Deeside Leisure Centre, a municipal sports centre over the border from Liverpool in North Wales, also doubled as a music venue. You could stand in the large area in front of the stage or sit around the sides and watch. If you chose to stand, you had to wear thick socks because the floor was always cold. There was an ice rink underneath it.
I’d seen the Clash and the Jam there at the tail end of the punk years. By the time I went to Futurama 4 in 1982, I’d already decided that punk was dead (although the Damned, top of the bill here, were doing their best to keep it alive – I have to smile now, reading Captain Sensible’s quip about doing the job for six years; he’s still doing it now).
But this festival felt like a turning point. I realised that punk wasn’t dead: it had just turned into something else. And that was a good thing.
Joy Division had turned into New Order, Pete Burns’ band Nightmares in Wax had turned into Dead or Alive and punk had fragmented into lots of tiny pieces.
We saw a lot of those strands over the weekend, or at least the northern versions: Saturday’s lineup was mostly Liverpool or Factory bands. And the Alarm, who I liked. I forgot I’d seen them at Eric’s years before, when I described them in my diary as “a North Wales band called the Toilets” and said they were crap. Maybe they were or maybe I just liked the pun.
Futurama was also the beginning of a new direction that some journalists tried to label as ‘positive punk’. I thought this was stupid, because punk was positive anyway. ‘New punk’ caught on for a while. The movement ended up being called goth.
Here’s my review. Thanks to Gary Lornie for permission to use the pics.
Days of Futurama past
Melody Maker, September 18, 1982
Penny Kiley gets nostalgic at Futurama 4. Pix by Gary Lornie
“MISSED”, sneered Pete Burns with a toss of the much imitated dreadlocks as a beer can hurtled past his shoulder. It took me right back to the beginnings of Pete's career when he faced this sort of reaction as a matter of course. Punks never understood Pete Burns.
It's a fitting perspective from which to view the fourth Futurama Festival at the Deeside Leisure Centre. The fact that such ugly stupidity didn't manifest itself until the very end, in fact the penultimate group of the weekend, says something favourable about the whole event. The fact that it happened at all, and the sense of nostalgia it evoked, says something else.
Four year ago Pete Burns' first group Nightmares in Wax appeared on the bottom of the bill at the first Futurama Festival. Around the same time, Wayne County (a big influence on him at the time) was receiving the beer can treatment at Reading from the hippies. A disturbing question raises itself: how far is Futurama turning into another version of the Reading Festival?
There are obvious differences of course, other than musical. These punk rockers may look strange, but underneath they appreciate their home comforts. And that means a roof over their heads. I've heard it said that most people go to Reading, and the rest, for the “atmosphere” which seems to imply drugs and mud. Futurama audiences tend to be there for the music.
How alternative is it though? This festival wouldn't exist without the upheavals of '76, but how much does it represent what’s developed since, and how much is it stuck within its own world? The succession of groups throughout the first day shift conceptions as rapidly as the images and words projected onto the screen behind Blancmange as an accompaniment to their music at the end of the night. But after the first day the question remains: could Futurama end up as reactionary as Reading?
The posters on sale for the previous occasions are a reminder of "the first science fiction music festival". It was conceived as forward looking and the name itself spells that out. Yet is the only concern for the Future to find tomorrow's pop groups, spotlighting those worth plucking from the ghetto of the northern underground for the dubious reward of mass acclaim? That's hardly radical, and neither are many of the groups.
Generalisations can be made and there's a certain degree of uniformity. Similarities between the groups are noticeable. Guitars still predominate (there are no synthesizer groups as such this time) and the traditional line-up is still in extensive use, though these days more open to expansion, outside fashion but still assimilating new ideas. In this world people dance most happily to machines, but they're still moved by guitars.
The two days each have their own flavour. Saturday's bill seems to be composed largely of Factory or Liverpool bands, devoted to veterans of the Northwest "post punk" scene. But "post punk" often means a blind alley into earnestness, back into "rock", and ends up quite reactionary. Some of these groups have been around for too long, trying too hard. And the trouble is there are too many of them here together, blending into somewhat colourless if committed blur of dues paying post modernists.
