The Reliants practised in Vince Watts' garage, much to the delight of his Father! On drums, John Higgins had been recruited, a little 12 year old who lived around the corner from Vince. With the Armchair inspired by the mixture of Actifed and Kodeine their set of songs grew until they were ready for their first gig in April '78. The Armchair and Vince had been regular attendees at St. John's Youth Club held in The Guildhall in John Street, Tamworth. Apart from playing table tennis and ogling the young Catholic school girls, Friday night was Disco night. Here the Armchair and Vince would irritate the young disco loving girlies and Northern Soul dancing boys by lying full stretch in the middle of the dance floor - such larks!

Being regulars at the club, the band were booked to play at The Guildhall in early April by Mick Foley and the gig, the first punk gig in Tamworth, was a resounding success, they went on to play the Guildhall several times.

See the set list for the gig.

On April 28th 1978, the Armchair organised a coach to take the Tamworth punks and like-minded folk from his school, St. Francis of Assisi, in Aldridge to the Anti-Nazi Carnival in London. The event was part of the Rock Against Racism campaign that was active at the time, organised by the Anti-Nazi League. The National Front and British National Party had been growing in popularity over the last year or so as Britain lumbered along in recession and were trying to convince the public that the reason for high unemployment and rampant inflation was the immigrant population of the U.K. - a handy scapegoat! The Armchair along with Jim Bethel had regularly attended Socialist Workers Party meetings in Birmingham and had been highly praised for organising such a trip. The event was a great success with Armchair acting as a marshall for the march from Trafalgar to Victoria Park. Here a great selection of bands played to a crowd of almost 100,000. The Clash, Steel Pulse, Patrick Fitzgerald, Tom Robinson and Sham 69! The Armchair was intrigued to see in a police coach after the gig, a PC reading a National Front newspaper. As the Armchair's coach moved off, two fingers were waved avidly as the police coach faded into the distance.

In June 1978 the band played another gig, this time at The Bowling Green, Lichfield. The gig was a sixth form disco and exposed the talents of these 'adolescent anarchists' to the naive folk of Lichfield, Streetly and Aldridge. The Armchair, Vince and Higgins made their way to the gig on the Midland Red bus, lyrics, guitar and drumsticks in hand. Sam travelled with the rest of the gear in his Dad's van. The gig was a resounding success for the band. Tears did flow however as the band had written a song especially for the occasion; one of the sixth form students had tried in vain to prevent the band playing, and so the song 'Margaret Dixon' was performed.

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