10cc Newcastle City Hall 20th April 1976
“I’m Not In Love” is a masterpiece. Simple as that. That song propelled 10cc from being a clever pop band to the realm of massive stardom. Built around a simple story by Eric Stewart, the arrangement and especially the choral backing which featured multiple overdubs of the voices of Stewart, Gouldman, Godley and Creme singing a single note and creating a lush 256-voice “virtual” choir, was just unlike anything else we had heard before. It was played everywhere and soon moved to the well-deserved No 1 spot in the UK single charts. Released in May 1975, “I’m Not in Love” was 10cc’s second No 1.
Eric Stewart: “I looked at Graham, and I said that song’s a hit, you know…..I rang them [the record company]..
I said come and have a listen to what we’ve done, come and have a listen to this track. And they came up and they freaked, and they said, ‘This is a masterpiece. How much money, what do you want? What sort of a contract do you want? We’ll do anything.’ On the strength of that one song, we did a five-year deal with them for five albums and they paid us a serious amount of money.”
Next time 10cc came to Newcastle they played two nights at the City Hall. The concerts were originally scheduled to take place on the 9th and 10th February 1976, however they were rescheduled (I don’t recall why) and actually took place on 19th and 20th April. Both nights were completely sold out. I went to the second night, Chas and Dave were support.
Would they play “I’m Not In Love”? Could they recreate the sound live? Actually yes they did play it, with the help of some technical trickery (probably tapes) and pretty good it sounded too. A great gig with pure class songs; as well as “I’m Not In Love”, other live favourites were “One Night in Paris”, the wonderful “I’m Mandy Fly Me”, “The Second Sitting For The Last Supper” and of course “Rubber Bullets” which would often close the proceedings.
I saw 10cc a few months later at Knewborth, with 100,000 or so others, when they supported the Stones. There was a long delay before 10cc came on stage, apparently there were some technical problems. The sound was a bit rough for the first few songs of their set, but soon picked up. They went down well, but were a little too mainstream pop for a Stones and festival crowd. We then had an even longer wait, on a cool June night, for the Stones. happy days.
Setlist for the City Hall: Art For Arts Sake, Silly Love, Lazy Ways, Rock ‘n’ Roll Lullaby, The Worst Band In The World, Second Sitting For The Last Supper, Old Wild Men, Iceberg, Don’t Hang Up, Headroom, Ships Don’t Disappear In The Night Do They?, The Sacro Iliac, I’m Mandy Fly Me, I Wanna Rule The World, Wall Street Shuffle.
Encores: I’m Not In Love, One Night In Paris, Rubber Bullets.
Setlist at Knewborth: One Night in Paris; The Worst Band In The World; Good Morning Judge; Silly Love; Don’t Hang Up; Old Wild Men; The Wall Street Shuffle; Neanderthal Man – Run Baby Run; Ships Don’t Disappear In The Night (Do They)?; I’m Mandy Fly Me; The Second Sitting For The Last Supper; I’m Not In Love.
Encore: Rubber Bullets
Thanks to Mitch for his photo of Eric Stewart which he took at the City Hall at this concert.
3 Nov
Vintagerock's Weblog. 
Posted by Mitch on November 3, 2014 at 11:19 am
I was at this one – a thoroughly enjoyable show from four very talented musicians. This was the ‘How Dare You’ tour – their fourth and best album in my view.
The Newcastle setlist was entirely different to the Knebworth concert:
Art For Arts Sake, Silly Love, Lazy Ways, Rock ‘n’ Roll Lullaby, The Worst Band In The World, Second Sitting For The Last Supper, Old Wild Men, Iceberg, Don’t Hang Up, Headroom, Ships Don’t Disappear In The Night Do They?, The Sacro Iliac, I’m Mandy Fly Me, I Wanna Rule The World, Wall Street Shuffle.
Encores: I’m Not In Love, One Night In Paris, Rubber Bullets.
Chas and Dave were support.
Posted by vintagerock on November 3, 2014 at 11:32 am
Many thanks indeed Mitch Best wishes Peter
Posted by vintagerock on November 3, 2014 at 1:18 pm
PS I have added the City Hall setlist Mitch Many thanks indeed. You are right, it is very different to what they played at Knebworth Cheers Peter