LIVE!

In 1972, when Robert Elms was thirteen years old, he saw The Jackson 5 play live at a gig that changed his life. As a result of the ‘divine delirium’ he experienced, Robert has spent the best part of 40 years attending music events in an endless pursuit for that same height of pleasure. Live! is the memoir of a life lived through live music, a musing on why music matters and how there can never be anything quite like the live experience.

It all began with ABC.

Because everything is now recorded in the know-it-all ether, I can tell you that this event took place on Sunday 12th November 1972, which makes me thirteen, a year younger than Michael. He was part of the coolest collection of singing siblings on earth (please don’t dare mention the Osmonds). I was a pupil in form 3B at Orange Hill Grammar School for boys in Burnt Oak, which happened to be a twentyminute bus ride away from Wembley, where The Jackson 5 were appearing at the still pompously, pre-woke Empire Pool.

Somebody, probably Danny Stern who had an older brother with a bass guitar, went along to Wembley, as was the way in those days, and bought four tickets from the Box Office to see The Jackson 5’s first ever British tour and my first ever live gig. Four third form herberts let loose on a Sabbath night.

I came from a Tamla household. My two elder brothers had a pretty good collection of singles, usually inscribed with the name Reg on the labels so that they could be reclaimed at parties, and they were almost all either soul or reggae. Detroit’s finest dominated and pale skinned pop music didn’t get a look in. As far as albums went it was compilations; This Is Soul, the deep Atlantic one with the jigsaw sleeve, Tighten Ups for the latest ska and rocksteady from Jamaica and of course Motown Chartbusters Volumes 1-6 inclusive, including The Jackson 5 and Junior

Walker and The All Stars, who were the support act at the Wembley show.

I immediately started telling people I was really going to see Junior Walker, whose ‘Roadrunner’ was a particular favourite of mine, which proves that I was a pretentious poseur from a very early age. Saying you prefer the support act has always been a hipster’s trick. But of course, truth be told, I was super-excited to see some cartoon characters come alive.

The idea that famous musicians are real flesh and blood human beings was still hard to comprehend. In the way that school kids find it difficult to imagine their teachers with lives away from the classroom or the staff room, until they see them drinking and smoking in the pub on the last day of term, so pop stars existed only on Top of the Pops. And given that The Jackson 5 were also animations, it made their sudden appearance just up the road from the Blackbirds pub where my parents would occasionally stop for a pint and a port and lemon, even more miraculous.

WEARING THE CORRECT ATTIRE FOR A CONCERT HAS BEEN A PARAMOUNT CONCERN EVER SINCE, TARTAN FOR ROD, BONDAGE FOR THE PISTOLS, ALWAYS A WHISTLE AT RONNIE’S

Yet here I was putting on my best clobber, including my maroon shirt with the lollipop lapels, my new stripy tank-top and my channel seam trousers with the French flare, to go and see them. In person, in real life. Live.

Wearing the correct attire for a concert has been a paramount concern ever since, tartan for Rod, bondage for the Pistols, always a whistle at Ronnie’s. Getting dressed up to party down is a big part of the build-up to an event, a statement of intent, but on this night, it seemed even more important because of course there would be girls present. Going to an all-boys’ school, with only brothers at home, meant that the proximity of females of a similar age was a rare and terrifying treat and they had to be treated to my most fashionable garms. Going to gigs was already sexy.

Quite why I thought anybody would notice me, a skinny ginger kid in a crowd of thousands I have no idea, but I can still feel the visceral rush, the tsunami of sound ricocheting around that big echoing hangar as the audience whipped themselves into a frenzy. I don’t think anybody noticed Junior Walker either, including me, because it was all about those five funky Jackson boys. There was an MC helping to foment the fervour, but it didn’t take much to get this particular crowd going, an excitable cross section of north-west London’s first truly multi-cultural generation. Black and white unite and scream.

The loudest crowd noise ever recorded in the UK came from just over the road at Wembley Stadium, for a women’s international hockey match in the 1970s, with a higher decibel count than Concorde in full flight. The girls can certainly make some noise. We used to go as a gang of local lads and stand outside the stadium for those hockey matches, just to hear the hormones at work and get a glimpse of the young ladies in a state of high excitement. But to be in amongst this maelstrom of teenage pandemonium was somewhere between exhilarating and terrifying.

I was used to the crush and rush of football; I’d been going to games with mates from about the age of ten or eleven and could navigate my way round the often unruly and occasionally downright dangerous terraces of London’s ramshackle grounds. If you’ve been to Cold Blow Lane and lived to tell the tale you already feel battle-hardened. But this was different, suddenly I was deep in the independent republic of Teenlandia, where grown-ups played no part and juvenile rules applied.

THREE MINUTES OF DIVINE OR MAYBE DIABOLICAL DELIRIUM. THAT WAS THE MOMENT IT ALL BEGAN

The girls were vocally ferocious, singing, chanting, screaming, some waving banners, many professing undying love for Michael, Marlon or Jermaine. But it was the boys present, although outnumbered and certainly out shouted, who were throwing the funky shapes, doing their best Soul Train impressions, flares flapping furiously, legs spinning, arms weaving as the DJ played Motown classics between sets. Boys at gigs like to get physical, from mosh pits to pogoing, they make their presence known with movement and motion. Me, I stood and watched, transfixed by the carnival of the crowd.

Michael, already the star, was somewhere between a phenomenon and an automaton, a marvel, and in retrospect perhaps a tragedy. I actually remember very little of the concert, it was a beautiful musical blur, but I distinctly recall the moment. I have no idea where it came in the set, but it was one of those frozen in time fragments, which I can still summon at will. That brief pause between numbers, when a sharp, expectant silence reigns and the five up on stage were all potential kinetic energy, the audience all ‘what comes next’ anticipation.

And then it happens; Jermain’s bass swoops and Michael’s afro bobs down in perfect time to the opening chord and that introductory boom boom boom boom b-boom and immediately everybody present can name that tune in one. A roar fills the air and a whoosh of unfettered pleasure sweeps through the mass of people present. A collective outpouring, a communal exaltation, orgasmic and fantastic. ABC, as easy as do-re-mi, as perfect as anything I’ve ever witnessed up until that point in my tiny little life. Three minutes of divine or maybe diabolical delirium. That was the moment it all began.