WITHOUT a contingent from Derby and District College of Art in the audience at the cutting of the first part of Slade's live album at Command Studios, Piccadilly, London, last week, I shudder to think what the record would have been like, writes RICHARD COX.

As usual, the music was great, but the London crowd who packed the small theatre / studio, were as much into it as I am into the reggae tune. They just sat there and didn't seem to be in the slightest bit bothered about the fact that the idea of a live album was to have a 'live' audience.

But thanks to the Art College, who took a party down specially for the session (thanks for the lift lads), the recording was done amidst a mass of squirming, ravy bodies. And Slade loved it.

So we danced awhile, and leapt, and shouted, and stomped, and waved our arms and generally generated enough atmosphere to get some of the livliest of the rest of the crowd to their feet.