Delta Five, July 1981

An antidote to the royal wedding

Jul 26, 2024

1981 was a strange year. “The country” was supposed to care about the royal wedding.

For parts of the country, that felt like a world away. We were more concerned about what came to be known as “the Toxteth riots”.

Ghost Town by The Specials was the soundtrack to our summer.

This gig was the same day as the ill-fated wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, 29 July 1981.

From my memoir:

Five days after the riots started, I went to review Duran Duran at the Royal Court. The audience was full of people wearing Lady Di blouses. So was the stage. It felt like another world.
On the day of the royal wedding, I went to review a gig billed as Rock Against Matrimony. The headliners were Delta 5, one of the new breed of bands who sang about sexual politics and feminism. I approved of this.
On the way to the gig, I looked out of the bus window at the burnt-out buildings and watched the policemen lining the streets. No-one was having street parties here.

DELTA 5

Pickwicks, Liverpool

Melody Maker, August 8, 1981

WHAT do you get if you cross a Royal Wedding and a riot? Something roughly personified by Delta 5, perhaps.

An example of rock 'n' roll as antidote, counteracting the increasing weirdness of modern life. Not (this time) an escape, but something that demonstrates an alternative while remaining as much a part of reality as the nuptial hysteria that took place on the same day as this particular gig or the violence that's been taking place in the same city.

After a television day consisting of happy endings and lumps in the throat ("The Sound Of Music" on top of the action replays of the balcony scene), a little astringency is called for. And after yet another reminder of The Riots (en route to the gig, counting coppers, lining up in readiness for the biggest street party yet), a little gladness. Delta 5 provide some of both.

The evening was billed as "Rock Against Matrimony", but I'm not fooled. Just a bunch of closet monarchists looking for an excuse for a party.

Fancy dress, a no-nonsense beat group as support (It Must Be Love) and alternative comedy (including the very funny Tony Allen) set the mood. It's a pity most of Liverpool, gripped by Bank Holiday apathy, missed it. Delta 5 deserved better - and got it by the end of the set, drawing a response worthy of greater numbers.

As I said, an antidote. Pride without patriotism, femininity without submission. Assertion without aggression, a beat without beatings. Real people, the personnel a mixture of disdain, shyness (later), confidence, the light-footed and the light-hearted.

The music is direct, bare of the recorded embellishments (no horns), the drumming a thunderous backbone that never falters, the rest ringing the changes between two guitars, two basses, and three voices. How many patterns can you make?

Delta 5 work by patterns. A beat - never failing. Patterns of voices - a harmony; a chant; question and answer; call and response; an echo. Patterns of words - repetition of lyrics, seeming simplicity, suddenly sinister.

Warnings in "Open Life" or "Makeup" ("Do you wear it does it wear you?"); confusion in "Circuit", the relentlessness of the single repeated words broken by the scream of another "Image!" One criticism: though the momentum remains enjoyable, the pattern doesn't yet vary enough. Short songs in a cursory stream end the set too soon. At last, in the encore, they find the confidence to set free the voices and guitar (and the feet of the audience) to find the magnificence they could have shown earlier. The "old favourites", "You" and "Mind Your Own Business" are a joyful accusation. The perfect end for the end of a not-so-perfect day.

Escape without escapism. A more real kind of happiness. A happier kind of reality.