35. take a punt on who's going to win
Right. Now come with me to Monday 9 May 1977.
Strap yourselves in for the first ever Oxford University Song Contest. See how the Newman Rooms have changed beyond recognition.
The main hall was now a venue fit for the occasion. Christ it was gloomy.
We'd seen it fresh and bright in daylight during the sound check. Now they'd put up huge long black drapes on the back wall, behind the stage. And they'd turned almost all the lights out, leaving just the spotlights on the stage itself. You could see the tops of some people's heads in a kind of pale glow, but the overall effect was darkness. I've watched rock bands in pubs like that, but this was infinitely bigger, like a warehouse, a cavern with a grotto at one end.
'The atmosphere', as Patrick remembers it, 'was amazing'.
The stage was solid enough but looked makeshift, adding to the grungy feel. On the wall to the right of it, from the crowd's point of view, the running order was on A4 sheets of paper pinned up in a line from top to bottom. I didn't see them on the night but they're in a photo. Every page has the abbreviation of the name of a college, representing the different entries. Ex for Exeter just before Keb for Keble.
Most of the performers hung around at the other end of that wall, near a doorway leading to the exit. So we watched the show from the right-hand corner of the hall, at the very back. And it was exciting, all of it.
Five hundred people, for fucksake. Before tonight, our biggest audience had been eighty, if that. And five hundred was just the ones sitting down. The aisles on either side were packed too. Tickets were at a premium, and a lot of people couldn't get in.
That included our roadie Paul Woodruff, Bernie's mate, who'd taken pictures at our first photoshoot. He was turned away at the door because the place was full and they had to limit the numbers for health and safety.
He didn't realise you had to buy tickets in advance, and it didn't occur to Bernie or me to buy one for him, which is a bit shameful. Ours came free, with 'performer' printed across them. Blond Steve didn't turn up either, but then he never did.
He missed a tremendous show. Doesn't matter that some of the acts weren't much; every one of them was an event. And it was great just to be there, for hours on end, with a big crowd of people. There was a buzz all night, a hubbub punctuated by applause. And we weren't on stage till the very end, so we had 19 support acts!
*
As I say, American Express were the right choice to open an event like this.
Technically proficient, a real rock band, they made people sit up and take notice from the start. Not very compelling, with that 'Telephone, telephone' chorus, but they set the scene - and the whole evening was going to be good because they were. That makes sense.
I wouldn't be comparing every act with us and wondering how we'd go down. But after American Express I did think we might be alright. More exciting than them, anyway.
Then the second act came on. And oh fuck.
*
Magdalen College has a famous choir. It's been around since the mid 1400s. The students in it are all male, I think, and known as clerks. A group of these clerks followed American Express on stage.
On the piece of paper with the running order, Magdalen named their entry 'special surprise title'. That usually means 'we haven't thought of one yet' - but it probably wasn't true in this case, because their routine was well thought out. And there was only name it could've had.
Taking the piss out of punk rock, like the Poodles did, was provincial, middle-class, and naff. But this lot had written a crisp routine. This being Oxford, naturally their song was called Punt Rock. It looked like blowing us out of the water.
There were half a dozen of them, all in white. White shirts, trousers, plimsolls, like a mini ceroc convention or persil advert. They were good singers, so you could hear every word, and the big audience laughed at most of them. Especially when they came to Parson's Pleasure.
That was a strip of the River Cherwell where university dons swam in the nude. Don't know why they needed to do that together, but the place was part of Oxford folklore, though most of us never went there and weren't even sure it existed. It changed to a different use in the early Nineties.
When the Magdalen Clerks mentioned Parson's Pleasure in their song, they all stopped and exclaimed 'Great balls of fire!', and the house laughed out loud. Nude dons, tee hee.
So they were the ideal Rag Week act, just the right follow-up to a rock band that was good but unspectacular. One thing I was sure about. After just two acts, we'd already seen the winners of the contest.
Watching them in their all-white, hearing the piss-take lyrics, my heart sank. Because at one point they all put on sunglasses.
I was planning to wear a pair too, but how can you do that, hoping to look like a pretend punk, when someone's already taken the mick and got laughs from it? Our rock 'n roll might still go down OK, but who was going to take us seriously as a band, especially our lead singer wearing shades indoors? Bernie could only shrug when I muttered under my breath.
But the doom and gloom didn't last long. We were way down the list, time enough for people to forget and for us to go back to thinking our image was alright after all. If nothing else, we'd look as if we meant it and fuck everyone else, a proper punk attitude, confidence than can take you a long way. If anyone did laugh at us, at me, they'd be drowned out by the volume levels.
Plus there's this. They had a bar there. One of the event sponsors was Morrell's, the big local brewery, who must've put up some free beer. And hundreds of people would be drinking it for hours. Good news for a dance band going on at the end: it doesn't take much to get students a bit pissed, so this crowd were going to be relaxed and ready to party. We could stand around and enjoy waiting our turn.
Don't know about wearing those shades, though...
*
The next two performances couldn't hope to follow the Clerks. Brasenose College sent out a couple who named themselves Me And Her for a pleasant enough song called Flyaway, but I can't remember Orion, the entry from St Peter's, our old stamping ground.
