Let us start, not in the present, but in that most wild and hedonistic of decades: the 1980s. The place? Nottingham. The location? Its famous venue Rock City. The person? Andy Copping – at the time a young man working for a local printing company.

Beneath its scuzzy roof he cuts a nervous, solitary figure. Stood behind a desk of audio equipment, he faces an empty venue. Empty, bar one person.

“Right, show me what you can do,” says Rock ...