HRH Prog Fest Magna Centre Rotherham 6 April 2013
I won free tickets for the Prog fest at the Magna Centre yesterday, and drove down to Rotherham for this event with my mate Norm. The line-up was headed by Hawkwind, and featured a host of other prog-related acts including the Strawbs, It Bites, and Arthur Brown. We arrive at around 5pm just is time to catch Arthur Brown. Arthur is doing a great job of recreating the psych-tinged R&B which featured on his first album. His set is drawn largely from that album, and he fronts a new band of excellent musicians, including a great keyboard player and guitarist. He is also accompanied by a dancer, with whom Arthur engages in some crazy, comical moves. His voice is as strong as ever; the Crazy World lives on. After seeing Arthur and his Crazy World we nipped out to Ben and Jerrys in Meadowhall for a bite to eat, and returned in time to catch the end of It Bites’ set, including Calling All The Heroes.
The Magna centre is an intriguing venue for a rock festival. It is housed in a massive old steelworks, which in its day will have been at the heart of the Sheffield steel industry, and by day it is a visitor attraction showing the history of steelmaking. The festival took up much of Magna over this weekend with some festivals in one taking place: the Prog fest which was the reason for our visit and its companion AOR fest, both organised by HRH. Each festival had two stages: the Prog fest main stage was in the “Face of Steel” and stage 2 was in “Earth”. For the AOR fest the main stage was in the Big Hall, and the second stage was in “Fire”. Signing sessions took place in the “Fuel” restaurant: we headed their after It Bites, lined up and got a flyer signed by some of the members of Hawkwind (sadly Dave Brock did not come along 😦 ).
We then found our way to the strange little room, which was “Earth” at the other end of the venue, and watched a little of the acoustic Strawbs, before heading back to the “Face of Steel” for Hawkwind, who opened their set with my favourite “Master of the Universe”. It was really getting cold by now; the size of Magna, with massive high ceilings, means that it is probably impossible to keep warm now, although it will have been red hot in its day when it housed a furnace. Norm and I have experienced how cold it is before, when we went to see Hawkwind ay a fan club event a few years ago on a cold December night. We watched a little more of Hawkwind’s set and then decided to keep warm by moving around and visiting the AOR fest. The Main Hall was packed for Tesla who seemed an intriguing rock band. We then went up to “Fire” where we watched a couple of songs of Estrella. Then it was back round to Hawkwind again, passing “Earth” where Karnataka were playing. Hawkwind finished their set around 11pm with Damnation Alley from the Quark, Strangeness and Charm album. Hawkwind have been playing the entire Warrior at the Edge of Time album on their current tour, with dancers and light show. Apparently the stage at the Prog fest wasn’t big enough for the show, so Hawkwind decided to revert to a standard set. As it was getting late by the time Hawkwind finished and we had a two hour drive home we decided to pass on seeing Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash and heading for the M1 north. Got home 1am. The festival was fun, but the venue was FREEZING…..
Posts Tagged ‘classic rock’
7 Apr
HRH Prog Fest Magna Centre Rotherham 6 April 2013
6 Apr
Roy Harper Buddle Arts Centre Wallsend 1986
Roy Harper Buddle Arts Centre Wallsend 1986 
I next saw Roy Harper at the Buddle Arts Centre in Wallsend on 30th Sep 1986. The Buddle is a sadly missed local venue, that played host to many concerts over the years, although this was the only occasion that I attended a gig there. The Buddle was housed in an old school, and the concert room was a small intimate venue. It was great to see Roy close up again; just him, his acoustic guitar, his songs and his great banter with the crowd. I can’t recall the exact set, but I do remember that I was pleased that he played a lot of old favourites. I think that included When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease, Tom Tiddler’s Ground, Me And My Woman, I Hate The White Man and One Of Those Days In England.
Some information about the Buddle from the North Tyneside Council website: “For 27 years, the Buddle Arts Centre in Wallsend was North Tyneside’s community arts and creative industries resource and gained a deserved reputation as one of the most distinctive and innovative arts facilities in the North East. When the centre closed in October 2008, it brought to an end the latest phase of a history stretching back more than 130 years. The building was originally commissioned by the Wallsend School Board and completed in 1876. 
