1978 was without doubt the most turbulent and exciting year I’ve lived through to date. What follows is part one with some of my musical highlights that year. (Thanks to setlist.fm for giving me some pointers to dates and places.) 

New Year’s Eve 1977 into 78 started with a long bus journey to a community centre in Hunter’s Point to see and dance to Queen Ida and her Bon Temps Zydeco Band, a wonderful and joyful way to see in 1978. This was my real introduction to zydeco music, I bought the album that night and still have it. 

    This was a year of many gigs and live music for me, starting close to my birthday in January at what proved to be the final Sex Pistols gig with Sid Vicious at Winterland, ending with Lydon telling us we had all been cheated. It was a short seething set, which ended with Anarchy in the Uk and No Fun. Typical. On another planet there was David Bowie in April on his Heroes tour at Oakland Coliseum, mesmerising and hypnotic, followed by Patti Smith at Winterland in May, who was so strong and poetic. This was the ‘Easter’ tour.  Better with words than the guitar if I remember. In the summer on a detour to Seattle I thoroughly enjoyed a gig by Television of Marquee Moon fame and by chance I happened to catch the late John Prine too. 

      On the local music scene I was getting into both the punk and avant garde music scene and got into the off the wall sounds of Tuxedo Moon, more than once, definitely art house, the punky reggae sounds of The Offs, who did a suitably furious version of Johnny Too Bad. There were The Avengers, The Mutants and Crime, one of whose members I was occasionally mistaken for, a trip to the fairly short lived The Deaf Club where I was surprised to find Johnny Walker in the corner playing the tunes between the bands and to cap it all later in the year a visit to the famous Mabuhay Gardens on Broadway, the Fab Mab, with my friend Jeannie to get dived on by Jello Biafra and the rest of the Dead Kennedys. A raucous, seething mass of sweat and noise. Wonderfully exhilarating. 

     There was also my first of several experiences of The Talking Heads, at the Boarding House in November, ‘More Songs About Buildings And Food’ just hit that right note for me and to cap it off just before Christmas a stupendous show by The Boss, again at Winterland for a four hour show of extraordinary power and energy. Clarence Clemons, the Big Man, was on fire that night. 

There were other gigs too, but these are the ones that stand out for me, it’s only 42 years ago after all.