14th September 1977: Rock Garden, Newport Road,
Middlesbrough 
Supporting The Rezillos, local band Lice? were also on
the bill. Warsaw went on first.
Songs performed:
1. Reaction
2. Inside The Line
3. Leaders Of Men
4. Novelty
5. At A Later Date
6. Tension
7. Kill
8. Lost
Appx. duration: 28 mins. Sound
quality: 7/9
All songs appeared on the following bootlegs:
At an Earlier Date LP
Leaders Of Men CD
Reaction LP
Warsaw
- The Lost, Complete 1977 Recordings 2LP
Warsaw
- Middlesbrough 14th September 1977 / Joy Division -
Manchester 28th September 1979 LP
"One of our next public outings was at the Middlesbrough
Rock Garden supporting the Rezillos, a lovely bunch of
lads and a lass from Scotland. The Rezillos were a kind of
glam cartoon rock-and-roll band on speed, and a really
good live band. They had a single out and signed a deal
with Seymour Stein’s Sire label. They and their manager,
Bob Last, seemed to like what they saw in us and asked us
to do some gigs with them" - Stephen Morris, Record Play
Pause: Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist: Volume 1
. Little, Brown Book Group.
Lice? were a Middlesbrough band who took their name from
poster in a pub toilet warning of the perils of pubic lice
which simply said, ‘Lice?'. Band member Jon has the
following recollections:
’…We (Lice?) were one of the
support bands. The Rezillos asked us if it would be OK if
this Manchester band, Warsaw (who we hadn’t heard of),
could play first. We said that would be OK, no probs. When
Warsaw played there were only about fifty in audience,
most of whom were our friends or friends of friends. A
mate of our bassist was really pissed and threw a plastic
glass which bounced off Ian Curtis’ head as he was running
across some tables. The Rezillos' road crew were worried
that they (The Rezillos) might get banned from The Rock
Garden because of him. I had to explain that none of us
knew him, that he was a mate of our bassist and we’d never
seen him before. Mind you, I think they noticed this mad
bloke (who was wearing a flight suit with DRILL ME written
on it) talking to us. He didn't come to any more of our
gigs!’
Garry (singer in local band Discharge): ‘…I spent about
ten minutes talking to Ian Curtis a couple of hours before
the gig… nice guy...’
Ian (singer in local band Savage Passion): ‘…I interviewed
The Rezillos for my fanzine ‘Strictly Rockers’ in The
Acklam pub, we could hear Warsaw soundchecking. I wrote
the interview down on a piece of paper but lost it at the
gig… I got a kiss off Fay Fife!…’
Photo: Rob F and
Seth Eigenmann |
We finally found out
what songs were performed at this gig in Spring
2010 when a cassette tape, recorded by Bob Last
and given to Hooky after the gig, was put on
display as part of Peter Hook's speaking tour.
Hooky has played extracts from the tape at various
times: In June 1990 he played Leaders Of Men on
the Piccadilly Radio
Show (although he incorrectly said it was
Warsaw live in Middlesbrough 1978) and in June
2007 he posted an mp3 of Reaction on his MySpace
site.
In August 2011 the recording was leaked when a
single copy of the At an Earlier
Date bootleg LP turned up an a Manchester
record shop.
In November 2011 this concert appeared on the Leaders Of Men bootleg CD
along with a previously unreleased rehearsal
session. The sound quality suggests this comes
from a low generation recording.
In December 2011 the Reaction
bootleg LP appeared which had the same tracks as
the Leaders Of Men bootleg
CD but with one track missing |
