A great day out in a park in Hertford on a fete organised by Hertford C.N.D. Plenty of bearded folky bands playing forever and ever, so long in fact the my little brother’s band at the time, Necro, and another punk band, Virus V1, were told that in fact these bands could not be fitted onto the bill after all. So a little disappointed and clutching unused guitars and drum sticks, we all settled down to witness firstly Andy T, then D&V perform a short set and then up stepped Flux Of Pink Indians to perform in a truck witnessed by about 30 half interested people. About 10 being our punk friends at the time, about 10 being racist boneheads from Harlow, and about 10 assorted general public drifting in and out due to Flux not being Wham or whatever band was popular with the youth in those days.
A couple of the Nazi Skin Heads were amazingly allowed (amazing due to supposed time limitations that was the excuse for my little brothers band not performing!) to debate the pros and cons of nuclear weapons at the start of this set…with permission from Colonal Blimp (Derek Birkett) who looked on bewildered!
The recording quality not that great – a bit of chatter during some of the tracks – sorry!
Penguin • Post Author •
June 20, 2009 at 12:48 amThere you go Rob, your old band Necro now imortalised in the pages of this blog!
timvoss
October 31, 2010 at 9:36 pmfuck my old boots- i organised the music bit of this!!!!!!! brilliant, but odd at the same time, flux giving the nf nazi tossers (not all from harlow, some were old tossers from around hertford) time on stage, well it made the nf look the total bunch of brainless, spineless and gutless pricks they were (and still are) but i’m not sure of the wisdom of giving nazis air time. It was partly due to this that other bands were told no show time available (including the band necro for whom i drummed).
the stage was a lorry blagged from the lorry park by the old hertford cinema by an enterprising member of cnd (there was a crate of beer in it for the driver).
i remember flux playing a great set, and somewhere have a top photo of a police officer standing by the steps to the stage, with colin latter (flux vocalist) behind him and a pissed up nf skin shouting abuse.
i believe the festival had been targeted by the nf who previously had previously organised annual marches in nearby harlow and had a scarey presence at a number of local punk gigs (didn’t they drop a chair onto robs head at an adicts gig in stevenage?????). quite a few of the nazi did end up doing time at her majesty’s pleasure, although not for nazi related activity, usually just being bad thieves and moronically violent.
a great memory……..
i also found out that a wedding in the church at the top of hill in bengeo had to be stopped during the service due to the noise of the gig.
timvoss
October 31, 2010 at 9:51 pmoi mick, i think this was my cassette of the event recorded on a hand held binatone machine – did i lend it to your brother. the other band due to play were strontium 90 from hoddesdon.
Penguin • Post Author •
October 31, 2010 at 11:13 pmHi Tim, welcome aboard. Yeah I think I duped my copy of this tape off your master around the time it was recorded…I have got to hear some Necro tracks again after over 27 years as my brother has no tapes of any gigs or practices. Strangely I spoke to him a few months ago concerning this exact fact! Never heard Necro again after the last gigs performed. Hoddesdon Youth Club maybe when the skinheads were throwing stuff inc lighted matchboxes at you?
By the way, was this Flux gig held on the same day as Steve from Necro reading the sleeve text of Nagasaki Nightmare by Crass to some CND’ers on a march before hand?
Or was that another day and event?
Added to all that, yes Rob got a chair thrown at him at the Addicts at Bowes.
Also remember that Conflict gig that never happened in Hoddesdon cos the NF were coming down?
You got the weeks head/main letter in Sounds slating the fronters, which also attached to your letter (added by Sound presumably) was an early picture of Colin Conflict. So your letter stood out somewhat. Used to have that clipping on my wall for years, may still have it in my box of clippings in the loft!
AlanTreby
November 3, 2010 at 11:31 amI remember Flux asking if the skinheads had a point to make then they should get on the stage. The one bonehead who did said something along the lines of..”Germany have always been our enemy so if they are democratic now its Englands turn to to be the Nazis….”
What a well thought out arguement and so eloquently delivered that I have voted BNP ever since…
I also remember ?Sagar (the only skinhead too thick to get his hair cut) threatening us with a cider bottle and we all legged it back to Christines tea shop (the only place in Hertford where the skins feared to tread, cos their Mums worked there!)
Happy Days.
Steve Ardcorr
January 7, 2012 at 2:45 pmI’m guessing by the sudden ending that this was not the whole set and the tape ran out which is shame as I was waiting to hear tube disasters and wondered why it wasn’t on the set list.
I assume they must have played it, I’d have asked for my money back if they hadn’t!
Steve
Penguin • Post Author •
January 7, 2012 at 7:35 pmIt was a free festival Steve but yeah I am sure they did perform that that track. Tim have you got that tape in full? My copy had something else recorded over the other side later on in the 1980s.
Ardcorr
December 13, 2012 at 10:46 amI knew it was a free festival Mick, obviously.
I would have still asked for my bus fare home though
Patrick
August 3, 2013 at 9:00 pmSadly I never saw them live, I would have loved to have seen them in this period and they sound really good live (for some reason I wasn’t expecting that!). Skinheads – the burden of punks everywhere in the early 80’s! Luckily I got on with all the local skins in my town and they weren’t the NF variety. But head to any gig in Brighton and you had to be careful, I’ve even saw some at a That Petrol Emotion gig due to the band’s Irish Repulicanism connection.