Monsters of Rock Donington Status Quo 21st August 1982
Line-up: Status Quo, Gillan, Saxon, Hawkwind, Uriah Heep and Anvil
This was the third Monsters of Rock festival, and the second time I went to the event. I drove down with my mate Dave, and we had a great time. It was a strong line-up of hard rock bands with Status Quo topping the bill, and a clutch of great support acts in Gillan, Saxon, Hawkwind, Uriah Heep and Anvil. Tommy Vance was DJ and compere for the day. Highlights for me were Hawkwind, Uriah Heep and Quo. Saxon were quite successful at the time and represented the NWOBHM, and Gillan seemed to gig constantly during that period, and was always good fun, playing a few Purple classics alongside his own material.
Uriah Heep were fronted by new(ish) singer Pete Goalby, alongside long time Heepsters Mick Box, and Lee Kerslake. Their set included classic tracks like Stealin’, The Wizard, July Morning, Gypsy and Easy Livin’. It seemed strange to me to see them so low down on the bill. Both Heep and Hawkwind would have had headline status a few years earlier. Hawkwind’s set feautured Brainstorm, Angels of Death, Urban Guerilla, Psychedelic Warlords, and of course Silver Machine and Master Of the Universe. Their ever-changing line-up at this time included Dave Brock, Huw Lloyd Langton, Harvey Bainbridge and Nik Turner. Both great bands. But the day rightly belonged to Quo, who were worthy headliners. We pushed our way right down the front for their set. This show is often rated as not one of Quo’s best, but I enjoyed seeing them headlining a festival again, and thought they were pretty good. There were some problems with the sounds, with some parts of the crowd reporting that they couldn’t hear Quo very well, but I think this depended on where you were placed in the field. This was the first time I saw the band with Pete Kircher who replaced John Coughlan on drums. Quo were celebrating their 20th anniversary as a band.
Status Quo setlist: Caroline; Roll Over Lay Down; Backwater; Little Lady; Don´t Drive My Car; Whatever You Want; Hold You Back; Rockin All Over The World; Over The Edge; What You´re Proposing; Dirty Water; 4500 Times; Big Fat Mama; Don´t Waste My Time; Roadhouse Blues; Rain; Down Down; Bye Bye Johnny.
Posts Tagged ‘festival’
19 May
The Reading Rock Festival 25 – 27th August 1978
The Reading Rock Festival 25 – 27th August 1978
This was the year punk finally arrived. The festival was now officially known as the Reading Rock Festival, having dropped “jazz” from the title and the line-up, and weekend tickets cost all of £8.95. Our old friend John Peel was compere, as always, and a van load of us descended on the riverside site, having driven part of the way down on Thursday, gone for a drink in Wetherby and slept on Wetherby racecourse (the crazy things you do when you are young 🙂 ) Highlights of the weekend for me were Penetration (I was a big fan at the time), Sham 69, The Jam, Status Quo (most of our group were heavily into them) and Patti Smith.
Friday line-up: Dennis O’Brien; The Automatics; New Hearts (who would become mods and change their name to Secret Affair); Radio Stars; Penetration; Sham 69; The Pirates; Ultravox; The Jam.
Memories: Radio Stars were always good for a laugh; “Dirty Pictures” (turn me on) was a favourite at the time; it was great to see local north east punk heroes playing up on the massive Reading stage Penetration, although they suffered from murky sound throughout their set; The Pirates rocked the place with no-nonsense rock’n’roll, “Shaking All Over” and ace guitarist the late Mick Green (a big influence on Wilko); and the John Foxx version of Ultravox! played a quite moody atmospheric electronic set. The main event was Sham 69, who were excellent with Jimmy Pursey his usual cockney “boy on the streets” self, and those anthems “What have we got?”, “Borstal Breakout” and “If the Kids are United”. The Sham Army had come across to Reading in force, all braces, No 2 cuts, and Doc Martins, and ready to take on those hippies. We were right at the front, although we soon moved to the side of the crowd when the fights started. A bunch of skins climbed on to the stage, and Pursey tried to call order, pleading with the crowd to stop fighting to no avail. He was in tears, watching bedlam and violence all around him, and not being able to do anything to stop it. But that was the nature of a Sham gig at the time. Jimmy even brought Steve Hillage on stage to show that it was ok to mix with hippies, but that just annoyed the skins more. A nasty, frightening experience, which marred an excellent performance by Sham. The Jam were great, Weller the edgy young mod, getting himself into a strop at the poor sound quality, and trashing his gear. Punk really had arrived at Reading.
