22-january-1977 The Jam
DATE: Saturday, 22nd, January, 1977
LOCATION: 90 Wardour Street
MAIN ACT: Beraded Lady
SUPPORTING ACT: The Jam
Press on this night
Paul Weller: The Gigs That Gave Birth To A Legend - The Independent Online, February 2006
Author: Adrian Thrills
"They ended up as big as any band since The Beatles, but you would never have guessed it had you been inside London's Marquee Club one evening in January 1977. The Jam were supporting a band called Bearded Lady, and they were having difficulty rousing a laid-back audience who, as was often the way back then, were happy to sit cross-legged on the floor. Frustrated at the lack of crowd reaction, singer Paul Weller threw everything into his performance. At 18, he was a gutsy, aggressive front man who barked out his clipped, gruff vocal lines while flailing energetically at the strings of a red Rickenbacker in the style of one of his heroes, the Who guitarist Pete Townshend. All this, though, was to little avail. The cross-legged crowd remained resolutely rooted to the spot.
In desperation, Paul gestured in my direction. I had first seen The Jam a few months earlier at the nearby 100 Club and had gone along to the Marquee with a couple of friends, Shane and Claudio, whom I had met at punk concerts in the capital. As The Jam rushed towards the end of their set, the three of us were ushered onstage by Paul, where we, too, played our part in trying to liven up the evening. I can't remember exactly how we danced (it must have been some unholy cross between the punk-rock pogo and Sixties-style gogo), but I do recall the jeers that came from the still-seated hordes on the floor, the "disgusted Marquee hippies" as Paul would call them years later on the sleeve-notes to The Jam's posthumous live album, Dig The New Breed."
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