Punk rock, packaged, parcelled, and boxed up as a treat for nostalgic wrinklies. That’s the deal with Punk Off!, a touring show that recently completed a lap of the country at the Dominion Theatre. Most of the audience were there to recall their rebellious heyday. ‘It’s about to get really, really loud,’ announced the compère, Kevin Kennedy, as the four-piece band hammered out ‘Sheena Is A Punk Rocker’ ‘and ‘If the Kids Are United’. Both hits sounded eerily unfamiliar. Why? Those raucous, pulsing rhythms can’t be turned into elevator jingles or a background drone at a shopping mall – so we rarely hear them. Just as well.
Kennedy rattled through the major turning points in the movement’s history. In 1974 Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood opened their anti-fashion shop, Sex, on the King’s Road. On 4 June 1976, the Sex Pistols played at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, ‘to a crowd of just 40’, said Kennedy, ‘and not the 4,000 who later claimed to have been there’. The audience included Morrissey, Tony Wilson, Ian Curtis of New Order and Pete Shelley, who founded Buzzcocks. On 1 December 1976, punk became a national sensation after Johnny Rotten and Steve Jones used foul language on a live news show hosted by Bill Grundy for Thames TV (not for the BBC, as Kennedy claimed).
The history lesson was punctuated by a medley of hits from the leather-clad band accompanied by four prancing chorus girls. The musicians were fine. The dancers relied on over-rehearsed moves and they wore a selection of chic and attractive Westwood-esque costumes. That looked wrong. Punk fashions were revolting, ugly and improvised.
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