The hectic, hugely entertaining, and definitive story of the wonderful and entirely amateurish British university gig scene that launched the career of some of the world’s most famous bands.
As rock exploded around the world and the album era began, so young bands and solo acts would sling their gear into their trusty Ford Transits and bomb up and down the new motorway system to university and polytechnic campuses all over the UK, honing their sound and hoping to get signed.
A list of acts who proved themselves on this circuit reads like a who’s who of rock music: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Black Sabbath, Queen, The Kinks, Dire Straits, AC/DC, Genesis, Nick Drake, Joan Armatrading and Elton John all did their time in sweaty and badly ventilated dressing rooms in places like Hull University and Sheffield Poly, and even Paul McCartney, after the Beatles fell apart, took his new band Wings out on the circuit to get them road tested.
Now, for the first time, veteran music journalist Paul Sexton sets out to this extraordinary moment in British music history. Tapping into his huge network of contacts in the music industry, not just with the bands but with the social secretaries who booked the gigs (lots of whom would go on to run record labels and manage huge acts themselves), Rock Goes to College is a fascinating, raucous ride of a book, crammed full of incredible, never-before-heard stories of the beginnings of some of the most famous acts on the planet.
