Slade Alive! 1971 and 1972
Slade were, no question, one of the best live acts out on the road in the early 1970s. I saw them twice, maybe three times at Sunderland Locarno in October/November 1971 and January 1972. The first time I saw them was just as they released their No 1 smash hit “Coz I Luv You”. The ballroom was packed for these guys. They had played Sunderland Top Rank for the Sunderland Poly students union freshers ball a few weeks earlier, at the time “Get Down and Get with It” was in the charts; a few of my mates had gone to that gig and were raving about how great this band was. Support was Steamhammer, who are perhaps best known for their track “Junior’s Wailing” which was covered by Status Quo. We all sat crossed legged on the floor (as you did, back in the day) watching Steamhammer; I think they reminded me of Man. But when Slade came on stage, Noddy wasn’t haven’t any of this sitting on the dance floor. Slade were a loud rock band. “Come on, up on your feet, everybody”. The crowd jumped up and crushed to the front of the stage. The opening number was their cover of Ten Years After’s “Hear Me Callin'” (it always was in those early days) and it was amazing. It started quietly and slowly with Noddy singing in (for him) quite a low voice, then after a few bars the pace picked up, and Dave Hill’s guitar, Jim Lea’s bass and Don Powell’s drums came crashing in at an amazingly loud volume, so loud that I thought my ears would go. BY then Noddy’s voice was his normal raucous scream. And the crowd went crazy; completely bananas. Slade were a force to be reckoned with. 
They played wild, fast and very very LOUD. The set was short, probably around an hour, but furious and by the end we were all ringing in sweat and totally whacked. Slade were juts coming out of their skinhead phase; their hair was starting to grow, but you could still see signs of crew cuts. Except for Dave, whose hair was already growing right the way down his back. Nod was wearing a cap, a checky shirt, braces and jeans. The set included all of the tracks form “Slade Alive!” and quite a few covers; favourites of mine were “In Like a Shot from My Gun”, their excellent cover of John Sebastian’s “Darling Be Home Soon” which took the mood and the pace down a notch, the rocking “Get Down and Get With It” during which we all had to follow Nod’s instructions and “stamp our feet” (as long as we had our boots on 🙂 ), their new single “Coz I Luv You, with Jim soloing on his violin, their cover of Janis’ “Move Over”, and they closed with “Born to Be Wild”, an ear-piercingly loud cover of Steppenwolf’s classic. It was all over too soon, but it was amazing.
I saw them again a few months later. By that time they had released “Look Wot You Done” and were becoming chart heroes. But the live set remained as wild, raucous and loud as before. After one of the gigs, I think it was in early 1972, The Groundhogs were playing the Rink (Top Rank) on the same night as Slade at the Mecca (Locarno). We went to see Slade (who were excellent as usual) at the Mecca earlier that night, and came into the Rink just as The Groundhogs took to the stage, having missed the support act Ashton, Gardner and Dyke. I managed to make my way right to the front, and stood right in front of Tony McPhee as he soloed on Amazing Grace and Split II. Seeing Slade and The Groundhogs in the same night, when both acts were on top form 🙂 Happy Days.
The next time I saw Slade was at the Lincoln Festival in 1972. Slade managed to change a difficult situation into a major success. Chris Charlesworth writes of the event in his book “Feel The Noize!” (1984): “They were terrified of that audience…..completely overawed by it all … it was an underground audience and Slade had become a pop band…
Their fears were justified. When John Peel announced Slade’s imminent appearance there was an outbreak of booing from the large crowd….” Jim Lea :”Chas did everything he could to delay us going on stage…He was waiting for the sun to set so we could benefit from the stage lights and the big screen projection they had. When John Peel announced us he was very unenthusiastic. We just did a fifty minute set … bang, bang, bang … all rockers. We had the crowd in the palm of our hand after ten minutes and in the end we walked away with it.”
Noddy, from his book Who’s Crazee Now? (1999): “….we got a big break. We were invited to play the Lincoln Festival, which was being put on…by the actor Stanley Baker…The other acts were all much hipper than us….Joe Cocker, The Beach Boys, The Faces, Status Quo…we were only asked to be on the bill because Stanley Baker was a Slade fan…It had been pissing down with rain…the audience was drenched and the ground was all muddy…..We got booed when we walked on stage…the first time that had ever happened to us….. We carried on regardless…two minutes into our set, the rain went off. Then all the lights came on. Suddenly, the whole audience stood up. They had been sitting down all day…..people began going berserk. The place just exploded. We took everyone by surprise……My mind was racing about what we should do for a second encore. We had nothing planned. 
Then I saw Stanley Baker standing with Chas at the side of the stage….Suddenly, a mad idea popped into my head. I went up to the microphone and thanked Stanley for putting on the festival and invited him to come on and take a bow. As he was walking on, I started doing the Zulu chant, from the film Zulu that he had starred in. The rest of the band joined in, then the entire audience. Stanley absolutely loved it. It was the perfect end to our set…..The next week, we were on the cover of every music paper in the country….The impact of that gig was amazing.”
Slade were, indeed, simply epic that day, and the buzz after the Lincoln set helped cement their position as a top rock and pop band. They surprised a lot of people at Lincoln; but then those who had already seen them “Alive!” knew just how great they were.
