The most disgusting show Lemmy ever played: “He got Hepatitis C”
When Lemmy formed Motörhead in 1975, he had already had a lot of experience playing on tour with his former band Hawkwind, who were committed to building a solid fanbase, and the best way to do that was by constantly touring up and down the country.
It was a stressful ordeal, sure, but it eventually meant that they were playing to bigger crowds, and as Hawkwind member Dave Brock recalled, “That’s what brings a band together, constantly playing and travelling”.
So much time on the road meant that when Lemmy left the band to start Motörhead, he was already a veteran when it came to performing, but as the band started playing in 1975, they were unaware that the live music scene was on the brink of changing forever. Over the next 12 months, the punk movement would steadily take hold, and it meant that gigs became much more hostile places.
John Lydon admitted that it was the state of the country which inspired him and Sex Pistols to make the music that they did. He described Britain as a miserable place at the time, highlighthe ing how people couldn’t pay their bills, unemployment was on the rise, and the fissure between the working and upper classes kept growing larger and larger. He said, “Out of all that came pretentious moi, and the Sex Pistols”.
The crowds who went to watch punk music were doing so, looking for a release. The bands were a way for them to channel their anger at how much politics and society seemed to have left them behind. As such, audiences were often aggressive, and gigs were unpredictable, sometimes breaking out in fights and riots.
Motörhead were at one of these chaotic gigs towards the back end of the ‘70s. They were playing their brand of heavy metal alongside a load of punk bands, and it meant that the crowd was a tale of two halves. Neither liked the other, and so the show was a disgusting mess of anger and violence. Lemmy looked back on the show and called it one of the worst he played.
“I don’t like sticking labels on things, but music and attitude-wise, we were always more of a punk band than a metal one,” he said. “The mutual respect only went so far, though. We did a gig at the Roundhouse with The Damned and The Adverts, where our fans threw bottles at them, and their mob spat at us. Shortly after that, some bastard gobbed right down Joe Strummer’s throat, and he got Hepatitis C.”
It was the audiences at punk gigs which turned a lot of artists off the genre. For instance, you’d have thought that Angus Young and the members of AC/DC would have been fans of this energetic new sound, but they also hated it because of how unpredictable those who watched were. In their pursuit of escapism, a lot of punk lovers wound up just pissing a lot of musicians off.
“[Punks] were locked into selling anarchy, like a political thing. To be honest with you, the first time I heard the word ‘anarchy’, I had to get a dictionary to look up the fucker! I’m limited, meaning a limited education, so that wasn’t communicating anything to me,” said Angus Young.
“We would get punks showing up, and spitting, and when anyone got hit by gob, we’d be in the audience punching the shit out of them.”
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