The Jam set included: Mr Clean ; Away From the Numbers; Don’t Tell Them You’re Sane; Tonight at Noon; David Watts; Down in the Tube Station at Midnight; “A” Bomb in Wardour Street; News of the World
Saturday line-up: Speedometors; The Business; Jenny Darren; Next; Gruppo Sportivo; Nutz; Greg Kihn Band; Lindisfarne; Spirit; The Motors; Status Quo.
Saturday was a little more straightforward rock. Lindisfarne had recently reunited and hit the charts with “Run For Home”. The Motors were OK (Airport!). Spirit were excellent, with great Hendrix-style guitar from Randy California. Status Quo played a solid respectable set, nothing earth shattering. I know quite a few people were disappointed with them that night, but I thought they were OK. “Dirty Water’ was to become a crowd singalong favourite.
Status Quo setlist: Caroline; Roll Over Lay Down; Backwater; Rockers Rollin; Is There A Better Way; You Don’t Own Me; Hold You Back; Rockin All Over The World; Dirty Water; 4500 Times; Big Fat Mama; Don’t Waste My Time; Roadhouse Blues; Rain; Down Down; Bye Bye Johnny.
Sunday line-up: After The Fire; Chelsea; Pacific Eardrum; Bethnal; Squeeze; John Otway; The Albion Band; Paul Inder; Ian Gillan Band; Tom Robinson Band; Foreigner; Patti Smith Group.
Memories: Paul Inder is Lemmy’s son and was 11 years old (!) at the time; what a great thing to do when you are 11 🙂 ; Bethnal were a good band, who had a manic violin player; Squeeze were fun; Otway was as crazy as ever (Really Free); Tom Robinson led a mass singalong of “Glad to be Gay”; and Foreigner went down well with the crowd. But the day belonged to Patti Smith who was amazing. I was a big fan and left my mates to push my way right to the front of the crowd for Patti’s set. She had the whole crowd with her as she tore into “Gloria”, “Because the Night” and great covers of the Byrds’ “So You Want to Be (A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star)” and the Who’s “My Generation”. Stunning. I saw her again at Newcastle City Hall two days later and she was equally as electric.
Patti Smith setlist: Rock n Roll Nigger; Privilege (Set Me Free); Redondo Beach; Free Money; Ghost Dance; It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World; So You Want to Be (A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star); Ask the Angels; 25th Floor; Because the Night; Gloria, You Light Up My Life; My Generation; Godspeed
15 Apr
Roxy Music the Lincoln Festival 27th May 1972
Roxy Music the Lincoln Festival 27th May 1972
I will spend the next few days trying to recall as much as I can about the seven or so occasions on which I have seen Roxy Music live. I first saw a new and relatively unknown Roxy Music at the Lincoln Festival on 27th May 1972. This was their first major performance and only the seventh time the band had played together. They appeared early on the Saturday afternoon, sandwiched between sets by Locomotive GT (a Hungarian rock band who were pretty big during the ’70s) and Heads, Hands and Feet. The Roxy line-up at the time was Bryan Ferry (vocals and keyboards), Phil Manzanera (guitar), Andy Mackay (sax and oboe), Paul Thompson (drums), Eno (synths) and Graham Simpson (bass). I recall that there was quite a buzz about the band at the time, largely as a result of their connections with King Crimson. Bryan Ferry had auditioned as lead singer for King Crimson, and impressed Robert Fripp and Pete Sinfield, although they felt that his voice was not suitable for Crimson. They went on to help Roxy Music obtain a record contract, and Sinfield produced their first, wonderful, album. 
The sound at the festival wasn’t great; it was windy and the mix was poor. But it was obvious even at this early stage in their career that there was something new, different and unique about this band. The guys all dressed outrageously and looking at pictures of Roxy taken at the festival you would think they had come from another planet, and they all look so young! The image here is from a Sounds poster of the time and was taken at the festival. And the music sounded very different to anything else around at the time. Eno’s use of synths, Ferry’s vocals, and Mackay’s oboe all gave Roxy their own distinctive sound. Roxy Music were recording tracks for their first album at the time of this appearance, and it was well before the release of their first single “Virginia Plain”. Their short set is likely to have consisted of the following songs: 2HB; Would You Believe?; Sea Breezes, Ladytron, If There Is Something!, Re-Make/Re-Model, The Bob (Medley), Virginia Plain. Roxy provided a short interlude of majestic bright glam/art rock in what was an excellent line-up, but a very wet windy and cold weekend. Looking back, and although I didn’t realise it at the time, there were glimpses of the greatness and richness of musical texture which would follow. Foolishly, I saw Roxy Music simply as a quirky weird new band, and because of this I left it a couple of years before I saw them again, which I now regret. The next time I saw Roxy Music was on their 1974 tour, and I’ll reflect on that tomorrow.
