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Lindisfarne Farewell Carlisle Sands Centre 31st Oct 2003
Sadly Lindisfarne went off my radar from the mid-80s onwards. I’d lost faith in the band, and my concert going activities had also declined a little for work and family reasons. However, I still kept an eye on what the guys were doing and how the line-up changed over the years, but I never felt the need to go and see them in concert. Suddenly I read that they were to fold. This was announced during their Autumn 2003 tour, which was due to end with a concert on 1 November 2003 at the Newcastle Opera House. The final line up included Dave Hull-Denholm, Billy Mitchell, Rod Clements, Ian Thomson and Ray Laidlaw. The break-up was announced at quite short notice, and by the time I found out the Newcastle concert was understandably completely sold out. I realised that there weren’t going to be any more chances to see the band, and felt I had to attend a Lindisfarne concert one more time. At first I planned to go along to the Opera House on the night of the concert and attempt to buy a ticket outside. However, I figured that this might not be easy, and that it could also be very expensive, so when I learnt that tickets were still on sale for their concert the night before in Carlisle, I decided to take the next best (and easier and probably cheaper) option and drive across to see them in Cumbria. So, almost 20 years since I last attended a Lindisfarne concert, I saw their penultimate gig at Carlisle Sands Centre. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was excited at the prospect of seeing the band again, and hearing the old songs. I bought a copy of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle on my way across to Carlisle, as it contained a feature about the end of Lindisfarne. The Sands Centre is a medium size venue and leisure centre just outside the centre of Carlisle. There was no support act, with Lindisfarne playing the entire concert, with an interval. The “new” line-up of the band was much better than I had expected and vocalists Billy Mitchell and Dave Hull-Denholm managed to recreate the old tunes in a way which gave them fresh life, but also remained true to the original. The set comprised all the old favourites: ‘Lady Eleanor’, ‘Meet Me on the Corner’, ‘Winter Song’ as beautiful and haunting as ever, Run For Home’, Fog on the Tyne’ and the encore was ‘Clear White Light’, just like the old days. There were quite a few newer numbers which I didn’t recognise. It was just great, and I was so pleased that I made the effort to see the band one last time. The audience were quite subdued, which I am sure was not the case at the final Newcastle gig. On the way out the band were signing autographs, so I got them to sign my copy of the Evening Chronicle, and I bought a copy of the Lindisfarne book, Fog On The Tyne, picture here, which they also kindly signed for me. Their final concert was filmed and released as a DVD, ‘Time Gentlemen Please’. The track listing is: No Time To Lose; Rocking Chair; This Guitar Never Lies; Remember Tomorrow; This Too Will Pass; Freedom Square; Ghost In Blue Suede Shoes; Lady Eleanor; Under The Promenade; Rock’n’Roll Phone; Statues And Liberties; Meet Me On The Corner; Born At The Right Time; Winter Song; Can’t Do Right For Doing Wrong; January Song; One Day; Road To Kingdom Come; Unmarked Car; Jubilee Corner; Unfinished Business; Whisky Highway; Run For Home; One More Bottle Of Wine; Fog On The Tyne; Devil Of The North; Clear White Light.
That concludes my ramblings on Lindisfarne, at least for now.

Lindisfarne Christmas Concerts Newcastle City Hall 1978 to 1982
The Lindisfarne Christmas concerts became annual events from 1976 onwards. I went along for several years, joining in the festive celebrations. The concerts were immensely successful with the band playing for multiple nights at the venue to satisfy demand, and fans travelling from far and wide. In total the band performed 132 shows at Newcastle City Hall. However, as time went on what started as great fun concerts started to lose their magic, at least for me. It was just getting too routine, and too much like going to the pantomime. I’m afraid I began to lose faith, and 1982 was the last year that I attended. Looking back through the programmes today I notice that Chas and Dave, Chris Rea, Maxie and Mitch and Mike Elliott all get mentioned as support acts. I aslo saw the band perform at the Rock on the Tyne Festival and supporting Bob Dylan at St James Park in 1984. The band were still fun to see, but over the years they seemed to lose some of the magic that was there in those early days. The Christmas concerts continued for several years, until 1990 I think.
There are of course returning to the venue this year in the form of Ray Jackson’s Lindisfarne and I plan to go along. The publicity for this year’s show tells us: “Ray Jackson, whose unique mandolin, harmonica and vocal styles helped create the original sound of Lindisfarne in 1970, is returning to the City Hall in December 2013 with Ray Jackson’s Legendary Lindisfarne Christmas Show. Newcastle City Hall’s audience can swing together again to Ray Jackson’s faithful recreation of the original 1970s Christmas Show…..complete with decorated stage, Santa compere…..party hats….sword dancers…..the traditional organ overture…..and nothing but songs from the band’s best selling 1970’s chart albums….Nicely Out of Tune; Dingly Dell; Fog On The Tyne and Back and Fourth…a full show of the best loved Lindisfarne music with an interval, no support and with part of the audience on the stage itself.” Sounds like this is going to be pretty authentic. Could be just like old times 🙂