It was officially opened as the Buddle Board Schools on 30th July 1877. For some years the building housed the Wallsend Arts Centre, a voluntary organsiation, but its future was uncertain before beginning a new era as the Buddle Arts Centre on 21st September 1981. The Buddle Arts Centre was one of the first facilities of its kind in the North East – but from its earliest days it was really one of a kind. The core of the facility was the intimate performance space and exhibitions gallery. The centre quickly built up a reputation for its music and theatre programme, the quality of its exhibitions, its pioneering support for disability arts, its resources for youth music development.”
5 Apr
First Tyneside Music Festival 1986 Roy Harper
First Tyneside Music Festival mid 1980s Roy Harper
Strange one this. I googled this festival and can find very little on it. I have the small programme which I have included here, and looking at the line-up this event must have taken place in the mid 80s. The festival was at Exhibition Park just outside of the town. There were folk, rock and jazz stages. Roy Harper appeared in a marquee on the Friday night, as part of the Folk stage. Support came from Michael Chapman and Isaac Gullory. A group of us went through to see Roy. He was back to playing solo with an acoustic guitar, and sang a set of favourites. The rest of the bill included Beloius Some and Gonzalez. I also recall seeing Joan Jett and the Blackhearts at an event on Exhibition Park. I can’t recall whether this was the same event, however, Joan Jett is not mentioned in the programme, so I guess it was a different event. Actually my (very bad) memory seems to be telling me that the Joan Jett concert was a Radio 1 event held at Newcatle? I also saw Roy Harper at Newcastle Riverside around the same time, and remember him playing a very long (and excellent) version of Me and My Woman. Roy went through a difficult time in the 80s, both financially and musically. Roy, speaking to the Telegraph in 2011: “I ended up owing EMI £82,000 in 1980. I lost my house because I was in so much debt. So in 1982, I started again from scratch. But I wouldn’t want you to write this up in a negative way, because it’s been another lifetime since then, and it’s been a great life, actually.” 
Postscript. I found my ticket for this event which shows it took place on Friday 8th August 1986. Mystery solved.
4 Apr
Roy Harper Newcastle City Hall 1977
Roy Harper Newcastle City Hall 1977
The next time I saw Roy Harper was in October 1977 at a concert at Newcastle City Hall. The programme lists the Albion Band as support (they were formed by Ashley Hutching, founding member of Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span). However I also have a flyer for Spriguns in the programme, and Mitch tells me that is was them who supported that night. Roy was backed by the same electric band as earlier in the year. I think by now they were called Black Sheep, and featured Henry McCullough on lead guitar. Roy was performing a full electric set at the time. An audience recording from a concert in Dublin in 1977 shows the setlist as: One Of Those Days In England, Another Day, Naked Flame, Forget Me Not, Cherishing The Lonesome, Prick Up In The Saddle, Take Me Home, Referendum, When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease, Highway Blues and Grown Ups Are Just Silly Children. 
I guess this is the sort of set that Roy will have played at the City Hall, however, he has always tended to vary the set from one night to another. The cover of the tour programme shows Roy with one of his famous Black Sheep. The black sheep story came out when Roy became seriously ill with a strange illness called Osler-Weber-Rendu disease. He told the papers that he’d become ill after giving a sheep the kiss of life. In Roy’s words: “That same day, it was headline news in Australia and New Zealand. A big story there, given that the sheep outnumber the people about four to one. Then it hits the broadsheets here. The next thing I know, I’ve been kissing a sheep.” The illness was hardly a laughing matter, though. At first he was given seven years to live. However, “the doctor came back to my bedside a fortnight later and said ‘I think I’m wrong’. It’s been that sort of situation ever since.”
3 Apr
Roy Harper Middlesbrough Town Hall February 1977
remnants of my ticket stub
Roy Harper Middlesbrough Town Hall 1977
1977 and Roy almost became a pop star. He released a fine single One of Those Days in England and had a proper rock band backing him. In Roy’s own words from his web site: “The single shot to no. 42 in the chart, with a promise from the Top Of The Pops producer, Robin Nash, to have us on the show as soon as the record reached 40 or better. That same week the record company released the album, with a free single inside it! ! ! So… that was it for that ‘campaign’.. At the time I had a constituency of about 150,000 people. Top Of The Pops would have given us a potential constituency of 13,000,000.” So Roy never made Top of the Pops and the single didn’t reach any higher in the charts. But he was pretty popular at the time and was filling concert halls up and down the country.
