The most disgusting ritual in British punk

And that's not just the shamelessly click-baity headline talking

I have never pogoed. I was in a mosh pit once, at some club in Boston in the late ‘70s. There was some mild slamming, but nothing out of control. That is the extent of my active participation in punk rock ceremony. I never said I was hardcore.

So it is with this admittedly limited perspective that I offer the following opinion:

Gobbing – that is, the practice of British punk audiences in the ‘70s and ‘80s drenching performers in a deluge of their germ-filled saliva as a “show of appreciation” – was so insanely disgusting, I still can’t get my head around it, even after factoring in the excessive drinking, speeding, and lack of decorum inherent in yobbo culture. (Actually, given those variables, it’s all starting to make sense.)

The gobbers undoubtedly had a rip-roaring time showering hard-working performers on stage (or in the corner of the bar) with their filthy spit and snot. Oi! In soggy contrast, I strongly suspect, no performer who has ever been gobbed upon anywhere in the U.K. — and I don’t care if we’re talking about the worst shithole pub in the most benighted corner of Old Blighty — cherishes the memory.

Can we all agree, nearly 50 years later and in the cold light of day, that this particular British punk ritual — however well-intentioned! — was terribly misguided at best (but mostly just incredibly revolting)?

Before you accuse me of “not getting it” because I wasn’t there, consider these observations from gobbing recipient Belinda Carlisle, lead singer of the Go-Gos, the Los Angeles pop band that opened for English ska band Madness on a two-month tour of the U.K. in the spring of 1980:

They were young, angry neo-Nazi extremists who hated everyone, including us — and that was before we played the first song. Once they saw we were five girls from Los Angeles, they yelled vile things and called us terrible names. They spit on us too.

Quick side note: These angry neo-Nazis were at shows by a band (Madness) widely known for being a “fun” ska band that played catchy songs about a bed and breakfast man, a night boat to Cairo, and Tarzan’s nuts, yet strangely few tunes about the joys and benefits of gobbing on other humans. Weird. Back to Belinda:

They ran up to the stage, coughed up a wad of spit, and hocked it at us ... I never saw the gobs coming, but I felt my stomach turn after they hit. There were stories about performers getting sick after being hit in the eye or accidentally swallowing someone else's spit. We came offstage covered in snot, and I cried afterwards, as did the other girls.

It appears Belinda found the experience of being showered with the bodily fluids of strangers to fall somewhat short of delightful. And no wonder! Who in their right mind wants to get spit on, for fuck’s sake! We’re not apes.

Seriously, is there any other group activity where spitting on people is encouraged, or even deemed appropriate? And how did gobbing even become a thing? Though memories differ, here are a couple of theories, courtesy of Punk77, an excellent website launched in 1998:

Apparently, the origin of spitting at gigs came from an early Damned gig at which somebody threw a can of beer at [drummer] Rat Scabies and he just went up to the bloke, pulled him up by the scruff of the neck and spat in his face. From then on everyone decided spitting or gobbing was a good idea.

Under this theory, Rat Scabies is — to use modern parlance — a strong influencer. But there’s an alternate (and perhaps self-serving!) gobbing origin story, this from Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten:

I think the audiences gobbing on stage came from me. Because of my sinuses, I do gob a lot on stage, but never out toward the crowd…But the press will jump on that, and the next week you get an audience thinking that’s its part of the fashion and everybody has to be in on it. There’s not much you can do to stop it after that.”

I contend gobbing should never be part of the fashion, and I am fully prepared to defend that stance. I’m all for audience members showing their appreciation in ways that don’t involve airborne expectoration. Clapping always works! And while Venmo didn’t exist back in the ‘70s, they did have these things called “tip jars.” The Go-Gos were starving on that Madness tour! Money for a meal would have been vastly preferable to wearing strings of phlegm hurled from the cankerous mouth of Gobby the Skinhead Squatter from Brixton during the first verse of Beatnik Beach.

Speaking of Beatnik Beach, I can just imagine Belinda Carlisle singing these lyrics to an audience of neo-Nazi skinheads eager to start a boot party:

Dance to the poetry
It's gonna be just you and me
Groove on that groovy beat
It'll be boss keen neat, yeah

Boss keen neat, you neo-Nazi scamps! I think I might have started gobbing.

It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock ‘n roll, indeed. And if you played in front of British punk audiences in the ‘70s, you would have been covered in someone else’s drool when you finally made it there! A Faustian bargain if there ever was one.