Lindisfarne are back! Run for Home
Spring tour 1978 Redcar Coatham Bowl 3rd June 1978
The Newcastle City Hall Lindisfarne reunion Christmas concerts of 1976 and 1977 were so successful that the band decided to get back together on a permanent basis in early 1978. They were soon back in the UK charts with a top 10 hit “Run For Home”, which was taken from the new album Back and Fourth. The band then went on tour across the UK in spring 1978. I caught the tour when they appeared at Redcar Coatham Bowl, which came towards the end of the run of concerts. The gig was sold out, as was the rest of the tour. It seemed everyone wanted to see the reformed Lindisfarne. I went with Marie; we didn’t have tickets, but we managed to buy a couple from a guy outside. The place was packed and it was a great gig; just like old times with some serious crowd singalong. I can picture everyone now, standing on the tables at the end of the gig, screaming for more, and them singing along as one to the encore, which was of course “Run For Home”. The lads were well and truly back, and with renewed passion and energy. I saw them again a few months later at the Reading Festival, where they shared the bill with a curious mix of old rockers and new punks. Lindisfarne played the Saturday afternoon on a bill headlined by Status Quo. The Jam and Sham 69 headlined the night before and Patti Smith was top of the bill on the Sunday (see what I mean about the strange mix of acts that year). Oh and it was very very muddy…..
The last page of the Spring Tour ’78 tour programme featured a cute poem by Alan’s daughter, Berenice Hull, aged 9: FISH
“I pity the poor minnow, (A very small fish indeed), Sometimes bigger fish eat it, Purely out of greed”

Lindisfarne The reunion for Christmas Newcastle City Hall 1976 and 1977
You can’t keep a good Geordie down for long. We’d just recovered from the farewell concert of 1975, when rumours surfaced that our local heroes might be minded to come back for a special concert at the City Hall for Christmas. And so it was that the original line-up of Ray Jackson/Alan Hull/Ray Laidlaw/Rod Clements and Si Cowe reformed in 1976 to perform a one-off gig in Newcastle City Hall.
The gig sold out immediately and was massively over subscribed, so much so that a second date was added. And that sold out too, so an early show was added on the second night. The Newcastle City Hall reunion shows were so acclaimed that the band repeated it and we were all back a year later in 1977. These shows, and those that followed in Christmas 1978 and 1979 featured local talent such as The Killingworth Sword Dancers, and Mike The Mouth Elliott as Santa. Rab Noakes popped up now and then and I think Chris Rea was support once or twice (or maybe that was in the early 80s?). These concerts were joyous, raucous celebrations of Geordiness. Lindisfarne were truly back, and seemed so pleased to return to the City Hall stage. There was a camaraderie, honesty and spirit about the band in those days. Their singalong, often somewhat ramshackle, folk rock guaranteed a great night out, and the Geordie lads seemed ready to take on the world.
The Christmas shows would continue for many years to come, but somewhere along the way the spirit started to dim as the years went on. These shows in 1976 and 1977 were Lindisfarne at the very best. It was like going to the pub, having a drink or two too many, and singing along with friends. Never to be matched.
Setlist from 1976 concert: No Time To Lose; All Right On The Night; Turn A Deaf Ear; Uncle Sam; Down; Road To Kingdom Come; Scotch Mist; Winter Song; January Song; Lady Eleanor; Court In The Act; Wake Up Little Sister; Train In G Major; Alan In The River With Flowers; Together Forever; Meet Me On The Corner; We Can Swing Together; Jackhammer Blues; Fog On The Tyne. Encore: Clear White Light; White Christmas.
For me the highlight was always the Winter song, with Alan standing centre stage alone with his acoustic guitar singing. “When winter’s shadowy fingers, First pursue you down the street, And your boots no longer lie, About the cold around your feet, Do you spare a thought for summer whose passage is complete?
Whose memories lie in ruins, And whose ruins lie in heat? When winter… Comes howling in.
When the wind is singing strangely, Blowing music through your head, And your rain splattered windows, Make you decide to stay in bed, Do you spare a thought for the homeless tramp who wishes he was dead? Or do you pull the bed-clothes higher, Dream of summertime instead? When winter…Comes howling in” (Hull, 1970).
Pure Magic.