Flyer for an earlier tour (1975) I think. Don’t recall if I was at the gig at Newcastle City Hall or not!
2 Apr
Roy Harper Knebworth 5th July 1975
Roy Harper Knebworth 5th July 1975
The next time I saw Roy Harper was at the Knebworth Festival in 1975. This one day event was headlined by Pink Floyd, with appearances by the Steve Miller Band, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, Linda Lewis and Graham Chapman (Monty Python) and friends, with DJ for the day John Peel. I’ll blog about the full event on another day, probably when I come to write about Pink Floyd, but I wanted to write here about my memories of Roy from that day. Roy was a strong favourite of mine by this time, so I made sure that I had a good view for his set. His band in 1975 was called Trigger and featured Chris Spedding on guitar (ex Jack Bruce band, and Pete Brown’s Battered Ornaments and to go on to further solo success), Dave Cochrane on bass (Dave stayed with Roy for a number of years) and Bill Bruford on drums (ex Yes and King Crimson). Setlists from the day suggest that Roy played: Commune; Twelve Hours of Sunset; Another Day; Electric; Hallucinating Light; Referendum; Highway Blues; Too Many Movies; The Spirit Lives; Home; The Game; Grown Ups Are Just Silly Children. By now Another Day was a favourite of mine, along with Highway Blues. I think I remember Jesus dancing at the front for Roy’s set. If he wasn’t he should have been. It was one of those hippy days. Roy was back on stage later in the day with headliners Pink Floyd to sing vocals on Have a Cigar. I saw Roy appear once more at Knebworth, when Genesis headlined in 1978. He was a big favourite with the festival crowds, and always seemed at ease, even in front of 100,000 people. He would chat away quite naturally to us all, and always had something entertaining and interesting to say.
1 Apr
Roy Harper and friends Hyde Park free concert August 31st 1974
The cover of my copy of The Passions Of Great Fortune Lyric Book
Hyde Park free concert August 31st 1974
Line-up: Roger McGuinn, Roy Harper and Friends, Julie Felix, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, Kokomo, Toots and The Maytals.
I’d just got back from the Reading festival, which was headlined by Traffic and Alex Harvey, a few days earlier, and quite fancied going to another open air event. My mate Will was up for going to this free Hyde Park concert on Saturday, so we decided to hitch down to London after going to the local Mecca ballroom on Friday night. Around midnight we hitched a lift to the A1 at Durham and started to make our way down south. It took us all night to get down to London, but we made it by early morning. We had some crazy lifts along the way, including one in the back of an army jeep driven by a couple of squaddies who took a dislike to us (we jumped out of the jeep at a service station and started to hitch again), and another with a guy who was totally spaced out of his brain (he told us he had been taking acid) and was speeding through the centre of some strange town (I think it may have been Nottingham) driving through red lights and singing at the top of his voice. Our last lift was from a kind old couple who gave us something to eat and took us into London. When we arrived we took the tube out to Wembley so that I could buy tickets for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young who were appearing at Wembley Stadium a couple of weeks later. We then went to Hyde Park for the concert, where we ran into a few other boys we knew from the town. I don’t remember much about the first few acts, but do remember being impressed by Julie Felix. Her set featured the excellent Ollie Halsall from Patto on guitar, and we all sang along to Going to the Zoo. There was much anticipation for Roy Harper’s set that day, and much speculation about exactly who might be guesting with him. Roy came on stage late on the afternoon and introduced his friends for the day: Dave Gilmour on guitar, John Paul Jones on bass, and Steve Broughton on drums. A recording of the epic Harper song The Game exists from the concert, with some great guitar work from Gilmour. My memory is a little hazy (it is almost 40 years….) and I don’t recall exactly what else was played, although I think Roy performed I Hate the White Man, but I do remember it being a great set. Roger McGuinn was headlining and played a set of classic Byrds songs. We left before the end of his set to get to the motorway before the rest of the crowds, and took the tube to Hendon to pick up the M1 junction and hitch back up north. Our journey back home took ages. We managed to get back to the A1(M) Bishop Auckland turn-off by Sunday afternoon and stood for hours without so much as a sniff of a lift. So we walked into Bishop Auckland to see if we could get a bus home. Sadly we’d missed the last bus and had hardly any money anyway so we decided to try to walk home. We popped into a pub somewhere near Spennymoor for a glass of water (as we didn’t have enough for a drink) only to find a group of guys from Sunderland in the back room. I have never been happier to see some familiar faces; they gave us a lift home at closing time! So we arrived back home some 48 hours after we set off, having had no sleep at all, and very hungry. The crazy things you do when you are young. Still I’m pleased I went to this event; it was good to see Roy. I have a copy of the recording of the Game from that day. Its pretty rough, but brings back some great memories when I play it. Happy days.
