Parsons, Tony. "They Came. They Saw. They Pogoed: The Texts of Festival Part 77 - Mont de Marsan Festivale du Punk." New Musical Express, 13 Aug. 1977, pp. 18-19
They came, the saw, they pogoed
— Tony Parsons documents the chaotic 1977 Mont de Marsan punk festival in southern France, featuring The Clash, The Damned, and other UK acts
— The Clash deliver the festival's standout performance despite tensions after Captain Sensible disrupts their set with stink bombs, The Damned debut new guitarist Lou while Rat Scabies trashes his kit and Captain Sensible ends up hospitalized after a retaliatory attack
— The Jam controversially withdraw when bumped from their scheduled slot, leaving Paul Weller frustrated
— Atmosphere mixes camaraderie and rivalry, with backstage antics involving Joe Strummer, Mick Jones, and Paul Simonon (playing despite glandular fever), local acts like Shakin' Street and Bijou impress, while drug use and poor organization create chaos throughout the event
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New Musical Express | August 13th, 1977 | Page 18 & Page 19
They came. They saw. They pogoed.
The texts of festival part 77: Mont de Marsan Festivale du Punk
In which: Sensible suffers from a damaged crutch. Strummer suffers from Sensible. Scabies suffers from subtlety. And Weller suffers from not even getting to play.
Hot report: Tony Parsons Happy snaps: Denis O'Regan
“I've gotta fuckin’ pogo,” the East End punk told his mate with the fanatical fervour of a missionary. He’s feeling kinda wired as he ain’t slept for the three days and nights it’s taken him to hitch down from Rotten Apple Babylon to this tiny, sunsoaked, beleaguered French village down south near the border Espanol.
Still, the French sulphate is cheap and plentiful. Summer rock festival dealing, man. Very profitable. It’s mostly speed, although plenty of kids are content to get alked-out belligerent on the canned warm cat-piss masquerading as lager that’s for sale.
And the small town fiesta atmosphere of Mont de Marsan is tempered with the sadness of junkies trying to score with pleading tombstone eyes.
“Please,” the long-haired girl in the kaftan and sandals begs. “I rear-lee like mor-feene. I duo anysing.”
But the majority of junkies can’t spoil the excitement for the predominantly punk crowd numbering some few thousand and consisting of a surprisingly small number of English disciples who have made the pilgrimage. They vie for choice positions against the iron railing in front of the high stage shrouded with a canopy of tarpaulin. A backstage pass earns you a place in the Very Important Punk enclosure to jostle for lebensraum alongside troops from The Clash, Damned, Jam, Hot Rods, Boys, Tyla Gang and more, although not the headlining Feelgoods who remain back at the hotel getting so far out of it that Lee Brilleaux sings the Martini advert for forty-eight hours solid.
The younger and more wide-eyed, however, are on show early on the first day Friday evening, watching the French bands who open the festival and checking out the faces. There’s so many people who know each other in the enclosure that an unspoken amnesty is called between bands who had previously been feuding. ’Coz we’re gonna have a real good time together.
An androgynous looking French punk-band called The Loos finish their set and later that ever-lovable loudmouthed lout Rat Scabies tries in vain to pull the girl lead-singer:
“Come on, ugly! Suck my willy! Gawd, blown it…”
Too subtle, Rat. Wearing his party gear of rolled-up Levi’s, DM boots and Trilby, the drummer throws himself into his favourite party-game of getting pissed, assaulting people, cuddling people, spitting on people and shouting at people.
Paul Simenon and Mick Jones stumble in, Paul looking like a fresh corpse as he fights off chronic glandular fever and insists he’s well enough to play, Mick limping slightly after getting run-over that morning by a psychotic French motorist.
“The cars drive on the wrong side, don’t they?” he says. “I was looking the other way and this car goes over me foot.”
He points at the Teddy Boy Brothel Creepers at the end of his bondage strides. “These saved me. The motorist points at his eyes to show he was mad that I hadn’t looked where I was going, and then waves for me to get out the way. I tried to move and I couldn’t.” He points down at his left
Brothel Creeper. “The wheel of the car was on me foot.”
