All things grow and meet you

I went to see Psychic TV; I caught the 11.27 train to Waterloo and after some panic as the train went unexpectedly to Wickbourne, got into London at one o’clock.

I met Mick and Alex at Platform nine, King’s Cross, at a quarter to two, fifteen minutes before the buses were due. Ian was expected to turn up but didn’t and the coaches were an hour late. The journey up to Manchester was quite unremarkable. Mick, Alex and I sat at the back with a group of Psychic TV fanatics —Psychic cross T-shirts, shaved heads, tattoos galore . . . We smoked dope and I felt like throwing up, so I willed myself to sleep, my face pressed hard against the cold window.

We got to Manchester at 7.45. The Ritz is a shabby looking club down a dingy road facing a railway viaduct. The growing collection of assorted posers and paramilitary pseuds were kept waiting ages outside; meanwhile, we could glimpse the band through the glass doors and hear them crashing away inside. Eventually we were allowed in. The club very plush inside, a downstairs bar with red velvet décor and subdued lights and a central raised dance-floor with a stage and video screen at one end.

We went upstairs to wait, and sat on the balcony eating food from a tiny fast-food counter in one corner. A film was playing on the video screen, a recording made as the members of the People’s Temple in Jonestown, Guyana drank poison and pledged their undying allegiance to Rev. J. Jones in November 1978 . . . “I am prepared to lay down my life for this socialist dream. . . .”

The film was very blurred, the colour balance all wrong, a preponderance of red. “THOSE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER THE PAST. . . . ”

Finally the band came on, four (or was it five) members with shaved heads, the male drummer in leather skirt and tights. Genesis P. Orridge, small and ugly, raved up front and even clambered up the scaffolding surrounding the stage, hanging with one arm while singing. They used a lot of backing tapes—electronic screeches, animal growls and snarls, voices, radio chat cut-ups—and the drums and bass built up into long hypnotic walls of sound. No one danced or moved, and most people just sat or stood and stared. Psychic TV ended their set with “In The Nursery,” which I recognised from the album, and G.P.O. closed it out: “It’s hard work living in this nursery – Thank you, goodnight.”

The coach journey back was equally boring, and everyone slept most of the way. We were deposited outside King’s Cross railway station at around three o’clock in the morning, and Alex, Mick and I immediately went to a nearby Burger Delight place, packed even at this ungodly hour, and blew six pounds on burgers and banana longboats. We were in a good mood.

Alex and Mick were good fun to be with; as soon as the tube was running and we could head for Waterloo they rushed around like children, chasing one another with rolled-up newspapers. I was overcome by weariness on the train back to Watermouth; the grey light of morning seems so tiring to the sleepless. Bid A. and M. goodbye and went home to bed.