31 Mar
Roy Harper : my early gig experiences and Newcastle City Hall 1974
I’m going to spend a few days this week blogging about Roy Harper. I’ve become a bit of a fan of Roy’s over the year, which sort of crept up on me without me realising it. Roy has always been there as part of my concert experience, someone who seemed to just pop up and play at many of the festivals I went to in the 70s, and someone that I went to see now and then as an act in his own right. In recent years however I’ve begun to reflect on just how important Roy Harper and his music is to me and, I’m sure, to a lot of other people.
My concert journey with Roy Harper started with the first ever rock concert I attended, which was a Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band concert at Sunderland Empire on 8th March 1969. The support acts that night were Mad Dog, Yes and Roy. I was sitting in the front row directly in front of Roy that night. He was sitting on a high stool, sporting what seemed to me to be incredibly long hair, a pair of beat up old jeans and a pair of big Dr Martin boots. I think he sang Hells Angels, Nobodies Got Any Money in the Summer, and I Hate The White Man. I knew Nobodies Got Any Money in the Summer from the Rock Machine Turns You On sampler lp. I was surprised at the way he interacted with the audience; it was as if people knew him and were having conversations with him from the stalls. It was that authenticity and naturalness that struck me. With Roy what you see is what you get; he always speaks and sings from the heart and is never frightened to tell it as it is.
I saw Roy as support act at a few more gigs, and at a few of the Knebworth festivals in the 70s. My friend’s brother had the Flat Baroque and Berserk album and I used to go around to his house to listen to it. Our favourite tracks were I Hate the White Man, Another Day and Tom Tiddler’s Ground. The ticket here is from a gig at Newcastle City Hall in 1974. The wonderful Me and My Woman was featuring as a highlight of his live performances at this time. This Newcastle concert came one month after Roy’s legendary London Rainbow Theatre show which took place on February 14 (Valentine’s Day) 1974, where he was backed by guests including Jimmy Page, Keith Moon and Ronnie Lane. I went along to the City Hall in the hope that similar guests might grace the stage that night. I don’t recall who the guests were but they weren’t the same guys who played with Roy at the Rainbow. None the less it was still a great gig.
And so my lifelong fascination with the words, music anecdotes and philosophies of Roy Harper began. Over the years I’ve seen lots of faces of Roy: Roy the angry young man (late 60s and early 70s), Roy the festival hippy and raconteur, Roy the face of the alternative counter culture, Roy the electric rock star, and in more recent years the reflective Roy, looking back at his songs, his career and life in general; Roy the wise elder statesman of music. I’m going to write a little about each of these faces over the next few days.