The Damned prepare to go on. Dave Vanian, the phantom of the bullring, reveals that their new guitarist will be making his debut with the band.
What’s his name? “Lou.”
What’s his other name? “Lou.” Lulu? “Nah, just Lou.”
“It’s only his third gig EVER!” Rat bawls. “On the way down we told everyone he was a roadie…”
Looks more like a parrot than a roadie, does Lou. Still, the, uh, musical development of The Damned obviously required just a shot in the arm.
I ask Paul Weller if he would consider augmenting the line-up of The Jam: “Nah, but if I did it’d be with a singer ’coz I really love just playing guitar,” he says. We engage in amiable argument over Paul’s estimation of The Jam’s gig at the Hammersmith Odeon, and he talks about his responsibility to say what he thinks balanced against the fact that he’s a musician, not a politician.
“I’ll say it in the songs,” he reflects. “I will not preach.”
Like it happens in the movies, at this point the opening chords of Weller’s classic “Away From The Numbers” comes pouring through the PA.
My next comment dies in my throat as an arm crooks around my neck. As soon as I hear that distinctive slur singing along with the record the identity of my attacker is revealed.
“Aaaaaa-waaaaaay frum der numb - um - bers!” Joe Strummer howls. “Who’s this then?” he smirks with mock innocence at Weller.
“Awaaaaay from Joe Struuuuummer!” Weller retorts.
But it’s all in the best of spirit. The New Wave Civil War terminated as the bands rub shoulders for an entire weekend, the three hotels in Mont de Marsan all commandeered by the British Invasion who can’t afford to be at each others’ throats in a situation that Clash manager Bernie Rhodes described as being redolent of “a works outing.”
And, anyway, the internal bickering has rarely been for anything heavier than mutual slagging matches. If the truth were known, many New Wave luminaires have nothing but admiration for their contemporaries. “Strummer’s fuckin’ great,” Weller says. And so is Paul Weller, although what we don’t know at this time is that he won’t get a chance to prove it at Mont de Marsan.
Later Strummer sums it up: “All the bands are in competition with each other. We all wanna be more famous than the other bands. Because we all think our own band is the best.”
The Damned’s set is marred by a dire sound at first, although the four original members run through their catalogue of moves to try both to win the crowd and alleviate the understandable first night nerves of the rookie.
Captain Sensible is an epileptic Dalek wearing a red air hostess beret and matching red British Rail steward’s jacket, more crazed than ever, his bass suddenly jerking into a temporary erection; Scabies is the frenetic seventies Keith Moon who totally trashes his kit at the end of the set; Vanian re-runs his Hammer Horror fantasy and Brian James still wishes he was Johnny Thunders. They play songs from the album plus newer stuff like “Sick Of Being Sick,” “Stretcher Case Baby” and Scabies’ lyrical victory on “Problem Child.” The new boy looks apologetic when he knocks a mike over and doesn’t make much difference to the Damned’s set as he plays almost note for note with James. But give him time.
They get a great reception from the crowd as their sound improves. Les punks français appreciative of the return of the only punks to play last year’s first Mont de Marsan festival. “This is quite amusing, innit?” comments Strummer.
“They’re totally mad,” smiles Weller, who had never seen The Damned before, even though he wears one of the band’s badges on his mohair lapel on The Jam’s album cover. “I just wore it ’coz I really like ’em as geezers,” he says.
Unfortunately, the friendly atmosphere at the festival is to be spoiled by The Damned. The storm clouds gather when Dave Vanian announces a song called “Politics,” prompting Paul Weller to comment: “Just when we were all getting along nicely.”
“This one’s for The Clash,” Vanian sneers and later, after the Boys play a short but spectacular set, Captain Sensible acts the buffoon during The Clash’s headlining show by destroying the incredible tension built up during the new self-written reggae number, “White Man In The Hammersmith Palais,” when he strolls with dumb nonchalance out into the middle of the stage and crushes several potent stink bombs under his heel.
