of Barton’s countenance. Prodded about the entirely negative critical response to Ninagawa’s mammoth god, though, he admits: ‘Of course it was heartening if one was taking the opposite approach. But one also felt for the actors and for the main fellow (Michael Sheen) who was so valiant and good. I mean, you can’t do international casting as Peter Brook does unless you can really communicate with everyone and work together. It looked like a Great Dictator production – you know, ‘I’ve got my lighting; I’ve got my design; I’ve got my concept; I’ve got my film of onions. And in between there are some scenes.’

Paul Taylor (The Independent Newspaper, May 1994)

It was a curious experience, watching high-brow theatre proper stoned like. In later years I would develop a definitive appreciation for the dramatical arts – I’m a theatre critic for example – but for the 18-year-old Damo watching Henrik Ibsen’s masterpiece found no amplification, no guitars & no catchy choruses. It was time to get to Glasto.