Watching an episode of a Mexican TV thriller last night (Oscuro Deseo, Dark Desire) triggered a dark memory that I had buried deep inside and it made me shudder. The scene was of a man coming up behind another man and wrapping an arm around the victim’s neck so that he couldn’t move.
I was at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, London on Saturday December 8, 1979, (I had to look up the date). This was the first night of two at the venue at the end of the Talking Heads’ ‘Fear of Music’ UK tour, the support act were Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. I went to the gig with my sister Jane and Chris, her boyfriend at the time. I was excited to see the band perform what for me was one of the most interesting albums of the year. I had seen them perform twice previously in the USA.
Following the support act, which I thoroughly enjoyed, but I was really waiting for the main event when the Talking Heads, then still a four piece, came on and without any introduction from David Byrne launched into Artists Only, followed by Stay Hungry from earlier albums and then into several from Fear of Music beginning with Cities. The place was rammed, standing room only, there was an excited atmosphere and it was very, very loud. I became separated from Jane and Chris, they were somewhere in front of me and I was maybe 10 yards from the stage. I was getting into the music – “Heaven, a place where nothing ever happens,” when all of a sudden out of nowhere an arm came round my neck from behind and I was caught in a tight stranglehold by a man whose face I never saw. Very disturbing, he shouted something in my ear, but I couldn’t make out what he was on about. I kept trying to say “Who are you?” But forming words was difficult and the noise of the band deafened everything. He kept shouting in my ear. I was freaking out, constrained by the density of bodies all around me and unable to do anything with this strong arm lock around my throat. The more I struggled the tighter the grip became. Mind racing, was it a case of mistaken identity? Did I have a doppleganger who had done something awful to this man. Was it because I happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? How was this going to end? Minutes went by, I have no idea how many, possibly two or three songs worth. Nobody noticed my situation or if they did perhaps they just thought it was normal behaviour, I felt helpless and frightened and totally at the mercy of a violent unseen stranger.
Eventually the grip around my throat slightly loosened and I managed to wriggle free, I shot away at speed through the crowd away from this unknown person, didn’t even look back and located my sister and Chris and said I need to go right now. Got out of there with adrenalin racing, relieved and explained what had happened to me. Missed the rest of the set, which I later found out ended with Psycho Killer and as an encore Life During Wartime.
Two years or so later I returned to see the Talking Heads once more on their Remain in Light tour at the Hammersmith Odeon, a more pleasurable experience. Just today I found a live sound recording of the very same Electric Ballroom gig, strange to hear it after all this time and I can hear the songs that I missed that night. At the end of the encore Byrne says, “Don’t bother clapping that’s all we’re going to do.” But I am still a huge fan.

Psychokiller (nearly)