The Toads Gig List
The Toads played the following (few) gigs in 1977.
22 April
Kingsway Pub, King Street, Norwich - a private "multiple" birthday party for, I've only now (November 2016) found out, Tim, Graham and David. We managed to perform about four songs and then the whole thing was stopped by the pub landlady who hadn't realised it was going to be a punk party and didn't exactly like us a lot! For write ups on this gig see Vomit Issue 4 (Dirty Dan's Boring Editorial) and Breakdown Issue 2 (article by NIJ, page 18) downloads of which can be found on the Fanzines page.
5 June
Wymondham College with another local group, the Victims, who we had met at a concert at West Runton Pavilion. This was once one of the main gig locations in Norfolk and now almost forgotten about - in 1977 it hosted, amongst others, the Jam, the Damned, the Buzzcocks, T.Rex and, oh yes... the Slits!
12 June
Cambridge Street Queens's Jubilee Street Party, Norwich. Also playing were the Stain. See Vomit Issue 5 for a write up of this gig.
30 July
3Cs (Charing Cross Centre), St John Maddermarket. Also playing were the Victims plus the Bondage Boys (see the Turkey Molesters). Vomit Issue 5 has more info on this gig and it was also reviewed in the Mutant Flyer fanzine.
10 September
Premises Arts Centre, St Benedicts Street (which became an indoor market later on). Support group were the Turkey Molesters. Photographs of the band from what was probably this gig can be found on the Punk in the East site (photos by Trace Newton-Ingham).
24 September
Premises Street Roots Party, Premises Arts Centre. Also playing were Thandoy and Here and Now. See the More page for a downloadable copy of the Premises September 1977 events guide which lists this gig.
8 November
Peoples Nightclub (now 'lost' somewhere behind redevelopments in Westlegate). Our first gig as a 3-piece, we were the support band to Rumblestrips whose lead singer, Philip Bird, now acts and writes.
15 November
Peoples (with Rumblestrips again).
22 November
Peoples (with Rumblestrips)
1 December
Premises supporting Radio Stars (whose lead singer, Andy Ellison, was in Marc Bolan's pre-fame group, John's Children) who charged us half our paltry £20 payment to use their PA system! There's also a small mention of this gig here. Also see the More page for a downloadable copy of the Premises December 1977 events guide which lists this gig.
4 December
Wymondham College. Also playing were the Victims plus Rasputin and His Mad Monks (see the Turkey Molesters).
6 December
The final gig at Peoples. Paul Cheetham also joined us for one song. Also playing were Rasputin and His Mad Monks and the Right Hand Lovers (the latter sported members called Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse).
The early gigs were interesting as we had very little equipment and sometimes two guitars had to share the same amp. The first (awful) gig also had the vocals going through a guitar amp as well. All members except Polo wrote songs and the composer of each song always sung lead on it. This caused problems as both Dave and Paul preferred to play rhythm guitar while singing lead vocals and therefore swapped over guitars if the lead changed. I didn't play bass and so stuck to rhythm.