14 Apr
A day at the Edinburgh festival with Radiohead and Franz Ferdinand (well two of them) 22nd August 2006
A day at the Edinburgh festival with Radiohead and Franz Ferdinand 22nd August 2006
The Edinburgh festival is an amazingly broad all-encompassing set of events, and we often find ourselves going along to one or two. In August 2006 we spent a day up in Edinburgh, and managed to take in two musical events, each of a different sort. David, Laura and I drove up to Edinburgh in the late morning, to make sure that we arrived for our first event, which was part of the Edinburgh International Book Festival.Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand were due to discuss lyric writing, as part of the children’s programme. Speaking at the time Kapranos said: “We are looking forward to performing for, and talking to, the kids at such a great event. We might even give a few secrets away”, and the director of the children’s programme at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Karen Mountney, added “We wanted to create a family event where young people could be inspired by the best in the business.” The event started at 4.30pm in a small theatre on the book festival village. It had sold out very quickly and the place was packed with 500 young people eager to meet some musical heroes close up. Frontman Alex Kapranos and guitarist Nick McCarthy spent an hour telling the young fans all about their songs and how they write them. They sat on a small stage surrounded by guitars and a piano, which the duo used to illustrate their points and play short pieces from their songs. Kapranos: “I have always felt that songwriting and lyrics were seen as the poorer cousins of the literature world, but that’s not necessarily the case. The greatest figure in Scottish literature was not primarily known for his poetry, but for his song-writing – Robert Burns – and there has been a longevity to what he says. Lyrics are another side of literature.” He added: “When it comes to song writing, there are not any distinct rules – there isn’t any right of wrong way to go about it. Some of the best things you do are mistakes. I didn’t have any music training – most of song writing is messing about till it sounds good.” (from a review on http://www.gigwise.com/ at the time). I like intimate events like this one, where you get the chance to hear musicians speak, and always find them very interesting and enlightening. After the event Laura and David joined a line to get their festival brochures signed by the two guys. I had to go and move the car…
The next part of our day was very different; we were going to see Radiohead in concert at Meadowbank stadium. Support came from Beck, who we sadly missed because of our trip to the book festival (still, it was worth it). Radiohead took to the stage shortly after we arrived, and from opener ‘Airbag’ the crowd were simply enthralled. This was the first time I saw Radiohead, and to be honest I didn’t really get them at the time, although Laura and David were, and still are, massive fans of the band. The stage backdrop featured a large and fractured image of Thom Yorke, in front of which he wriggled around squeezing perfect vocals and emotion from his wiry frame. The set included classics like ‘Karma Police’ and ‘Paranoid Android’ and tracks which were new at the time such as ‘Videotape’ and ‘Bodysnatchers’. The magnificent ‘Creep’ ended their two-hour set and was the anthem of the evening. The large crowd was pretty unruly at times, with Thom having to stop the show at one point. A good gig, and a great ending to the day. Laura thought it was one of the best gigs she had been to, and was knocked out by Yorke’s vocals. I’ve seen Radiohead a couple of times since then, and I am beginning to count myself a fan now.
Setlist: Airbag; 2+2=5; The National Anthem; My Iron Lung; Morning Bell; Videotape; Nude; Lucky; The Gloaming; Where I End And You Begin; Paranoid Android; All I Need; Pyramid Song; Fake Plastic Trees; I Might Be Wrong; Idioteque; How To Disappear Completely. Encore 1: You And Whose Army?; Bodysnatchers; Just; Karma Police. Encore 2: There There; True Love Waits/Everything In Its Right Place; Creep.
It seemed to take forever before we were allowed out of the car park; they held us back until the crowds cleared. We then had a couple of hour drive home, arriving back in the early hours of the morning after a long, tiring, but exciting day.
16 Mar
Reading Festival 26th – 28th August 1977
Reading Festival 26th – 28th August 1977
Reading 1977 was notable for a couple of reasons. First, the line-up finally (and sadly in my view) lost all traces of the festival’s jazz and blues roots. Instead we had lots of classic rock, with a (small) smattering of punk and new wave. Although 1977 was the year of punk, it was another year before the new music finally started to make its mark at Reading. And second, the main feature of the 1977 festival was MUD. Lots of it. Possibly the worst I have ever seen at a festival. It had been raining heavily for weeks before, which resulted in most of the site becoming a quagmire with rivers of mud, and a large mud lake right in front of the stage. Wellies were at a premium and were being sold for incredible prices in the town.
