[I am including my friend John’s blog entry about this event. John flew over from the USA especially to attend the event. I joined him on the second night which was Saturday 16 November. John attended both nights, Friday 15 and Saturday 16 November. I am including John’s great blog entry in full below. All of my entries are in square brackets below, Peter].
The Free Convention, Cullercoats, England November 15th and 16th. Déjà vu all over again as the famous expression goes. Some 20 years after hearing about this event, I finally made it last year and had such a sensational time that I decided to repeat this year, inspired by a repeat encounter with The Heartbreaker Collective and the chance to hear some Backstreet Crawler music again.
It’s a unique opportunity so I figure it’s well worth the transatlantic trip and it’s a chance to catch up with some old friends too. Free’s journey is the classic “rags -to riches -to implosion” story that seems to haunt many rock and roll bands. Formed in 1968 as teenagers with support from Alexis Korner, the band released two albums with minor success before hitting the big time with the album Fire and Water and the single “All Right Now’ which reached No.2 in the UK charts (unbelievably kept out by Clive Dunn’s “Grandad”), and number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the US , as well as charting all around the world. Indeed, it was to chart again in the UK when released in 1973 and then again in 1991 with the much- maligned Bob Clearmountain mix.
Unfortunately, the follow up album Highway faired poorly by comparison and the sensational single “The Stealer” inexplicably also failed to chart. The band disbanded for the first time in 1971, before reforming in an effort to save Koss from his growing substance dependencies. Which resulted in another (excellent) album Free at Last released later that year. Original bass player Andy Frase left in mid 1972, but the band struggled on, augmented by Japanese bass player Tetsu Yamauchi and John ‘Rabbit” Bundrock who had worked with band members during the first split and recorded their final album, the much underrated, Heartbreaker. [Note from Peter. I saw this final line – up of Free at Sunderland Locarno and they were pretty good actually]
The ailing Koss was replaced by ex- Osibisa guitarist Wendel Richarson for a US tour in 1973 but shortly thereafter the band split for good, playing their final gig in Florida in February 1973. However, for vocalist Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirke, global success was just around the corner via their next venture Bad Company. For other founding members there would not be such a happy ending with Fraser finding limited success with The Andy Fraser Band and then Sharks. [I saw both the Andy Fraser band and Sharks at Sunderland Locarno and they were also good]. Koss would produce a brilliant solo album called Back Street Crawler, followed by a second release The Band Plays On, under the name Back Street Crawler. Unfortunately, Koss would succumb to his substance abuse and tragically died in March 1976 at the age of 25.
I was fortunate to see Free three times in 1970 and 71 (one of which was my first ever gig) and then Peace (Paul Rogers short lived solo project) in 1972, Andy Fraser’s bands and finally Back Street Crawler in Sunderland in May 1975. [I saw Andy Fraser and Backstreet Crawler but sadly was not at the early Free concerts]. So while Bad Company rocketed to success in 1974 ( I saw them three times that year), [I was with John on these occasions to see Bad Company] success eluded the other original members. While Free were popular around the world, the connection with Sunderland was very strong, driven by the efforts of local promotor Geoff Docherty and a fanatical local support.
So, these two nights are a bit special. It’s a thrill for me to hear Free music live, and The Heartbreaker Collective were so great last year that I had to see them again, but Saturday night also features Terry Slesser of Beckett and Backstreet Crawler Fame. One of Sunderland’s own, well South Shields anyway, who played many times in the area with Beckett in smaller venues and supported major artists like Argent, Mott the Hoople, Thin Lizzy, Medicine Head and even featuring at the Reading Festival in 1974 before joining up with Kossoff. [I saw Beckett many times, including the Reading Festival in 1974].
The first show on Friday features three bands, opening act The Stealer, followed by The Heartbreaker Collective – the stars of last years event- and finally Absolute Free. The Stealer plays a set of Bad Company songs selected from across their total career. They are competent musicians, particularly guitarist Joss “Koss” Shaw (who would show his real prowess the following night) and the evening gets off to a solid start.
