On this day 43 years my life was to change forever. I had just turned 12 years, painfully shy and trying desperately to fit in and be the same as everyone else. A glorious sound was about to blast my eardrums and open my eyes to a new world. Looking After No 1 taught me to be like me and embrace difference. I was about to embark on a teenage crush that would last a life time. Lets hear some social commentary.
https://youtu.be/gt4eJ1bvwbk
May 1978 and the decision to hitchhike to Oxford from Ipswich (via London....no A14 then!) to see The Rats on the Tonic for the Troops tour. I spent hours listening to the album and loved every track (bar I Can’t Stop!). It was my mates idea to go and I just seemed to go along with it. We arrived at Oxford by about 11, nearly got beaten up by ‘Teddy Boys’ (as was the thing then) and then met the BTRs. Blind Date opened the show and I still think it was one of the best starts to any gig I have been to. Half way through the gig Bob introduced a song which mentioned the ‘two people who have come here from Ipswich’ - I think it was Normal People! After the gig I left a note on their tour transit van saying ‘come to Ipswich’ - in November that same year on a mini tour they came! I’ll never know if my note had any sway. Slept in a hedge, got searched by the Police and finally somehow got home about 12 the following day. Exhausted, elated and forever a fan.
I was about 19 and had lived in a youth hostel, then briefly a house that was condemned on to living in the worst area I'd ever lived and was a bit lost, my partner introduced me to rat trap and it was like a smack in the face with how relevant and perfect it was, I've not stopped listening to the rats since 😁
I turned 14 on Sunday and the first time I heard the Rats I was 12. I was obsessed with The Cure and The Clash back then (actually still am), but then my Dad showed me I don't like Mondays & Rat trap and it really blew my mind. I started teaching myself to play guitar, and by now I'm guitarist in my school's BigBand and proud Guitarist/Singer/Frontgirl of my own Blues-Rockband. Though Bowie, Hendrix, Stones and Thin Lizzy were a huge Influence as well, without The Rats that whole thing would've never happened, and you can't believe how thankful I am for that.
Must have been great hearing them from the very beginning jules, i only got that pleasure few years later, but i still remember that special feeling...TOTP was great in those days..x