When I was 18, in my first year at college in Newcastle in 1979, it was possibly the whole country's primo heavy rock town, so much so that bands would often book two or three consecutive dates there or include it on a limited tour of the provinces.
As a consequence, there were great swathes of long-haired denim and leather clad hoards just hanging around, especially on a Saturday afternoon in Old Eldon Gardens, which had been a hang out place since the early 60s and was now a rocker place. People weren’t doing much, some were drinking, but it was largely a peaceful affair and a place to show off your latest hippy clothes purchase from Fynd or a secondhand album from the Kard Bar. It was a ritual and a good place to strike up conversations about UFO or the Scorpions with other like-minded people.
While there were variations, I’d say 90% of people liked the same bands. Everyone liked Zep and Free, for example. I never met anyone who didn’t. It now strikes me as quite extraordinary, but I suppose there were fewer bands in general and, as everyone read the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker, we all shared a similar level of knowledge about what was going on.. While I was very much on board with the mainstream passions, I had branched out into West coast psychedelia and the blues.
It was like the town was a small village. You saw the same people all the time. Different generations from kids to people in their 30s, who we considered ancient. The blokes always seemed to work for the Post Office or British Rail because they allowed workers to have long hair, and long hair on men was an important cultural marker. There was a circuit of ‘hairy’ pubs that the same people all went to and toured around. It got to the point where you could go out on your own and hook up with a group of people you knew in the Haymarket, The Farmers Rest, The Percy Arms (where Dawn’s grandad was actually born), City Tavern, or the Market Tavern.
It was the opposite of today, when everyone is wrapped up in their personalised playlists and recommendations, yet we took it all for granted at the time and thought nothing of it. We didn’t realise we were living through a unique phase in the city's life, because in just a few years, and certainly by the late 80s, it had dissipated, and I don’t think it has existed for a long time.
Yet I look back on those days with affection because, in a way, it provided a cultural home for your choices. A non-critical environment. Rock music was a real cement that, for a few years, held us all together. I don’t think it could happen now for cultural, technological, and societal reasons. It was a special time that I would wager was reproduced to some degree in towns, villages and cities the length and breadth of the country.
