THE Blitz Club influenced a whole generation’s music - and fashion - tastes and its influence can still be heard and felt even today, writes JOHN ANSON.

From its base in Covent Garden, the small club became the place to be seen in 1979 and 1980. Its unique mix of outrageous fashions and avant garde music inspired the whole New Romantic movement.

And this week, two Blitz Club regulars will recreate the sounds that made the weekly club night so special at an official after show party for Lytham Festival.

DJ Rusty Egan - who along with Steve Strange helped put the Blitz Club on the map - and Spandau Ballet’s Steve Norman will turn the unlikely surroundings of the Lowther Pavilion into the Blitz Club for one night only.

Rusty will once more be getting behind the decks to play some of the music which first delighted clubgoers all those years ago and Steve will be playing live on both saxophone and percussion.

“This will be the first time in a couple of years that Rusty and I have done something like this,” said Steve.

“It is going to be really different and is pretty exciting for both of us.

“Rusty is responsible for discovering a lot of the music that went on to be almost the soundtrack of the eighties. He brought all this electronica over from Berlin. David Bowie and Iggy Pop had been over there to record and Rusty was among those when went over there to see what it was all about.

“He came back with these new sounds we’d not heard before like Kraftwerk, Nina Hagen and Gina X - it was all quite decadent.”

The trip also gave a rising young band who were Blitz regulars their name.

“The journalist Robert Elms went out there with Rusty and came back and said he’d got a name for us,” explained Steve. “He’d seen it written on a toilet wall - Spandau Ballet.

“The Blitz was basically a cafe but once a week it would become something special. There would be gingham tablecloths and pictures of Churchill and the Queen down the stairs as it was influenced by the war years.

“Rusty’s playlist would be quite eclectic. He might play some Roxy Music or Bowie singing Jacques Brel. Some things you could dance to, others you couldn’t but it all just worked.”

As well as touring the world with Spandau Ballet, Steve has been performing as a solo artist.

“I started working with DJs such as Jeremy Healey and Brandon Block in the early 2000s when I was living in Ibiza,” he said. “I was in touch with the Ministry of Sound and became part of their Hed Kandi roster.

“My music is important to me - I don’t want to end up on the retro circuit and I’ve avoided that as much as possible.”

Steve is currently working on some compositions for the saxophone and some acoustic tracks and has also a series of live dates lined up where he will be sharing some stories from his career and playing live.

“When I play with a DJ it’s all improvised,” he said. “I have a radio mic and I like to wander around. Normally I’ll find the highest speaker and stand on it and start playing my sax.

“It’s going to be fun to get back with Rusty again, he has such a big heart. The after show is straight after Madness so there is going to be a real party atmosphere.”

The Steve Norman and Rusty Egan, Lytham Festival official after show party, is at Lowther Pavilion, Lytham, on Saturday, August 5. Rusty Egan will also be hosting an after show party on Friday, August 4.

For further information visit www.lythamfestival.com.