Saturday night at The Longlands Club. The crowd’s a real
mixture but split 90/10. 10% are clearly the old punks wearing SLF / TV Smith
/ Clash t-shirts. People who probably remember Toyah’s appearance on Shoestring
in 1979 and own the EP ‘Sheep Farming In Barnet’. 90% have probably never heard of ‘Sheep
Farming….’ , probably had big perms in 1985 and love those 'Hits of the 80’s'
arena gigs featuring Tony Hadley, Nick Heyward, Kim Wilde etc.
I take a quick photo of Toyah’s set list before she comes on
so I’ve a record of the song order and within seconds there’s a stampede of
other people doing the same. Finally Toyah and band walk on stage. Tonight it’s
a ‘Proud, Loud and Electric’ show rather than ‘Acoustic, up close and personal’.
Toyah and band get an extremely warm welcome from the ‘Boro crowd and she’s
clearly very pleased. A huge grin rarely leaves her face all night. The hits
are all played. Crowd pleasing anthems for people to sing along to. ’Good
Morning Universe’, ‘Rebel Run’, ‘Thunder In The Mountains’, ‘Be Proud, Be Loud,
Be Heard’, ‘I Wanna Be Free’, ‘Echo Beach’ – I’ll admit to never knowing this
was released by Toyah as a single in 1987. That 90% love it. Lots of singing,
lots of dancing, lots of smiling.
A cover of Nancy Sinatra’s ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’,
released by Toyah with her other band The Humans slows things down but doesn’t
quite fit with tonight’s set.
Amongst all this there were some great moments. A blistering
cover of Billy Idol’s ‘Rebel Yell’ together with the superb ‘Neon Womb’ and ‘Danced’
from 1979’s ‘Sheep Farming In Barnet’ keep the 10% happy temporarily. As does
closing song, 1980’s ‘Ieya’. But selfies? Tonight she’s got to dash for an
early morning flight so to make up for the fact she won’t be around afterwards
to sign things the crowd are invited to squash in at the front to take selfies
whilst she sings on stage. Come on - we’re all in our 40’s/early 50’s not
14/15. And it was during the intro to ‘Danced’ thereby taking the edge off one
of the best songs of the night. Plenty took her up on the offer so maybe it’s
just me that has a problem with this sort of thing.
Those big mid 80’s tunes probably made Toyah sack loads of
money but I get the distinct impression Toyah’s favourites are the really early
songs. Released at the end of the punk era and at the peak of New Wave many a
spikey topped young rebel will have had these sitting alongside their
Buzzcocks/Clash/Skids 7” pieces of vinyl.
It’s almost 40 years since those really decent tracks. It’s
a good 35 years since those big songs yet Toyah’s voice has lost none of its
distinct sound or power.
As well as some upcoming solo shows and a few of those
dreadful 80’s nights Toyah also plays two of the big punk/indie festivals –
Rebellion and The Great British Alternative Music Festival. It’ll be
interesting to see how she’s accepted at those.