Friday’s line-up: Staa Marx; S.A.L.T; Woody Woodmansey’s U Boat; Kingfish; 5 Hand Reel; Lone Star; Uriah Heep; Eddie and the Hot Rods; Golden Earring.
A strange mix of bands on the first day. Woody Woodmansey’s U Boat (ex Bowie’s Spiders from Mars) closed their set with Suffragette City. A highlight for me was Uriah Heep; now with John Lawton on vocals. Heep were always one of my favourite bands, and still are; I was a little sad to see them third on the line-up; they would have headlined a few years earlier. Lone Star were also good; showing lots of promise at the time, and Eddie and the Hot Rods went down well with the crowd. Golden Earring closed the day with a strong performance (Radar Love!).
Saturday’s line-up: Gloria Mundi; Krazy Kat; No Dice; George Hatcher Band; Ultravox!; Little River Band; John Miles; Aerosmith; Graham Parker and the Rumour; Thin Lizzy.
I remember being impressed by Ultravox!; this was the early version with John Foxx on vocals. Aerosmith seemed a big band to feature third on the bill, drew a large crowd, and were excellent. “Dream On” from those days remains a favourite song of mine. But the stars of the day were Graham Parker (the whole crowd sang along to (Hey Lord) Don’t Ask Me Questions) and of course, headliners Thin Lizzy. Lizzy were massive at the time and played a classic set including: Jailbreak; Dancing in the Moonlight; Still in Love With You; Cowboy Song; The Boys Are Back in Town; Don’t Believe a Word; Emerald and closing with The Rocker as encore. A good way to spend a Saturday night.
Sunday’s line-up: Widowmaker; The Motors; Tiger: The Enid; Blue; Racing Cars; Wayne County and the Electric Chairs; Hawkwind; Doobie Brothers; Frankie Miller; Alex Harvey.
The Enid were a big Reading favourite and Robert Godfrey got the tired crowd going with versions of classics like The Dambusters March. The Motors and Widowmaker got the day off to a good start. Steve Ellis had left Widowmaker by this point and had been replaced by John Butler, and they still featured that crazy showman Ariel Bender. Tiger featured the excellent guitarist Big Jim Sullivan (I used to love watching him play on the Tom Jones show in the ’60s), and Blue had some neat songs (try listening to “Little Jody”) and deserved bigger success. They were fronted my ex-Marmalade Hughie Nicholson. Racing Cars went down well with the crowd; this was the year that they had a massive hit with “They Shoot Horses Don’t They?” Wayne County was greeted by a hail of cans from a tired and twitchy crowd who didn’t take well to his punk songs, including the classic “If you don’t want to F**k me, F**k Off! Hawkwind were OK, as were the Doobies and Frankie Miller, but we were all there to see Alex Harvey. SAHB played the usual set and Alex told his quirky stories: Faith Healer; Midnight Moses; Gang Bang; Last of the Teenage Idols; Giddy-Up-A-Ding-Dong; St. Anthony; Framed; Dance to the Music. Alex hadn’t been well and this was their first gig for a few months. It was good to see them, but it wasn’t one of their best performances, and sadly it was the last time the band would play together. The end of an era.
By Sunday many people had given up and left because of the atrocious conditions. Poor John Peel tried to keep the crowd amused, partly be starting the famous “John Peel’s a C***” chant which continued into the next few years.
One final note. I had been to see The Sex Pistols play at Scarborough Penthouse club the night before the festival, and I was still buzzing with the memories of that gig. It had opened my eyes to the raw energy of punk, and that, coupled with the mud and awful conditions at Reading, meant I didn’t enjoy the weekend as much as usual. And just to make the experience complete, the alternator on my car packed in on the way back up the M1, and the car finally ground to a halt somewhere near Nottingham. After a wait of an hour or so, a kind AA man towed us back to Barnard Castle, where we waited (a few hours) for another AA relay van to pick us up and take us home. We arrived back after midnight on Monday, tired, hungry and very muddy, soggy and scruffy….the joys of festival going. Happy Days 🙂
11 Mar
Queen St James Park Newcastle 9th July 1986
Queen St James Park Newcastle 9th July 1986
Support acts: Status Quo, Zeno
The Magic Tour was the biggest and final tour by Queen. Over a million people saw them, making it one of the largest tours ever. The Magic Tour took in 26 dates around Europe’s stadiums, in support of their latest album A Kind of Magic. The UK leg of the tour played at Wembley Stadium, Manchester Maine Road, and Newcastle St James Park (which I attended). The tour ended with a massive show at Knebworth Park. Support acts for the Newcastle gig were Status Quo and Zeno (featuring Zeno Roth, the brother of Uli Roth). Status Quo had just reformed with a new line-up of original front men Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt, and new members Rhino (bass) and Jeff Rich (drums). It was good to see the mighty Quo back out on the road again, although it must be said that it was only a couple of years since their 1984 farewell “End of the Road” tour. I’m a big fan of Quo and continue to go and see them today. Their set was a classic hits sing (and rock) along. One song I miss is Dirty Water which was a great crowd favourite in the ’80s. 