Only Mick Jones and “Topper” Headon on drums see him do it.
Jones, resembling Keef more than ever with his long, poodle-cut coiffure, continues chopping the sparse effective JA-flavoured chords as he stares with grim-faced fury at the Captain’s interruption, while Topper hurls a stream of drumsticks at the Sensible head until he’s departed in the casual manner that he had appeared.
By the end of the song the nauseating fumes are stinking out the entire stage area. Strummer realises what’s happened and grabs the microphone, his body shaking with blind fury.
“Listen, The Damned just put some stink bombs on the stage because they’re fuckin’ jealous, right?” Joe screams. The Clash pour their venom into the best set of the festival, their new songs showcasing new heights in the lyrics of Strummer and the music of Jones.
They started at midnight under a starry summer sky while all that could be seen out in the blackness of the packed bullring crowd was the luminous green rings glowing round the necks and wrists of hundreds of kids. Probably the most powerful visual assault in rock music, the three-pronged attack more lethal even than the Pistols, they strutted their white summer strides and Clash City Rockers t-shirts and slashed it out for over an hour and a half with Strummer at his most heroic, his most volatile, and tempering his wild-eyed trembling insanity with a sense of humour and compassion, giving him the power of total communication with the crowd.
“Savoir Olay? Awright...” his face (Lenny Bruce at twenty-five) breaking into a grin as he tries to fix his guitar between songs. “Me guitar ain’t working... MOI GUITAR NE MANGE PAS.”
The songs from the album are as great as ever, although I honestly think that the new songs dwarf vintage Westway anthems for sheer dynamic tension, reflecting a very real change in consciousness for the group as they begin to feel the pressures of mass-adulation, a shift in experience and subsequent attitude that was only apparent on the album in “Garage Land.”
“Clash City Rockers” is the band’s new anthem, an addictive, staccato football chant that could have been written by an amphetamined Rasta. “The Prisoner” and “Complete Control” are assertions of identity and personal liberty, the latter inspired by CBS releasing “Remote Control” while the band were on tour.
The band’s disgust and growing knowledge of the obscenity of giant corporations comes through with the raging memory of humiliation.
“People laughed! They thought it was fun... they won’t do it next time. This is Joe Public speaking; I am in complete control of a mind and body.”
Meanwhile, one of the Clash camp had penalised Captain Sensible for his crime, by throwing him off stage so that he landed straddled across a barrier, apparently trashing those vital parts where the girls won’t kiss you and fainting from the pain. The ambulance arrives and he is put on a stretcher. He regains consciousness just as they are loading him into the back of the ambulance, screams in protest, gets up, and runs off to seek refuge on top of a parked van, hotly pursued by both the stretcher case bearers and the owner of the van.
The Clash climax with their own patented Roots Rock Reggae. “White Man In The Hammersmith Palais” is their best dance number ever, a celebration of passion, fire and skill that Strummer was given inspiration for by a Reggae all-nighter at the Palais on New Year’s Eve, when he was the only white man in an audience that came for music and was subjected to quasi-showbiz.
“Pressure Drop” is their unrecorded classic interpretation of the Toots and the Maytals song, and after “London’s Burning,” done as “Mont de Marsan’s Singing,” the fiesta crowd go off to seek the night with a song in their hearts …
“Ooooooo-oooooooh, pressure drop … our pressure … gonna drop on yeeeeeeew!"
One hotel’s sudden ejection of a number of punk residents results in problems that caused Trigger Publicity’s Rick Rogers to go without food, sleep and nostrils for four daze and nights, and also results in one band having to try to keep quiet in the same bed as their leader who was entertaining a French girl as best he could under the circumstances.
The driver of the coach that had brought a few of the groups down samples his first-ever fast stuff in order to stay awake for the drive. For most of the journey he drives standing on his seat.
