Last updated at 20:06, Thursday, 31 May 2012

Toyah Willcox backstage cuts quite a different figure from the rebellious punk musician of the 1980s.

SHE’S STILL GOT IT: Toyah Willcox at Club Ice

Relaxing before her performance at Workington’s Decades Festival, she is down-to-earth and happy to chat.

“Everyone here is chilled out in a way I am not used to,” she says

“If you work in London everyone is wound up and tense.

“Earlier a man asked for my picture and held my bum. I thought ‘this is like a different world’.

“It’s a happy atmosphere. It’s nice to see people relaxing. I live in Worcester and people there don’t seem very relaxed. That says something about the quality of life here.”

But suddenly she becomes the Toyah her fans all know, from her appearances on Top Of The Pops in the 1980s.

She struts on stage at Club Ice on Saturday in a dramatic costume.

She is wearing a metal studded dress and brightly coloured headwear, with pink and blue feathers and horns sticking out of it.

The audience reacts wildly to the hits including Echo Beach, I Want to be Free and a cover of Sweet Child O’ Mine.

She says: “Before a show I just like to be quiet. I just like to run through the lyrics and the song order. Thirty years on you still have to remember the words.

“Once in Scotland a group of people were talking to me just moments before I went on stage.

“I forget the words to the first song and I held my microphone out and got the audience to sing the first part.”

First published at 19:22, Thursday, 31 May 2012
Published by http://www.timesandstar.co.uk