I saw Slade several more times and will reflect on those crazy nights over the next few days.
I bought a ticket for this gig on ebay for £1.75 (result!) and was particularly looking forward to seeing the latest version of the Sweet, as it is many years since I have seen the band. These days the Sweet features guitarist Andy Scott as the only original member. I’ll blog about their set, rather than Slade, as I wrote about the latest (Noddy-less) version of Slade when I saw them at London’s Koko club last christmas. 
I saw the classic Sweet line-up a couple of times in the 70s, and also saw Andy, Steve Priest and Mick Tucker as a three piece in the early 80s, after Brian Connolly had left the band, and Brian Connolly’s Sweet in the early 90s. All of these line-ups were good fun in concert, so I was interested to see how this latest incarnation would shape up. Sweet started their set with Hellraiser, which sounded really good. Andy is very clearly the leader of the band, playing those chunky fuzz-toned guitar riffs that are the bedrock of all the old hits on a lovely red strat. They followed Hellraiser with New York Groove, which is the title track of their new album. Its good to see that the guys are still releasing new material. 
This new track was followed by The Six Teens, which is often forgotten, but is one of the best Sweeet hits in my view. Then we got a few of the hits: Wig Wam Bam ran straight into Little Willy. By now most of the crowd were up on their feet, singing along to every word. It was during Teenage Rampage that I looked down from my seat in the circle and saw a group of 50-something men and women singing “Recognise your age it’s a teenage rampage”; which seemed almost surreal. The next song was a cover of Dead or Alive’s You Spin Me Round, which also appears on the new album. Love is Like Oxygen followed; a great song, written by Andy, and quite different to the rest of Sweet’s material. Then Andy paid tribute to Brian Connolly and Mick Tucker, and the “crazy journey which I was on in the 70s”, and assured us that “as long as there is breath in me”, he would be there playing with Sweet. Then they played Blockbuster, Andy introduced the members of current line-up, and they finished with Fox on the Run. Great stuff. The new line-up is very strong, with three great front men: Andy, Tony O’Hora on guitar, vocals and keyboards, and, on lead vocals and bass, local Geordie guy Peter Lincoln. The powerhouse drummer is Bruce Bisland. The current band plays all the hits in a blend of heavy rock and pop that seems entirely right. Andy looks good; great 70s style hair; very thick and long (makes me dead jealous). The crowd wouldn’t let them leave without an encore; we got Action (another great, under-rated and oft-forgotten song); and of course, the whole place then went crazy to the Ballroom Blitz. I went down to the foyer during the interval and queued in a line to meet the members of Sweet, who signed my programme. Great to shake hands with Andy Scott! Legend. A good fun set, and better that I had expected. 
I was 15 at the time and so excited about going to a real pop festival. My dad drove me and a couple of mates down on the Friday night, after we’d been to the local Mecca ballroom. We arrived in the early hours of Saturday morning, having missed the Friday night bands, and slept in a big crash tent for a few hours. We soon ran into a group of other lads who had also come down from Sunderland, and between us we built a cabin out of bails of hay and planks of wood which were lying around in the fields. I swear there were around 20 of us sleeping in there. We were quite close to the stage, and I pretty much stayed in that cabin all weekend. We could also stand on the roof and watch the bands. There was a massive (and very empty) press enclosure which divided the crowd from the stage, so no-one could get that close, which was bad planning. The weather was wet, with rain for most of the weekend. But I didn’t care; this was a real pop festival, and I was determined to enjoy every minute. The line-up for the remaining three days of the event was really strong. I’ll try and recall as much as I can.
I went along to this gig with a group of mates in the back of a Transit van with one of my friends driving us. We went primarily to see AC/DC, who were a favourite band of all of us, although many of us were also fans of Blue Oyster Cult. This was our first visit to Donington, and for me is for the first of several visits to the Monsters of Rock festival over the next 10 years. My recollection of the day is a very cold and wet one, with, as often the case for festivals in the UK, quite a bit of rain. The first couple of bands: More and Blackfoot weren’t anything special as I recall, but Slade went down well as they always did at a festival. Â 
I’d seen Slade tear the place apart at the Reading Festival the year before, in common with many others in the Donington crowd, and that Reading comeback meant that they were now well accepted by the heavy rock fraternity. I also remember lots of cans etc being thrown across the crowd that day. The sound mix for Blue Oyster Cult was awful and they were a big disappointment for all of us; it didn’t go well for them at all that day. Whitesnake were on top form around this time with Coverdale in great voice, delivering classics like Mistreated and Ain’t no love in the heart of the city. AC/DC closed the day and were great, their show translating well to a massive open air setting. The AC/DC setlist at Donington was: Hells Bells; Shot Down in Flames; Sin City; Back in Black; Bad Boy Boogie; The Jack; What Do You Do For Money Honey; Highway to Hell; High Voltage; Whole Lotta Rosie; Rocker; T.N.T.; Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution; You Shook Me All Night Long; Let There Be Rock. Over the next couple of days I’ll do a write up on the 1984 and 1991 Monsters of Rock festivals, which will bring my AC/DC memories up to date. I’ll then move on to another band. I haven’t been there since 1991, but am planning to go to Download at Donington in June this year to see the reformed original Black Sabbath, unless they add any indoor shows before then.
Vintagerock's Weblog. 