Next up are the Hearbreaker Collectve fronted by Jonnie Hodson on vocals, he of the sensational hair and expert Paul Rodgers moves, whose day job is with the promising touring band Silverroller. Now this band really get it and capture the spirit and understated power of Free. The bands set covers the entitre Free catalogue, without focusing on the obvious. No “All Right Now” or “Wishing Well”, “Fire and Water” or even “The Hunter” but the band do close with a fanastic version of “Mr Big” (as they did last year). While the overall musicianship is just great , even allowing for some technical problems with the guitar sound, the bass player is just wonderful and he does justice to the melodic solo in this classic live version. I am joined tonight by my friend Steve from Stockton and we both have a great time.
But its not over yet.The following night we get to do it all over again. This time with my old mate Pete from Sunderland, a true road warrior and a regular gigger for over 50 years, with whom I have had my adventures over the years. Saturday kicks off with The Stealer, this time playing a Free set. And they do a great job. For me much better than the Bad Company set the previous night with Joss “Koss” Shaw really showing his mastery of the Koss style vibrato and precise, subtle playing. Sounds easy, but I seen some many players just butcher these wonderful songs with over the top speed and volume. [Lovely picture of John and me on the Saturday night].
Next up is an interesting one. Billed as Kossoff….The Band Plays On presents Terry Slesser and John Buckton’s Back Street Crawler. Quite a mouthful, but the band feature Terry Slesser on vocals and John Buckton on guitar. Terry being the original vocalist in Back Street Crawler with John Buckton ex Freeway (a Free tribute band) on guitar. The band played some UK dates last year and hopefully they will continue. Their set is a mixture of Free and Back Street Crawler tracks augmented with some wondeful anecdotes from Terry, They open with “I’m a Mover” from Tons of Sobs, which Terry says they tried to play in Beckett but found it so difficult that they switched to 21st Century Schitzoid Man instead…..
Then its “The Train Song” from The Band Play On, followed by “Be My Friend” which Terry dedicates to Koss’s girlfriend Sandhe Chard Givens who is in the audience tonight and also attended Fridays show. Then its probably my favorite Back Street Crawler track “It’s a Long Way Down to the Top” which is captured in all its glory on the Back Street Crawler Live in Croydon album from 1975. After “I’ll be Creepin”, it’s the fabulous “Molten Gold”. Often billed as “the best song Free never recorded”, the music and words were writen by Koss and he took it for his solo release , although an early version called “Burnin” does exist as a bonus track on a reissue of Free at Last. A classic number, masterfully delivered by the band.Terry then announces “the drugs are starting to kick in now – that’s Ibuprofen and Immodium” and we get “All the Girls Are Crazee” another Back Street Crawler song which Terry dedicates to “all the people who used to go to the Locarno and the Mayfair” which gets a big cheer from the crowd.
The set then moves through a series of Free tracks “Songs of Yesterday”, “Sail On”, “Trouble on Double
Time”, “The Stealer”, “My Brother Jake”, “Wishing Well” and then a well deserved encore “Little Bit Of Love”. A great set which brings back lots of happy memories and its wondeful to hear those Back Street Crawler songs again.
Before the final set, we have a charity raffle, all the procceds from tonight go to Newcastle Hospital Trust, and my friend Pete picks up a copy of Axis Bold as Love, from Koss’s personal collection. Nice!! [Yes, that was me buying a great momento of the event and a lovely keepsake from Paul’s own collection]. Closing tonight are the magnificant Heartbteaker Collective. However, they are following two great sets and can they deliver? After all they only play these songs once a year at this event. No need to worry, fronted by the ever confident Johnny Hodson, the band deliver a great set and the crowd adores them.
They walk us through the Free back catalogue with great competence and style. Opening with “ Catch a Train”, the set moves through “Be My Friend”, “I Love You So”, “Woman”, “Oh I Wept”, “Songs of Yesterday”, Broad Daylight”, I’m a Mover”, “ Trouble on Double Time”, before closing with their sensational extended version of “Mr Big”. Jonnie quips “I used to sing these songs in my bedroom along to the record and its geat to be able to sing them for you tonight”. And its great for us to hear them too. The band come back for an encore starting with “The Hunter”, followed by “All Right Now” and they are persuaded to come back one more time with “Walk in My Shadow”. Just wonderful.
As we leave the we can see the joy on the largely ageing audience , fueled by a combination of nostalgia, great music and alcohol as we all try to capute our youth, even if only for a fleeting moment. A good time was had by all. [Yes indeed it was John. Thank you for a great blog entry. And a special thank you for the organiser for both events, pictured here to the left. Well done for another excellent event my friend]
This event has been going for many years, starting off in Leeds and then moving north to satisfy the need for an annual convention for the many fans of the great band Free in the north-east. My friend John, who is a massive Free and Paul Kossoff fan has been wanting to go for many years. However, he now lives in the USA, so arranging things to attend this event has been tricky. Things changed and this year he happened to be over in the north-east at the same time as the aforementioned convention.
