Man Spring Tour 1974 Newcastle City Hall (note misspelling of Man on the ticket 🙂 )
Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics on the road
Come 1974 and Deke Leonard returned to Man, and they released their 9th album Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics. The small four sided tour programme for this tour has details of the planned set, commenting on every song. I don’t usually do this but I thought I’d reproduce the text from the programme below as it documents the Man band’s thoughts on each of the songs that they played on the tour.
“Terry: This is it. Another tour off on the road. Old faces, new faces. Old numbers, new numbers. Old gigs, new gigs. This is just a bit of info on some of the numbers we will be doing each night:
Spunk Rock: Old time favourite and stomper. This has been on record in many different disguises over the years. It first appeared on “Two ounces of plastic with a hole in the middle” then it became the 20 minute live track on the Greasy Truckers album. Then it sneaked its way into “Jam Up Jelly Tight” on the Back Into The Future album and its still going strong.
Bananas: “I like to eat bananas; ‘Cos they got no bones; I like marijuana; ‘Cos it gets me stoned”. What more can one say? Maybe one of the biggest favourites with audiences on our gigs in Britain today.
Romain: The good old shuffle. A story about a gig we had the misfortune to play in Belgium. Deke: This bastard of a cop picked in two young kids and Martin (Ace, that is) tried to help by pulling the cop’s head off – he nearly did. Terry: Romain was the cop’s name. Martin was badly beaten up and taken to gaol. We managed to get him out just in time for the gig by calling the Mayor of Ostend who just happened to be the promoter. When we eventually got home they landed us with a bill for 3 days pay because Romain was off sick. Now isn’t that a sad story? Micky: Not really – we never did pay!!!
C’mon: C’mon was caused by drugs. Deke: Extremely dangerous ones.
Blown Away: This is a song from the last Help Yourself album (return of K Whaley) and is a song about feeling desolate which is something most of us feel now and then. That’s all.
Hardway to live: ….is a song about what a hard way it is to live, and 7171/551 is a very private song, so I don’t want to tell you what it’s about.
Scotch Corner: …..is about a man we met who was on his way to the Lake District to commit suicide. He looked like a turtle. The place we met him was a transport cafe at Scotch Corner.
Four Day Louise: …..feels like its the kind of song we’ll play till we die, or split up, or something.
Taking the Easy Way Out Again: ….is about us. Something we try to do all the time.
The last three numbers are on the new album Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics.
Deke: If an unidentified number appears, do not panic – it’ll just be us having a jam. If any of the above numbers crumble it’ll give you the opportunity to study the effects of panic on the band’s faces. In this situation pretend nothing has happened……we’re going to have a lot of fun together. Have a good time. Luv. The Man Band”
The programme tells me that support came from Chris Darrow from the USA Kaleidoscope and The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, although I can’t recall seeing him.
The line-up of the Man band for this tour was Micky Jones – Guitar, Vocals;
Deke Leonard – Guitar, Vocals; Malcolm Morley – Guitar, Keyboards, Vocals; Ken Whaley – Bass; Terry Williams – Drums, Vocals.
I remember that I went to this gig with a group of mates and that we all thoroughly enjoyed it. Favourites were Bananas, which we all went around singing afterwards, and of course Spunk Rock. I saw Man again a couple of months later in the summer of 74 at the pure hell which was the Buxton (endurance) Festival, where they played a great set on the Friday night prior to Mott the Hoople’s headlining appearance. I’ve included a scan of the page which features Man from the Buxton programme. I’ve blogged separately on the full horror of the Buxton experience. Thanks to John for the scan of his poster from the Rhinos tour.
5 Nov
Vintagerock's Weblog. 
Posted by Mitch on November 5, 2013 at 11:32 am
Another great blog Pete.
To have kept these concert memories going day after day for as long as you have is a tremendous achievement – and it is also great to see the ticket stubs and programme covers too.
Artists beginning with ‘M’ seems to have gone on for a while but I’m guessing there is still more to come – John Martyn, Montrose, Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, Gary Moore…..?
I was at the Man 1974 Newcastle City Hall gig.
Set list (in order) was – Blown Away, 7171551, Taking The Easy Way Out Again, Hard Way To Live, Four Day Louise, C’mon, Spunk Rock, Bananas. Encore; Romain.
Chris Darrow was the support act.
Posted by vintagerock on November 5, 2013 at 12:01 pm
Thanks for your support Mitch
This started as a project to catalogue my tickets and programmes and has grown into much more
I still have a long way to go, probably a couple of years
Yep I intend all the people you mention in M plus Mott the Hoople, Motörhead, Madonna, Paul McCartney and a few others
Cheers Peter
Posted by jonb52 on June 21, 2015 at 8:20 pm
I was at that gig and ended up backstage chatting with the band afterwards – Spent a while on the stage with Terry Williams talking drums before they dismantled his kit – then arriving back in the dressing room was greeted with the news that food was needed – upshot was, seeing as I was the only one who knew the way to the Wimpey Bar, Ken Whaley and I set off on a hunter-gatherer mission!
A couple of years later on the Maximum Darkness tour we passed Deke Leonard and John Cipollina coming out of the City Hall. Deke spotted us, turned to JC and said: “You say you have trouble understanding us…..you should hear these guys talk!” Bloody Great band ….RIP Micky Jones!
Posted by vintagerock on June 22, 2015 at 6:20 am
Thanks John Great memories of a great band Peter