The first really enjoyable group of the day are The Alarm, a youthful guitar group whose starting point seems to be somewhere around "Give 'Em Enough Rope" era Clash. The other groups that stand out are those few with some individuality. Dalek I, with their usual infuriating eccentricity, are playing intermittently throughout the day behind a net curtain in the foyer. They're good enough to get away with it. The Three Courgettes stand out because they're fun. Three voices and a semi-acoustic guitar, polished and vibrant and enjoying themselves. Naafi stand out because they're not fun.
Durutti Column are quietly attractive and restful, background music but a welcome change from walls of guitar. Not what you'd call different though. There's still been nothing really challenging. In fact the biggest challenge so far is trying to find Dalek I when they're actually playing.
AT LONG last the shapeless day brings us to the top groups: names everyone's come to see (those that haven't pulled out).
Brilliant aren't. Received with enthusiasm mainly on the reputation of the past of one of their bass players, they're the closest Futurama has got to Reading so far. A strutting lead vocalist with hair and cliche, and a mundane monochromatic music that makes me yearn for air and light and colour and wish the Three Courgettes were back. They're the type of group that expect encores - and they got one.
Meanwhile in the foyer there seems to be a barn dance going on behind Dalek I's net curtain.
And the headliners appear, not quite at the end of the evening, for reasons that may or may not have anything to do with audience endurance. New Order dispel all the doubts raised by the other groups, provide almost everything that was lacking, create the missing elements, air and fire instead of just earth. With similar ingredients to many of the other groups, they blend the traditional and modern so that everything has a voice, and the whole has an irresistible movement.
They're the only group in the whole day to really draw in an entire audience, in a triumphant affirmation of the real possibilities of music. Blancmange have the difficult task of following this climax. They could've provided the challenges that were needed earlier in the day. They have a churning, exciting sound, communication, and passion (it's an irony that the singer sounds at times very like Ian Curtis). Blancmange are clever and funny and sound good, and they couldn't really be appreciated properly here. They should be seen in their own right.
Cook the Books are the last band to play, perhaps suitably: who wants challenging music at the end of a long day?
Sunday is punk day, and a lot more fun. Arriving early, any ideas of quietly easing myself into the day's music are shattered by bursts of sounds from the stage that's magnetic in effect. It's only Dead Or Alive's soundcheck, but it's marvellously powerful and an exciting sign of what to expect from them at the end of the night.
The first official group of the day is Work Force: an attack of Sex Pistols inspired punk that, if ultimately unoriginal, is an effective way to wake up an audience. They're memorable for dedicating a song to Lynden Barber. I pass on the message, "Listen to the words I Lynden baby." I did my best on I your behalf, but without success. Sorry.
Was the whole day to be so nostalgic? I wondered with some misgivings. It might be fairly satisfying musically for a closet punk, but isn't it rather backward looking?
The second group to appear dispelled such worries. Zanti Misfitz from Blackpool are something too special to be missed by breakfasting punters. They provide what was missing on Saturday: laughter. What's more, laughter and a back bone together. Like the sadly absent King Trigger (originally billed for Saturday) they are a band for the future.
At last there are bands, building on the basis of punk while looking forward. Expanding in both numbers and possibilities (there were about eight or nine in this group) they can escape self-imposed limitations of punk while retaining the spirit of adventure and exploration, of excitement and fun. They make mayhem, and interesting powerful music at the same time.
Such excitement is almost too much so early in the day. No other group quite lives up to it. The rest of the afternoon's groups are all in a similar mould, there's lots of noise and speed and attack and energy there, unweighted by Saturday's earnestness. Nearly every band can be recommended for these qualities. Nearly every band would probably be very enjoyable in a club, but too much of the same dulls the senses, and not enough of them were different.
Vendino Pact and The Decorators both sound grown up. The Membranes don't. But the Membranes have a good single. The Stockholm Monsters have a big sound and big tunes; the Danse Society are more vicious than their name suggests; and Punching Holes need to learn that there's more to theatre than costume.
