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Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, and Larry Wallis, hardly bored teenagers, initiated a set of vigorous rock 'n' roll with no frills or pretensions. These seasoned professionals alternated in taking the lead, and climaxed with a rousing rendition of Edmunds "I Knew The Bride."
Enter the diminutive figure of Wreckless Eric. Twitching nervously, he launched into his special brand of epileptic rock, with its berserk guitar work dueling and defying turgid sax breaks. His originality and lack of inhibition were a delight.
Next up was Elvis Costello, a bespectacled figure who would look more at home behind the bars of Barclays bank. His songs were perceptive and intelligent and were delivered with the calculated aggression of a well-drilled psychopath.
His rock ballads are well structured and it can only be a matter of time before some established singer decides to cover a Costello song.
Ian Dury, topping the bill, comes over as a cross between Charlie Chaplin and a village idiot. Hunched over the microphone with an inane grin on his face he launched into "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll."
Singing of nuptial pleasures, his eyeballs bulged, the veins on his sweaty gristly neck pulsated as he leered and jerked around the stage.
As Dury laid into his second encore the whole Stiff circus joined him on stage to end the evening creating an informal party-like finale. Three hours of good rock and then eighteen people on stage together singing, pogoing and fooling. Who said there were no more heroes?
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