Greg Lake Newcastle Mayfair 1981
The Mayfair was packed for this concert, and quite right too, as Greg had assembled a band of rock heavyweights for his first solo tour. The Greg Lake Band line-up for this 1981 outing was Greg on bass and vocals, special guest guitar ace Gary Moore, Tristram Margetts (from the very under-rated and too often forgotten Spontaneous Combustion) on bass, Tommy Eyre (ex-Joe Cocker and the Grease Band, and Alex Harvey band) on keyboards, and Ted McKenna (ex-SAHB, and Rory Gallagher) on drums. The set consisted of a mix of new songs, drawn from Greg’s first solo album which had just been released, and older ELP and King Crimson classics. Gary Moore played the excellent Parisienne Walkways, with its tremendous soaring guitar, and almost blew his band leader off the stage. But Gregg has a set of classic rock songs to draw from. Lucky Man is one of my favourite ELP tracks, and I was pleased to hear Greg sing it that night. It was also great to see them play tracks from the first, excellent King Crimson album. Epitaph is a particular favourite of mine, and 21st Century Schizoid Man was dark and loud, vibrating through the ballroom. The two Hammersmith Odeon gigs were recorded for a live album. The setlist for the Mayfair gig will have been something like: Fanfare for the Common Man / Karn Evil 9; Nuclear Attack; The Lie; Retribution Drive; Lucky Man; Parisienne Walkways; You Really Got a Hold on Me (a cover of the Smokey Robinson song); Love You Too Much; 21st Century Schizoid Man; Epitaph; The Court of the Crimson King; C’est la vie. I would have sworn that they also played I Believe in Father Christmas, but I’ve searched the internet and everything I have found suggests that my memory is playing tricks again, and that it didn’t feature in the set during the tour. Support came from pop-rock band Voyager who had a minor hit with their debut single, “Halfway Hotel”, which reached No. 33 in the UK Singles Chart in 1979.
Archive for the ‘Voyager’ Category
15 Sep
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