Mott Newcastle Mayfair 1976
Rock bands often start out with a common vision, purpose, image and set of values. They slog it out playing up and down the country and that vision evolves and changes as the band finds its own niche. Success may follow, and that may also change things. And then members start to depart, and sometimes things fall apart. When Ian Hunter jumped the Mott ship, the remaining original members bassist Overend Watts, and drummer Buffin, along with relatively recent recruit Morgan Fisher decided to continue as a band. They recruited guitarist Ray Major (formerly of Hackensack, who supported Mott on the Circus tour) and vocalist Nigel Benjamin. The guys shortened their name to Mott and recorded a new album “Drive On” (1975).
Now some bands have survived the turmoil of losing one or more key members. Genesis and Deep Purple come to mind. Indeed, in both of those cases the band continued to go from strength to strength. In the case of Mott, however, things were never quite the same after Hunter left. The new album wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t up to the standard of previous triumphs. I saw the new line-up of Mott once, at a gig at Newcastle Mayfair in 1976, with Lone Star in support. By then they had released their second album “Shouting and Pointing” (1976), and their set included songs from that record and “Drive On”. I don’t recall if they played any old favourites.
It was more than 30 years before I saw Mott the Hoople again, at their triumphant reunion concert at Hammersmith in 2009. I blogged about that concert at the time; it was a great occasion and they lived up to all our expectations.
16 Nov
Vintagerock's Weblog. 
Posted by Pedro on December 21, 2020 at 4:55 pm
Hi Pete, I was at this gig with Ian to see the support band Lone Star who were well plugged by John Peel and Alan Freeman to be the next big thing. Unfortunately the lead singer, Kenny Driscoll was replaced by another good vocalist, John Sloman who thought he was Robert Plant. Punk came along and this seemed to derail a good band for whom had it been a couple of years earlier would have been massive imo.
Posted by vintagerock on December 21, 2020 at 6:02 pm
Hi Peter I remember Lone Star well. I saw them a few times; headlining the City Hall once I think. I seem to remember they did a great version of the Beatles “She Said, She Said” and were very loud. Happy days Peter