Shaven headed Robert of Die Maniacs (consisting of three geriatric punks, ex-members of Twink’s band Rings plus a brilliant French kid called Henri-Paul) is carried off nursing a head-wound after heckling his old comrade’s new Rings. There was much animosity between the two bands when The Maniacs seized all The Rings’ coach and hotel tickets.
“They’re just a wank,” commented Twink, another geriatric punk.
Best thing about the first night though, was these two three year old kids who were dancing in the moonlight to The Clash by the side of the stage. Those little kids were real great dancers, I tell ya. It was really beautiful. And I mean it (man).
The next day The Clash and The Damned have a long, long talk, and the result at the end of it is an armistice to all hostilities between the bands.
“The war between The Clash and The Damned is over,” declares Rat Scabies.
“I don’t remember nuffin’ about last night,” comments a shaken Captain. “Just waking up on a stretcher and running off to find a roof of a van.”
“I like the geezer,” admits Strummer. “I accept that he’s got a few screws loose and I like him.” Rodent The Roadie ostentatiously flashes a hundred franc note and buys a twenty-four can beer pack. He tastes the beer with the quiet authority of an impoverished connoisseur.
“Really quite awful,” the big spender decides. “Tastes like ant-piss … Sounds have already asked me if they can interview me so you better hurry up with the offer if you want to be the first.”
“Rodent’s a star now,” sneers Joe.
Paul Simonon comes back from the hospital to the Sablar Hotel street-side bar where many of the bands are hanging out as the festival reaches a lull in the hours before the start of the second day. Paul still looks very ill, and says that the delay between numbers during The Clash set was caused by him having to spray his throat every few minutes to try to keep his swollen glands in as little pain as possible. There’s a bad rash on his shoulder caused by his fever.
“That’s what you get for sleeping with Rodent,” quips Bernie Rhodes.
“It was only back to back,” protests Paul. A girl comes over and shows him a photograph in a magazine where he resembles Frankenstein with vaselined spike barnet.
“That’s GREAT!” Bernie enthuses. “We’ll use that…”
“Yeah, you would use it, wouldn’t you, Bernie?” Paul says. “Use it as our fuckin’ backdrop. God, that picture’s awful...”
Over in the stadium French bands like Shakin’ Street and Marie et Les Garçons plough through Punk Top Forty sets, and outside the bullring Rat Scabies sits on the grass and reflects on America.
“Yeah, you’re right, the interview we did with Zigzag was—well over the
top, because America’s like that! It’s fuckin’ crazy! And I didn’t stick the Fender bass up the girl’s arse! Honest! I didn’t even get a blow-job in the line-up, I was standing to one side and having a wank…”
Rat’s memories of the brief romance he shared with Joan Jett are not the stuff that Love Story was made of.
“I was well pleased when I got pulled by a Runaway,” he recalls. “But she was a very lousy lay. And I only threw her out of the dressing room when she started smashing everything up. They really hate each other, that band … especially Joan Jett and Cherrie Currie. They can’t even stand to be near one another.”
Paul Weller comes over as Rat asserts that The Damned and The Pistols started it all and listens with a quiet smile.
“I’m an old fart,” Paul says. Later he kills time outside a cafe as he waits for a chance to play.
“I’ll be glad to get home,” he says. “I don’t like travelling. All you do is smoke and drink and it ain’t healthy. I ain’t eaten since we’ve been here, I can’t stand the food …”
All Weller wants is to get out and play. The Jam are contracted to go on after Little Bob Story and before The Rods, but a backlog of bands are building up as The Tyla Gang get an ecstatic reaction from the crowd (certainly the best audience response of the festival) and problems are resulting from The Feelgoods’ demands from the hotel that they go on at midnight. The Tylas do a longer set than planned, the basic, very basic rock (Ducks De Luxe pub-raunch) being given a rapturous reception by Les Froggais.
“They say I’m too old to rock ’n’ roll!” the long-haired, balding boiler suit bellowed. “We’ll fuckin’ see about that!”
