I stepped off the train and onto the crowded platform. Glancing over the top of the crowd I could see that the standard short-back-and-sides metropolitan commuter-mob was sporadically broken up by islands of pork-pie hats and mohawk haircuts which pushed through the crowds, parting the bland masses like the bow of an icebreaker. I suspected that finding my way to the public square which The Specials were playing in that evening wouldn’t be too hard. As I passed through the station’s ticket barriers I muttered “follow that mohawk” like some sort of half-arsed detective, and headed into the punk-filled lobby.

Millenium Square, Leeds

It was only 11am but it was already hot as hell, and as I ventured from the shade of the station, I was greeted by what was possibly the sunniest day that Leeds had ever seen. It was one of those rare summer days when the heat crushes down on you with such force that you feel compelled to glance to the skies, just to make sure that there isn’t a six year old sadist holding an enormous magnifying glass over the entire city centre.

It was during one of these momentary upward glances that the sun’s fiery rays forced their way my pupils and blazed through my retinas. Still, even while half blind, stalking a punk was easy. So easy in fact, that at some point during the dawdle to Millennium Square I entered a deep, walking coma-of-a-daydream in which I pondered just how ‘punk’ it is to spend hours on end grooming your hair and quietly sewing away in order to ensure that your denim jacket is a flawless tapestry of Operation Ivy patches.

Before I knew it, I had reached my destination. I knew this because en route to the square my unsuspecting guide had looked like a cockerel amongst pigeons, his dyed red comb starkly nodding its way through the busy city streets – but now we had reached the battery farm. Mohawks were in abundance, and so too were the pork-pie hats of ‘rude boy’ ska fanatics. In fact, if you squinted hard enough to erase the occasional contemporary civilian, you could easily transport yourself straight into any of the hot, steamy summers which I imagine to have occurred in the closing years of the 1970s.

Now all I had to do was find my good friend Timothy Taco. This wasn’t going to be too hard. Timmy was as broke as I was, and there was no way on Earth that either of us were in a position to pay the thirty-five quid required to purchase a ticket into the walled arena which had been assembled within the square. Standing outside the arena on a hot, carefree afternoon like this, it was impossible to view ‘the great wall’ as anything other than an imposing manifestation of the gig promoter’s greed, erected in order to deny any non-payers from scavenging a stolen glimpse of the glorious events inside. Meanwhile, outside the gates, touts were gleefully relieving unsuspecting mugs of anything between forty and fifty pounds, depending on how desperate, stupid, or rich they looked.

I was confident that Timmy would be somewhere high, probably in both senses of the word. If any man in Leeds could find a way to dodge the ticket fee, it would undoubtedly be Timothy Taco, and, as I mingled through the crowds of punks, rude boys, and other less fashionable has-beens, my suspicions were confirmed as I heard my name being called from somewhere up above me. This could only mean one of two things; either that I had finally passed over the brink of sanity, and now, like so many other lunatics, God had chosen to speak to me, or alternatively, that Timmy had secured a vantage point for us suitable for wasting away the rest of the afternoon.

Thankfully the voice was that of Mr Taco, who was perched on a high stone wall next to the steps of Leeds Museum, which not only over looked the square, but also over the promoter’s ‘great wall of greed’, enabling us to sit and drink tins of cider and watch the events inside the arena unfold, for free, like a pair of homeless vultures in a tree.

At some point during that sweaty, drunken afternoon, we were joined by one of Timmy’s friends who was introduced to me as ‘Ketty Dave’. In my experience, anybody who has gained a drug as a prefix to their name, is a madman. If I need to prove this point, picture for a moment what a person by the name of ‘LSD Pete’, ‘Cocaine Steve’, or ‘Heroin Jack’ might look like. Is there a sane character amongst this grizzly identity parade? No, of course there isn’t, and Ketty Dave was no exception.

Built like a silverback gorilla, wearing only a vest and shorts, Ketty Dave joined us on our perch to absorb the heat of the day. As we watched the support bands, I would occasionally be distracted from the musicians by the loud, bullish snort of Ketty Dave living up to his name. A ring of white powder was crusted around his left nostril and every now and then he would twitch violently, or sway dangerously towards the edge of the wall.

Before we realised it, the innocence and optimism of the early afternoon had given way to a foreboding and brooding evening with a side order of impending madness. With every minute that passed by, it became increasingly apparent that the evening was not going to have an uneventful conclusion.

