Dirty Work

THE WORLD'S FIRST
SCIENCE FICTION MUSIC FESTIVAL

In 1979 Britain witnessed the birth of an idiosyncratic cultural institution. Operating as a kind of ‘anti-festival’ – a transmogrification of established music festival mores – this showcase for progressive northern talent was themed (initially) around modernist notions of science fiction and ‘the future’.

Progressive elements of the original post-punk scene have been described as popular-modernists, exhibiting an enthusiasm for technology and the thematic deployment of notions of the future. For those coming of age in the sixties and seventies, such future-facing imperatives were informed by the residual excitement of the ‘space race’ and a steady diet of space-age science fiction. Popular culture instilled a modernist fantasy of a high-speed, high-tech future founded on constant exploration and unlimited scientific progress.

The most obvious collision of science-fiction and the post-punk music scene arrived in the form of Futurama. Launched in 1979 as “the world’s first science fiction music festival”, these annual events were the brainchild of Leeds promoter John Keenan. Futurama was to feature some of most progressive post-punk acts of the day – a mix of headline acts, emerging groups, novelty acts and local bands – spread over an entire weekend in September. 

The venue for the first couple of festivals was the cavernous Queens Hall (a former tram shed and bus depot) in Leeds. Despite a recent history of hosting events, the hall had a reputation for being uncomfortably cold and suffering from poor acoustics. Dark and dingy with toilets prone to flooding, it didn’t even possess the facilities for rubbish collection, leaving punters to bed-down amongst the accumulated debris. Anecdotes of those that attended attest to not only the impact of the performances but also the wretchedness of the conditions coating everyone therein with a thin layer of grime from the filthy concrete floor.

Keenan’s vision of a science fiction theme involved comic stalls, screenings of cult sci-fi movies and a futuristic lightshow. However, such ambitions proved difficult to implement and the sci-fi theme became more tenuous over time. Despite negotiating rights to screen movies, at the last-minute permission was withdrawn. The lightshow consisted of a couple of the expensively hired lasers. Unfortunately, the lights generated so much heat they needed to be cooled with gallons of water (causing a partial flooding of the hall) and could only be used sporadically. The science fiction aesthetic for Futurama 1, was eventually reduced to a couple of individuals dressed as robots and more bizarrely, the installation of an inflatable bouncy cushion. 

If the setting for the first Futurama 1 struggled to impart a coherent sense of the future, the headline act – Public Image Limited – the quintessential post-punk band, represented a departure from rock’s recent past. Formed the previous year by John Lydon in the wake of the Sex Pistols acrimonious split, Public Image symbolized post-punk’s departure from the formulaic tropes of punk. Sadly, PiL’s performance failed to live up to its billing. Truculent and visibly antagonized by a hostile northern crowd, Lydon turned his back to the audience before exiting the stage early. 

For the first couple of Futurama festivals, an established act from yesteryear was booked to wrap-up events on the final night. In 1979, it was seventies, psychedelic space-rockers Hawkwind. A year later it was aging glam-rocker Gary Glitter (at the time a slightly tragic cultural institution, latterly a convicted sex offender). Keenan’s purported reasoning for booking these ‘has been’ acts was that a reference to the past provided a context for contemporary sounds. This theory was tested when in 1983, a re-imagined version of seventies boyband The Bay City Rollers proved a postmodern bridge too far for Futurama 5’s discerning audience, almost causing a riot.

Because of its geographical location, the early festivals had a distinctly northern bias. Many of the groups, hailed from the scene’s key regional outposts – Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield – which had sprung up in response to the London-centric birth of punk. Keenan supplemented the bill with a smattering of local bands – established and unsigned – who he calculated would boost attendance. Keen to support the local music scene, Keenan felt the national exposure would provide a necessary shot-in-the-arm. One such beneficiary was Soft Cell, an experimental duo from the nearby Polytechnic, who appeared at Futurama 2 and went on to achieve global electro-pop stardom.

When in 1981 a rival promoter booked the Queens Hall, Keenan relocated Futurama 3 to a showground in Stafford (a location described as “the middle of nowhere”). The 1982 festival was hosted in a converted ice rink in North Wales. By the time 1983 came around, Keenan was free to return to the Queens Hall for Futurama 5. By this point goth bands dominated the festival listings, the event had lost much of its former allure and an appetite for the future had been all-but extinguished.

 

Futurama was instrumental in establishing Leeds as a hub for alternative music and cementing its claim as the home of UK goth. However, rather than a mere incubator for the faux necromancy which followed, it is the “monumental and towering performance” of Joy Division in September 1979 – months before Ian Curtis suicide – which is the true legacy of Futurama. The spectral nature Kevin Cummings’ iconic photo’s, Curtis forever gazing out into the dark, dank, Queens Hall, towards the ruins of a future which failed to arrive, is the unceasing revenant of post-punk’s unfulfilled modernist project.