Punch On The Road - superb BBC documentary of a band playing the club circuit in 1976

[editor]

This is a superb documentary showing just how tough life was on the social club/working men's club circuit in the 1970s, right before punk Year Zero.

Depressing how so many of these gigs have now vanished.



YouTube comment:

It seems pretty clear to me that the 1983 Comic Strip mockumentary ‘Bad News Tour’ is a send up of this film. However, to their credit, the Comic Strip weren’t mocking the band, but we’re actually remaking the film itself, only with a heavy metal band in place of Punch. The scenes of the members at home, their lonely van on the road, pulling up in front of the first club, and the audition scene are almost exact recreations from this documentary.

And from the film:

"They don't clap us when we come out the pit. Why should we clap them when they get off the stage?"

 

[ska invita]

"They don't clap us when we come out the pit. Why should we clap them when they get off the stage?"

Theyre not great but tbf playing to audiences like that doesnt bring out the best in you
Showbiz is a cruel world....
the opportunity knocks producers the arrogance...

 

[editor]

Theyre not great but tbf playing to audiences like that doesnt bring out the best in you
Showbiz is a cruel world....
the opportunity knocks producers the arrogance...

When I was 16 we'd play the working men's clubs of the Welsh valleys. Full of angry, drunk miners.
The crowds sometimes looked pretty much the same as those in the video.

You had to play covers, so for us the trick was to find 'rockish' tunes that would please such an audience but you certainly learnt a lot about stagecraft in such a potentially hostile environment.

There was pretty much a fight every night. It was fucking hard work too, lugging gear up huge flights of stairs and onto high stages.