I had the option to leave. At any moment I could have freely descended from the wall, gone back to the train station, hopped on the next train from Platform 4 and headed for my bed. Having given this option a split second of deliberation, the cider told me that I couldn’t take “the coward’s way out”, and I buckled my seatbelt in anticipation of whatever the night had in store for us. “What the hell” I thought, “At least this will be a night to remember”.

At some point during The Special’s set, a hairy looking group of guys decided to climb up onto the roof of a burger van which formed part of ‘the great wall’. I watched intently as two passing police officers demanded that they descend from their vantage point, but my staring was cut short by loud cursing from right next to me. “Will you fucking stop it you little prick”. I glanced round to see that Ketty Dave had vanished from next to me and the large section of wall space which he had vacated was now occupied by a middle-age couple, the male of which was glaring menacingly at Timmy.

Timmy had been using his position standing on the wall to shout loudly over, what transpired to be, the middle-aged man’s favourite Specials song. Presumably it was this, coupled the wild and gyrating dance which Timmy had been performing, which compelled the man to request that Timmy stop what he was doing. We were in no mood, or state, for conflict and a quick glance at Timmy confirmed that we should get out of there. Having both been too distracted to notice that Ketty Dave had vanished, we decided to take this opportunity to abandon the wall and go and find him.

Timmy lead the way as he barged through the crowd towards the hairy revellers on top of the burger van. As we got closer I could hear the dispute between them and the police officers was turning sour. They had a perfect view of the band, and were clearly trying to prolong their stay just long enough to watch the end of the set, meanwhile, the police officers were feeling less and less authoritative as their demands fell on deaf ears.

Now, if you’ve ever been to Millennium Square in Leeds, you will know that it there is a bar which overlooks it on one side, and it was someone in this very bar who threw a bottle cap from the balcony onto one of the irate policemen. I know this because I watched it happen. Unfortunately however, neither of the policemen saw it happen, and within a second they were screaming at the hairy procrastinators on the roof of the van. “DID YOU THROW THAT?!”…there was no reply though because the bushmen were too busy enjoying the show.

That was the final straw. The policeman began to bellow down his radio, barely coherent with rage. “BACKUP REQUIRED AT MILLENNIUM SQUARE! BACKUP REQUIRED! THINGS ARE STARTING TO GET UGLY… THEY’RE THROWING BOTTLES”. Whether it was intentional or not, what the policeman had now done, was to imply to the rest of Leeds City Police Force that there was a full-scale, bottle-throwing riot was breaking out which was endangering their fellow officers. Meanwhile, back in reality, the officer had been struck by a bottle cap which he wrongly suspected to have been thrown by a bunch of hippies who were standing on a burger van – a slightly different scenario.

The police’s response was instant, almost as if they had been waiting for such a spark. Sirens wailed from all around the city, as police cars and vans screamed through the streets to reach the ‘riot’. Leaping from their cars and sprinting towards the burger van, the police were met by a large crowd who had witnessed all of the misconstrued bottle cap events unfold – a crowd which, unfortunately for the officers, was made up primarily of punks who were so anti-establishment, that they hadn’t bothered to pay in to the gig either, and were now steaming drunk from the day of hanging about outside the venue.

Within about 30 seconds Timmy and I had barged our way back through the mob of angry punks and glancing backwards I saw mohawks and helmets clashing together as the punks engulfed the policemen that had arrived so far. Back at the wall, Ketty Dave was staggering around just below where we had spent the afternoon. In the half-light of the evening, the untrained eye may have mistaken him for a zombie gorilla, stumbling in circles with his eyes open but glazed. Timmy shook him for a while until his brain caught up with his body, and the ketamine gave him enough breathing space to issue a series of loud grunts, implying that it was time to head back to Timmy’s.

As we left the scene, the riot was in full swing. Sirens and shouting swept across the square, and if you listened very closely, somewhere in the distance, you could hear ‘A Message to You Rudy’ drifting across that violent summer night.

Stop your messing around,
Better think of your future,
Time you straighten right out,
Creating problems in town.

Rudy,
A message to you, Rudy,
A message to you.

Stop your fooling around,
Time you straighten right out,
Better think of your future,
Else youll wind up in jail.