Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

For anyone who was on the cusp of either being a teenager or enjoying the revels of the age in the late 70s and early 80s in the areas that surround King’s Heath, the once former hamlets before incorporation into the city of Birmingham, the likes of Selly Park, Stirchley, Moor Green, Wake Green, Hall Green and Cotteridge, they must have looked at what was going on around the rest of Birmingham and felt bitter pangs of jealousy…for everywhere it seemed had their music heroes, they had an identity in which to hang their youth and their anger upon, and they had none.

Yes there was Martin Barre from Jethro Tull, but by this time, a period of social unrest, of despondency even in one of the city’s more affluent areas, was crawling through the feelings of dejection, of rampant unemployment, of facing down multiple enemies of state and the fear that they would grow into adulthood stuck in the same beige, follow the rules, behave and gain acceptance from an older generation that in all honesty never really understood that Generation X had woken and was angry. Jethro Tull, whilst remaining one of Britain’s foremost exponents of music, were not attuned in such a way as Toyah Wilcox.

South Birmingham had a hero, and what was more she was fiery, she stood no nonsense, she was the reflection of the change needed, the leafy greens where Gardener’s Question Time was filmed, the memory of the birthplace of Tony Hancock, the poetry of W.H. Auden, and even a city zoo on the Pershore Road as you entered Selly Park from Edgbaston, these were signs of an order in need of radical change, and who better than a woman who embodied the reputation of Boadicea, who terrified the damaged by Victorian repute, who thrilled a generation willing to follow her into battle at the drop of a hat.

For all the early albums, for the drama, for her appearance in the sublime Quadrophenia, the one thing denied many who were in awe of her, but unfortunately just on the wrong side of following her around the country and waving the south Birmingham flag, was the experience of the famous gig at The Rainbow, and whilst old video tapes have surely worn themselves free of any images of the young Toyah captivating the crowd, the opportunity to hear the message on vinyl was always one prevented.

Toyah: Live At The Rainbow is the missing audio link, a tour de force of feminist passion, of youth sounding the drums of war against all that was considered safe and secure, but in which was in reality a yead stick to beat against the backsides of a generation daring to dream in colour and not nostalgic black and white, in monochrome.

This is Toyah arguably at her most raw, at least captured for eternity in the realm of recordings, the beauty radiates with the same intensity as the flashing drive that made the shops of old King’s Heath quake with reckoning to come, and the no 11 bus soon drove on as if pursued by a wolf with bright orange hair.

Forty years on and the night at The Rainbow stands firm, tracks such as Neon Womb, the excellent Angels & Demons, Insects, Victims Of The Riddle, and the chart topper It’s A Mystery all feature with pride, an album that truly stands statuesque, a weapon of a new order hammering at the door of outdated conformity.

Live At The Rainbow, a moment caught in time for the pleasure of the ears and the soul, just simply incredible.

Ian D. Hall