Lindisfarne MkII live 1973 – 1975
The original Lindisfarne split in early 1973 after a tour of Australia. However, this wasn’t the end and a new version of the band soon emerged, fronted by Alan Hull and Jacka, who were joined by Kenny Craddock (keyboards/ vocals), Charlie Harcourt (guitar/ keyboard), Tommy Duffy (bass/ vocals), and Paul Nichols (drums). Si Cowe, Rod Clements and Ray Laidlaw went off to form Jack The Lad, along with Billy Mitchell, who was to feature heavily in the Lindisfarne story in the future, on vocals. I saw this version of Lindisfarne (usually referred to as Lindisfarne MkII) quite a few times, including a Christmas gig at the City Hall in 1973, and a show (which turned out to be a farewell of sorts) in 1975, where they were supported by Hutch, a singer and guitarist from Yorkshire who had played with David Bowie in his early days. Lindisfarne continued to be a favourite at festivals; I remember seeing them during this period at Reading 1973, Buxton 1974, and supporting the Who at their 1974 Charlton gig. They continued to go down a storm, but things just didn’t seem quite the same. The new line-up released two albums; Roll On, Ruby (1973) and Happy Daze (1974), and their live set featured several of the new songs, but it was the old favourites that I, and everyone else in the audience, wanted to hear. The new band decided to call it a day in 1975, and the City Hall concert became a farewell to Newcastle. The Newcastle gig was planned to be the last, and the tour to end there, but a few additional gigs were added around the country to satisfy demand, I remember it as a good gig and quite an emotional event. At the time we all thought this was the very last time we would ever see the band, and the Newcastle crowd gave them a fitting farewell. Ray Laidlaw and Alan White of Yes joined the band on stage for the encore. I also saw Jack The Lad at Reading 1974.
Setlist from Charlton in 1974 was: Breakfast; Steppenwolf; Dealer’s Choice; North Country Boy; In Your Head; Tonight; Lady Eleanor; Taking Care of Business; No Need to Tell Me; Fog on the Tyne; Newcastle Brown Ale; Tow the Line; We Can Swing Together.

Lindisfarne Newcastle City Hall Sat 30 Sept & Sun 1st Oct 1972
Lindisfarne went out on tour in late 1972. This was their first major tour, The UK leg started with two nights at their home venue, Newcastle City Hall, after opening in Dublin. Genesis were support, but couldn’t make the first night, for which they were replaced by the very excellent Stackridge. I was a fan of all three bands, so decided to go along to both concerts. Scottish folk singer, and friend of Lindisfarne, Rab Noakes completed the bill on both nights, finding himself sandwiched between the two band performances. Lindisfarne had just released their third album Dingly Dell to quite mixed reviews. The album was a significant change in style for the band. It was obvious that it was an effort to show that they were growing up musically, with much more serious songs, both in terms of form and content. Some of it worked, and still stands up today. The concerts showcased a few songs from the new album, mixed with the old crowd singalong favourites.
Stackridge put everything into their set on the first night. Front man Mutter Slater was a crazy, wacky guy, complete with bowler hat, braces and some funny stories. The highlight of the set at the time was the epic “Slark”, a strange and comical tale of a friendly monster. This and the single “Dora, The Female Explorer” were great crowd favourites at the time. Next up on both nights was Rab Noakes. This was the first time I’d come across Rab, although he would feature in several of Lindisfarne’s concerts over the years. Songs of the period were “Everywhere You Look It’s There”, “Goodnight Loving Trail”, and “Drunk Again”, which was a favourite at the time. Genesis were, as they always were at the time, very special. This was the period of Peter Gabriel wearing several costumes such as the fox head, and great songs like Musical Box, Return of the Giant Hogweed, Watcher of the Skies and The Knife. I was a big fan at the time, and it was very obvious that there were about to become massive. Lindisfarne were great on both nights, however I recall the band and the audience seeming a little subdued. The inclusion of the material from the new album seemed to add a level of “seriousness” to the proceedings.
Setlist: Meet Me On The Corner; Float Me Down The River; Go Back; Lady Eleanor; Wake Up Little Sister; Poor Old Ireland; Dingly Dell; Alright On The Night; All Fall Down; No Time To Lose; Court In The Act; Fog On The Tyne; We Can Swing Together (also featuring Dingle Regatta). The encore was Lonnie Donegan’s Battle Of New Orleans.
From Sounds at the time: “Backstage after the show somebody forgot to keep their eye on the stage door and suddenly the place was overrun with autograph hunters. Somewhere in the middle was Hully’s mum who’d slipped back to pay her respects. ‘Great’ was all she could say, tears in her eyes. ‘Both nights – just great.'”