Demand for tickets for the convention was such that the originally scheduled Saturday night sold out quickly and a second night, on the preceding Friday, was organised. It quickly sold out also. I had got us tickets for the Saturday night and John decided he would also attend the Friday night event. John is based in North Yorkshire when he stays in the UK, but made the journey up to Cullercoats both evenings to attend this convention. True dedication. He reported back to me that it was excellent and we were both looking forward to the Saturday show.
John arrived at my house around teatime and, with my carer Jan, we quickly set off to Cullercoats both excited about the event. In the past, the convention has featured guest performances by Free drummer Simon Kirke, and the late bassist Andy Fraser. This time we were treated to three Free tribute bands, and an excellent raffle and auction event. We arrived at the venue just before the start time of 7 PM and the organiser was very helpful in finding us a vantage point close to the stage. Many thanks indeed.
First up was a band called Stealer who played a great set based around the second Free album (the “Woman” LP). Stealer are a 3-piece rock band based in Lincolnshire play classic rock and blues covers from Free and Bad Company. They have their own following and play all over the UK. A good start and warmup to the evening.
After a short changeover the next band on stage were the Heartbreaker Collective who were absolutely fantastic. They played a set of Free classics and really did justice to the music and soul of Free. All musicians were excellent and the singer looked so cool, with a really great hairdo! See the images.Apparently this band come together once a year for this event. Considering this they were simply awesome. A group of passionate young musicians! The dancefloor soon filled and many people were up and dancing, reliving their youth. A great atmosphere.
Then it was time for the raffle. Seven items were raffled including a first prize of a magnificent Free at the Isle of Wight poster and a second prize of a lovely Paul Kossoff poster. Sadly, we did not score anything in the raffle. Next up was an auction of items signed by Paul Rogers and Simon Kirke. At this point we had to leave to catch our taxi.
A great event, and it is a massive credit to the organiser who is clearly a massive and passionate Free fan. Thank you so much John for recommending we attend. I bought a Bad Company programme from a previous tour, which I do not have in my collection. A great addition.
By late 1972 Free were falling apart. Andy Fraser had left to be replaced by Tetsu and Rabbit, and in a few short months the band would be no more. This was a result of internal friction particularly between Andy Fraser and Paul Rodgers, and because of Paul Kossoff’s health problems. Kossoff was replaced by a session musician on some of the tracks of their final album, Heartbreaker and on a tour of the USA his place was taken by the guitarist from Osibisa, which marked the end for the band. Free returned to play in Sunderland only a few months since their last gig in the town. I have a programme from that time which doesn’t actually list the Sunderland gig, but it does mention local gigs at Newcastle Mayfair, Durham University and Redcar Jazz Club. However, I’m certain that I bought it at a gig in Sunderland Locarno, which was presumably added as an extra date after the programme was printed. By this time Wishing Well had been released as a single and some of the new tracks from Heartbreaker will have featured in the set. My memories of this Free gig are much hazier than those of the gigs I saw earlier that year, which suggests to me that it didn’t reach the same heights, both in terms of performance and audience reaction. I don’t remember the place being packed. The programme lists support as caming from Smith Perkins and Smith, who were an American soft rock / country band. The next time I was to see Paul Kossoff and Andy Fraser it was as part of their own individual bands, and in the case of Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke as members of Bad Company.
I next saw Free at Sunderland Top Rank (or the Rink as we knew it at the time). Support came from Vinegar Joe featuring Elkie Brooks and Robert Palmer, who I had seen the previous year in the band Dada. I went along with a few mates from school, and we arrived early sitting cross legged on the dance floor; as you did in those days. Vinegar Joe were a great live band; Elkie was very much the raucous rock chick singer, with swirling gypsy skirts, and quite a raunchy stage act. Her vocals were complimented by Robert Palmer’s more soulful approach. I saw Vinegar Joe quite a few times around that period; they were very popular, but didn’t achieve anything like the great success that Elkie and Robert went on to in their own right. The place went crazy for Free. I recall being crushed near the front of the stage, and concentrating on watching Paul Rodgers and Paul Kossoff. These guys seemed so much older than me, but they were actually pretty young at the time. Paul Rodgers was an incredible front man; lots of throwing the mike stand around, and a great vocal performance. Kossoff would really wring the notes out of his Les Paul. He has influenced so many people, including Joe Bonamassa who owns one of Kossoff’s original guitars. 