After these, Baldy O'Brookfield, of the unimaginative nickname, who was probably quite well known in student music circles (his name's in third place on the poster). He played piano, and Bernie used to mimic the chorus of his song: Back to Oxford, back to Oxford. It was called Back to Oxford and Baldy was balding. He held the note on the word 'Back', so I couldn't have sung it. Alone behind a piano, five hundred staring at you: give me those sunglasses.
Baldy went to Christ Church. So did one of the next pair, partnering his brother from New College. Oxford's the oldest university in the english-speaking world. They called it New College because it wasn't founded till 1379!
Christ Church clearly weren't short of pianists at the time. This next one knocked out the tune while his brother sang and played acoustic guitar. The singer was Ashley Goodall, the piano player Howard Goodall, who's had a prominent career in music. Photos show him jamming with Patrick and playing live with Bill.
Howard G says he's 'embarrassed' that he doesn't remember this song contest, but it was a long time ago and mattered more to those of us who were never going to make our names in the business. And at least his PA replied. Sarah Nagourney's people didn't. Or Bryan Ferry's.
Even a music-free zone like me was interested in Goodall's Big Bang series (I skipped the one about opera). Pythagoras ignoring the thirteenth note, Bach's tempered keyboard, the accordion drowning out european folk music. I didn't know singers tune their voices hundreds of times in a single performance. Not all of us, of course. And Bach bores you to sleep. Endless fucking finger exercises.
The Goodall brothers were more entertaining. They used words, for a start. Rude ones which raised a laugh. They had curly fair hair and Ashley was a lively front man. Jeans and waistcoat, I seem to remember.
*
The Goodalls went down well, but there wasn't much after them for a while.
The Corpus Christi entry was another one I don't remember. Theosus, with Reveries of Love. A ballad, I think. After that, the first rock band since American Express at the start. Underdrive, from Exeter College. A song called Shotgun sounds promising, but they played a steady rather serious number which never went into, well, overdrive. Their singer and lead guitarist was very young, they told me, a first-year or even at school. They were good but a bit introspective, like they were rehearsing something for later.
But here's a thing. They got a full round of applause. Everybody did. Even the rock bands that weren't serious and the cobbled-together duets. Every single act was warmly received. And it wasn't condescending. People really enjoyed being there and hearing these different kinds of music. As I say, anything live is worth a listen.
All this applause made us very relaxed. I wasn't counting down the acts before we went on. I can't say I was nervous, or very excited. We just enjoyed watching other performers, sort of basking in being one of them. We were going to be applauded too.
I spent almost the entire time with Bernie. Sometimes Bill and the other two, but they were often off talking to other people (Patrick would be on stage before us, so he was in last-minute discussions with the jazz band). Every act gave us something to talk about. Occasionally someone would come up and chat, people who'd seen us play at parties. That's what this was tonight. Not a contest, the biggest party yet.
*
After the Underdrive kids, someone from Keble calling himself Legendary B Chalmers with a song about the Bodleian Library. Again, didn't stick in the memory, though I think he may have had a guitar. Following him, another piss-take, the second entry from Balliol after American Express.
Around that time, there was a group of students calling themselves the Balliol Boot Boys. Maybe they were doing well at football, though boot boys was a reference to skinheads, who used their doc martins to kick people. I was probably just a bit of alliteration (you never saw a skinhead at an Oxford college).
Christ Church was Oxford's flagship college. That huge tower at the entrance, the most students, I think. The Balliol crew decided Christ Church was too posh and effete to have boot boys. Their equivalent would be sandal chaps, ho ho. That was the name of this second Balliol entry: Oxford Sandal Chaps, sung by Jack Russell and the Winnets.
Balliol really fancied themselves as naughty boys. Because winnets wasn't a misprint for Whippets. It was deliberate, the scatological side of Rag Week humour.
Their song was a poor man's version of the Magdalen Clerks number, so not the same level of acclaim. But it fitted the mood, and they were part of a major pairing. Nightshift were next.
*
Surprising thing. Throughout the night, we didn't mix with any of the other acts.
Most of them we didn't know were acts until they appeared on stage, but even the bands we'd seen at the sound check: nothing. Not out of rivalry or anything so silly: we just never saw them in passing, even after they'd performed, so we didn't get to congratulate anyone. I did have a word with Ivor, who was pressing the flesh. Wished him luck when his turn came.
Nightshift meanwhile were what we'd already noticed. Technically slick and very sure of themselves. Bernie gave their bass player the allah again.
The long-haired singer with the shades and saxophone was very comfortable in front of an audience, and they generally had more of a swagger than American Express or Underdrive. But their song went on a bit.
I say song. It was more like two tagged together. They called it Banana Sketch 26, but it must've had Number 25 at the front, two clearly different styles. Now, showing off your versatility is all very well - but sometimes less is more, and they could've done with a bit of restraint, because the head judge told me they'd been 'a bit greedy'.
Still, they were good and they were fun. I can still hear the chorus of the second part of the medley: Oh-oh, give us a banana. The crowd liked it too.
But I couldn't help thinking we could match that. Not for ability but oomph. I thought we rocked more than they did. And we'd beat them on brevity!
I'm telling you: their bass player's no better than you.
I'm telling you: their singer's - I'll get us a beer.