29 Mar
Ian Hunter Newcastle Academy 2007
I hate printed tickets
Ian Hunter Newcastle Academy 2007
At the Stockton gig on Tuesday night Ian Hunter told us that he moved to the USA in 1975, that he always meant to return home to the UK, but never has. He went on to point out that he has spent more time in the USA (38 years) than he has here (35 years). Although in recent years he has come over to the UK to tour quite often, this wasn’t always the case. During the 80s and 90s I don’t recall him playing many UK gigs. I went over 30 years without seeing Ian in concert; from the mid 70s to this gig at Newcastle Academy in 2007. I did miss a few gigs in the early 2000s, which I now regret, but picked up on him again at the time of his Shrunken Heads album. I remember being quite excited about seeing him again, and wasn’t disappointed. The set drew heavily from the new album but also featured a good few Mott classics, including (of course) the hits (All the Young Dudes, All the Way from Memphis, Roll Away the Stone, Saturday Gigs), but also delving further into that rich back catalogue with great songs such as Sweet Angeline and Rock n Roll Queen. The Academy was pretty full, although not packed, and the Newcastle crowd gave him a great reception. Mott were always a big favourite and really popular in the North East. The Mayfair crowd loved them and used to go crazy when they played, to the extent that on one (in)famous occasion the bouncers brought the alsation dogs into the crowd to try to control things. I wasn’t at that gig, but heard about it, and do remember the bouncers having the dogs; however they were usually kept at the door. In Ian’s own words from the great Newcastlestuff site: “Newcastle was always one of Mott’s favourite gigs. It is, however, mainly City Hall that I remember. I remember doing one gig up there (it might have been the Mayfair), and it got a bit crazy and Alsatian dogs appeared on the stage. The dogs were scared and to this day I think that was about the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen a ballroom manager do. Fortunately, they got them off the stage without anybody getting hurt. Kids were wild in Newcastle. They’d have the tour bus two feet from the stage door entrance and still they’d get you. Shades smashed, hair pulled, clothes ripped. Ah the good old days! Got booed off city hall stage by 2000 kids one night when the drummer turned up legless. I was the mug who had to tell them the show was off. Not a pretty sight or sound. Great audience.” I remember being at a Mott gig at the City Hall where the show was cancelled, but my memory is that it was because of a power cut. Maybe that was a different gig. Happy Days. I’ve seen Ian a couple of times since this gig in 2007, attended the Mott the Hoople reunion in London, and will try to catch him live whenever I’m able. There’s something about the guy, his voice, his passion and his attitude that draws you in. Long may he continue to come over here and play in his home country.
28 Mar
Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson Newcastle City Hall 1975
Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson Newcastle City Hall 1975
Support from Jet
This seemed a strange, yet exciting, pairing at the time. I’d seen both artists individually; Hunter with Mott the Hoople, who were one of the best live acts around in the early 1970s, and Ronson with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars, and on own his solo tour. So I was interested to see what the two together would be like, and went along with some mates to the gig at Newcastle City Hall. Hunter had just released his first solo album, which Mick Ronson featured on, and the single Once Bitten Twice Shy was just about to be released. Ronson had released the solo album Slaughter on Tenth Avenue, and a second album was on its way. The set was a mix of tracks from both artists solo albums, and a few Mott favourites. The pairing worked well, and it was a good gig. Both guys were heroes of mine at the time. They were both strong personalities on stage, each having their own style and swagger. Happy Days. The excellent Glasgow Apollo site has a setlist from the show at that venue, which took place a couple of days before we saw Hunter and Ronson at Newcastle. I would think the set at Newcastle will have been similar: Once Bitten Twice Shy (Hunter and Ronson); Lounge Lizard (Hunter); Angel No.9 (Ronson); Growing Up and I’m Fine (Ronson); Who Do You Love? (Hunter); White Light/White Heat (cover; from Ronson album and also covered by Bowie and the Spiders); Boy (Hunter); Play Don’t Worry (title track of Ronson second album); The Truth, the Whole Truth, Nuthin’ but the Truth (Hunter); Roll Away the Stone (Mott); Slaughter on 10th Avenue (Ronson); The Golden Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll (Mott); All the Way from Memphis (Mott); All the Young Dudes (Mott); The Girl Can’t Help It (a cover, but from Ronson’s second album). Support for the tour came from Jet who were a short lived glam rock with a strong pedigree. The line-up was Andy Ellison (crazy frontman and vocals, ex-John’s Children, went on to front Radio Stars), Martin Gordon (bass, ex-Sparks and also was later in Radio Stars), Chris Townson (drums, formerly in John’s Children and also was later in Radio Stars), David O’List (lead guitar, ex-The Nice) and Peter Oxendale (keyboards and breifly in Sparks).
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