Primal rock war horses like “Walking The Dog” and his own numbers like “Suicide Jockey” and “Styrofoam” were lapped up by the crowd, as was an original he did called “The Young Lords”, which was included on the “Bunch Of Stiffs” album.
“I don’t care ’bout the Young Lords, /They mean nothing to me, /Even though they are the meanest people in the galaxy... I don't care!”
The Jam are told that the contract is void and they will have to play after the Feelgoods. They insist the contract is adhered to, as they don’t want to play when people have started to drift away. They are all choked when they finally reach the decision to blow out the festival. “Do you think we should have played?” Bruce Foxton asks me, torn up inside as he tries to sort out his exploding brain.
I tell him that I think they should have played because they are better than any other band on that day’s bill and the only way to prove it is to get up there and play.
“Why you no play?” demands Little Bob Piazza.
“Don’t tell me to do something you weren’t prepared to do yourself,
Bob,” Bruce says. “You didn’t want to go on after the Feelgoods either.”
Rat Scabies and Joe Strummer watch the crowd reaction to Sean Tyla’s verbal acid and rile at the slaggings the man’s giving the punk bands.
“Ere, Joe, listen to that!”
The Little Bobs come on after Tyla and, though they play well below form and are disgusted with their own performance, the French crowd treat them like homecoming heroes and go predictably apeshit.
A fourteen year old French-American kid with shoulder-length hair shares a joint with Strummer. “CBS is a fucked record company,” the kid tells us and we don’t argue with him.
Paul Weller wanders the corridors of the bullring with his girlfriend, trying to come to terms with the fact that he’s not going to be playing. As the Rods take the stage and tear into some Oil City rivvem ’n’ blooze, Joe Strummer is leaning against a jukebox in a backstreet bar listening to Stones, Abba and David Bowie singles.
“Ain’t Too Proud To Beg was the last time I thought the Stones were great,” he says. “Y’know what singer I like? The bird in Middle Of The Road. The time me and Rodent had that flat the only records we had were an Abba Greatest Hits, a Middle Of The Road album and maybe a Junior Murvin single... people thought we were fuckin’ mad.”
Joe says that the misinterpretation of his lyrics has caused him to consider putting a lyric sheet on their next record, as the discrepancies are often resulting in people reading into their songs attitudes that are the exact antithesis of the subject matter.
“Like when in ‘1977’ I said, ‘Sten guns in Knightsbridge!’” he sings. “What I was saying was if that happened then we’d be running the other way because we ain’t got guns... just guitars.”
Another Clash song greatly misinterpreted is “Hate And War”, often quoted as “The only things we got to hate,” which makes the Clash sound like bleedin’ pacifist hippies. That’s wrong! Over to you, Joe.
“It’s ‘The only things we got today!’ It’s a declaration of very real hostilities.” Yeah, but a lot of it is people using your songs to project their own visions. “Like in ‘Career Opportunities’ I always sing, ‘I don’t wanna go fighting in a Belfast street,’ instead of ‘tropical heat.’”
“Yeah, that’s better...”
Shucks, Joe.
Back in the stadium the Feelgoods reveal they are, without Wilko, no more than a fine R&B band and French rockers Bijou come on afterwards to prove that they’re a fine band somewhere between The Jam and the Flamin’ Groovies.
They also prove that the crowd at French festivals are willing to rock all night long and don’t go away when the headliners have finished.
Bernie Rhodes looks around the crowded bullring as Bijou rock out the Mont de Marsan festival and a wistful smile comes to his lips.
“If only we knew that they were here,” he says quietly. “Locked up somewhere inside the stadium... we could set them free into the bullring and they could get their own back.”
Who are you talking about, Bernie?
The eyes gleam behind the glasses.
“The bulls,” he says.
The true stars of the festival get down in time-honoured fashion. Right, young hippy talks to Barrie Masters disguised as Donovan.
The Clash at play
The true stars of the festival get down in time-honoured fashion. Right, young hippy talks to Barrie Masters disguised as Donovan.
NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS - August 13th, 1977