The setlist is likely to have included Little Bit of Love (which was a single at the time), My Brother Jake, Travellin Man, Ride on Pony, Be My Friend, Fire and Water, Songs of Yesterday, Mr Big, All Right Now,and The Hunter as the encore. A great gig. Thanks to John for sharing his memories of the gig with me, and for reminding me of some of the songs for the setlist.
If you asked a teenage gig-goer from the North East of England in the early 70s to name their favourite live bands, they would probably have said Free, Family, and possibly Stray. All three of those bands played in the region a lot at the time, and were great live, as a result building a strong following. In Sunderland Free in particular had a strong cult following, and played lots of gigs at the Bay Hotel, and Sunderland Locarno. I was just that little bit too young to catch some of those early gigs, and was very jealous at the time of some of my slightly older mates who told me how great Free were live. Indeed some of the tracks on the album Free Live was recorded at a gig at Sunderland Locarno (or Fillmore North) in 1970. Free existed only for a brief few years at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s, and yet their shows and records are still spoken of today. There was a unique emotional groove to their music that set them above others, and gave them a different feel to the heavier bands of the time like Purple, Sabbath and even Zeppelin. This came from the combination of Paul Rodger’s soulful vocals and Paul Kossoff’s bluesy guitar. The first time I got to see Free was at a gig at Newcastle City Hall in early 1972. This was something of a comeback gig, as the band had broken up briefly in 1971, due at least in part, to Koss’ drug problems. The City Hall was packed but the gig was abandoned due to a power failure. Support came from Bronco featuring Jess Roden, who managed to complete their set by performing acoustic versions of some of the songs. Free took to the stage, but again there were problems with the power, and they had to cut their set short, promising to return later in the month. Free did return for two nights on the 21st and 22nd of February, with one of the nights being a free concert for ticket holders from the original gig. I went along to the new gig and saw Free play a full set, and they were amazing; every bit as good as my mates had told me. By then I had also seen them play at Sunderland Top Rank (I will blog about that gig tomorrow), so I saw them three times in the same month. Live favourites for me were The Stealer, My Big, Alright Now and, of course, The Hunter, which was always the encore. 
My friend John was one of the friends who did get to see Free at some of those earlier gigs that I mentioned earlier. He remains a strong Free fan and has sent me some of his memories: “I have to say that my three favourite bands of all time are Free, Zeppelin and the Black Crowes followed by Humble Pie and Mountain. There are three things I man does not forget: his first beer, his first real girlfriend and in my case my first rock and roll show. I was very fortunate that it was the Indoor Festival of Music at the Top Rank Suite in Sunderland promoted by Geoff Docherty which featured Free as the headliner with Deep Purple, Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, Cochise and Yellow. All for the princely sum of a Pound! I was not quite 15 and can still remember how excited I was to going to the show which was billed as starting at 7.30pm and finishing at 2am – wow how cool was that. Purple had some transportation problems and so Free went on first. Fire and Water was released in June of that year, they had played the Isle of Wight and All Right Now had reached number 2 in the charts, they had appeared on Top of the Pops, very heady times for a band still barely in their 20’s. We bought tickets from Bergs Records (and Bicycle) shop which were very cool looking; we sat on the floor and had a fantastic time. The setlist was heavily drawn from Fire and Water and Highway which was released in December of that year: Ride on Pony, the Stealer, Be My Friend, Mr Big, All Right Now, Don’t say You Love me, Fire and Water, I’m a Mover, Walk in my Shadow, Songs Of Yesterday, closing, of course, with The Hunter. If you ask any Free fan from the time I am pretty sure they say that Mr Big and The Hunter were their favourite songs and to this day I still get goose pimples when I hear the opening chords of the live version of The Hunter. Fast forward to the Sunderland Empire in 1971 and Free appeared supported by Amazing Blondel. I think I can remember local famed promoter Geoff Docherty introducing Free. I have in my head Geoff coming out and saying “he couldn’t ask them to play anymore as they were knackered”.”
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