First and only time I saw Southern Death Cult ( Or whatever they were called at the time ) was at the Student Union on Oxford Road. Early/ Mid 80s probably. It was like we were the only people there who weren't personal friends with the group and didn't know everyone else. Ended up getting a couple of digs and my mate got a bottle on his head. They didn't seem to like outsiders. Could say a bit like a cult even.
that's pretty much how it was, actually.
there were scores (if not hundreds at times) of us from all over the uk in those days.
slackers hitch-hiking everywhere and dossing down on people's floors.
you'd see that a band had announced a tour and be determined to do most if not all of it.
arrive early afternoon on the first date and tell the band you intended to do the whole tour.
the guestlists were enormous because the bands wanted a good following to create a mental atmosphere,
it was part of the deal that you went wild down the front.
at times there were more of us on the stage than in the crowd.
(i recall the stage collapsing in leeds one time for SDC)
we all were there for having fun, nothing else,
fucking mental thinking back but we stuck together and looked after each other.
locals often wanted a fight because they saw it as their patch and they got one if they went too far.
the midlands were always tough.
one time, at a Play Dead gig in birmingham, the local skinheads threw someone off the roof. he died. gig abandoned.
a Sex Gang Children gig in coventry was probably the most insane, even the band ended up fighting.
it seems hard to believe nowadays but it was the reality of simply wanting to go to watch a band.
one Killing Joke tour i didn't even get to properly see them the first 2 nights because i'd been beaten up and lobbed out.
it wasn't, as you suggest, like a cult, it was more tribal.
adam and the antz in swansea and cardiff on one tour was seen by the locals as like the english were trying to invade but people just wanted to hear this raw incredible music and would go anywhere en mass to do so.
don't forget it was all happening on the back of the upsurge in punk music which had been depicted in the msm as violent, which it wasn't.
people fucking hated us for our mohawks and fuck-the-world attitudes.
sorry if you and your mates got a bit of a leathering but i can promise you not one of us
ever started a fight.