THERE are interludes, a contrast to remind us of alternatives. Discobolisk are a startlingly quiet trio, folksy chamber music, totally out of place but very welcome. And Orchestra Jazira are the weekend's concession to all things ethnic — a more wholesome dance. Two groups of outsiders representing two of the current fashions. Futurama bands have very little to do with fashion on the whole. They're in a world of their own that has nothing to do with the charts and not much to do with the media either.
Two more bands that fit, but are still different, are provided by Liverpool. An entity known as Black follows the Liverpool tradition of passionate vocals and an atmospheric backing, but the backing is on tape. There was a band once called Black but there's now just one man in the spotlight: a man with a lot of courage and a voice that's worth it.
The Room also have an impressive vocalist, among other of their assets. This group are both an acquired taste and an ever improving commodity. The result is that I'm only just beginning to realise how impressive they can be, and the length of time it's taken them to attain their present healthy status suggests I'm not alone in this reaction.
Images get stronger as they day wears on. Lots of groups want to be dangerous - Gene Loves Jezebel and the March Violets most noticeably - but the music doesn't always hold up. Top marks for image go to the Sex Gang Children. How can anyone compete with a fire eating skeleton? Here's one for the Killing Joke fans, I thought as soon as they appeared - compensation perhaps for the disappointing ordinariness of Brilliant.
They understood theatre more than most (the rest of the group are quite bizarre in appearance too) but none of it was really threatening. A bit like being in a ghost train: you know you'll come out unscathed. The best part was when the skeleton's dreadlock wig fell off.
If the Sex Gang Children were one of the hits of the day as far as the majority were concerned, so too were the Southern Death Cult. But I remember when punk groups really had energy . . . the days when The Damned started.
They were the obvious stars, and the expectation of the headliners unfortunately overshadowed two of the most individual acts of the day. Nico backed by the Invisible Girls, seemed badly out of place, and had to contend throughout her set with a noisy and impatient group of Damned fans. Her actual performance, short as it was, ranged from the embarrassingly tedious to the unbearably poignant — more nostalgia, of a different kind.
This stubbornly partisan section of the audience robbed Dead or Alive too of some of their impact, which was potentially formidable. In the time they had, the new style band demonstrated a brief version of a visual and aural extravaganza that matched the elements of theatre and music in a way that several of the day's bands had been trying to achieve.
As observed everywhere over the weekend, this band too have expanded to include new possibilities in sound (new members, new instruments, tapes) and it's just what was needed. Celebration has replaced melodrama and Dead or Alive are a dance group now - and almost fashionable.
The new sound at last validates the group's tendency for lengthy songs: their performances provide a stage version of the 12" single.
The female dancer is a brilliant counterpart to Pete Burns - if his sexuality is always ambiguous, hers is quite the opposite. Both are equally explicit and some people still find this disturbing. It's strange how some self-styled outsiders can be so intolerant. This is where the cans come in - and where we came in.
All that remains is The Damned. They're the most pogo worthy group of the day, but how much is that worth in terms of possibilities offered by the weekend as a whole?
"I've being doing this job for six years," announced Captain Sensible, which seemed to sum up the situation. But there was something about a punk version of "Happy Talk" that meant you couldn't go home disheartened.
So funny to see myself being described here in Penny's great article. I was the "female dancer" in Dead or Alive. Great gig, great memories and fantastic to meet bands such as The Dammed and The Cult (Southern Death Cult at the time).
Great reminders of what a fantastic project Futurama was over all those years. But yes, what a cold and unwelcoming venue Deeside Leisure Centre was. Yet they attracted some major names at the end of the 1970s and the start of the 1980s, as you suggest. I also saw the Clash and the Jam there but throw in Madness, Blondie, the Go Go's, Ian Dury and the Blockheads and, amazingly, Bob Marley and the Wailers and there's no doubt, despite the inhospitable environment, the place still had immense pulling power.