Status Quo setlist: Whatever You Want; Paper Plane; Roll Over Lay Down; Little Lady; Mystery Song / Railroad / Most of the Time / Wild Side of Life / Rollin’ Home / Again and Again / Slow Train; Hold You Back; Don’t Drive My Car; Dirty Water; Rockin’ All Over the World; Big Fat Mama; Don’t Waste My Time; Roadhouse Blues. Encore: Caroline; Rain.
By 1986 Queen were in the groove of delivering mega stadium concerts, and Freddie had grown into a spectacular front man. The set consists of Queen classics, a few album tracks (some of which were not so good in my view) and great rock n roll covers. The tour was captured on the album Live Magic.
Queen setlist: One Vision; Tie Your Mother Down; In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited; Seven Seas of Rhye; Tear It Up; A Kind of Magic; Under Pressure; Another One Bites the Dust; Who Wants to Live Forever; 
I Want to Break Free; Impromptu; Now I’m Here; Love of My Life; Is This the World We Created…?; (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care/Hello Mary Lou/Tutti Frutti; Bohemian Rhapsody; Hammer to Fall; Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Encore 1: Radio Ga Ga. Encore 2: We Will Rock You; Friends Will Be Friends; We Are the Champions; God Save the Queen.
Queen ceased touring in 1987, due to Freddie’s illness. They would not tour again until 19 years later, when the Queen + Paul Rodgers Tour began in 2005, after the tragic death of Freddie Mercury on 24 November 1991, and the retirement of John Deacon in 1997.
10 Mar
Queen Live Aid Wembley Stadium London 13th July 1985
Queen Live Aid Wembley Stadium London 13th July 1985
The next time I saw Queen was at the massive historic Live Aid concert in Wembley Stadium on 13th July 1985. Queen’s performance at Live Aid at Wembley is often referred to as their greatest single live performance. Indeed, more than that, their short 21 minute set is often spoken of as one of the greatest rock performances ever (indeed; an industry poll in 2005 named it the greatest rock performance of all time). Their set was sandwiched between some great acts: U2 and Dire Straits preceded them; David Bowie and then The Who had the unenviable task of following Queen’s epic performance. It was one of those performances where everything came together. It was the right time of day, as the momentum and magnitude of the event was building, and the crowd were ready for the stadium-filling anthems of Queen. The band were on fire, clearly ready to give it their all, realising that they were performing to a world-wide audience. And Freddie was in command of us all, leading us through a few of their classic songs. Now I am a massive fan of Bowie and The Who, and for me they were the stars of the day, but I must agree that Queen delivered the strongest performance of the event.
From Wikipedia: “At Live Aid, held at Wembley on 13 July 1985, in front of the biggest-ever TV audience of 1.9 billion, Queen performed some of their greatest hits, during which the sold-out stadium audience of 72,000 people clapped, sang, and swayed in unison. The show’s organisers, Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, other musicians … and various music journalists ….. commented that Queen stole the show.
Queen’s short set consisted of “Bohemian Rhapsody” (ballad section and guitar solo), “Radio Ga Ga”, a crowd singalong, “Hammer to Fall”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, “We Will Rock You” (1st verse), and “We Are the Champions”. Mercury and May returned later on to perform a version of “Is This the World We Created?”
I saw Queen once more, on their 1986 “Kind of Magic” tour, when it called at St James Park, Newcastle.
9 Mar
Queen Leeds Elland Road Stadium 29th May 1982
Queen Leeds Elland Road Stadium 29th May 1982
Support from Heart, Joan Jett And The BlackHearts, Teardrop Explodes
In 1982 Queen toured in support of their new album “Hot Space”. “Hot Space” was Queen’s 10th album and saw them experimenting, not that successfully in my view, with disco. The UK leg of the tour consisted of two massive outdoor shows at Milton Keynes Bowl, and Leeds Elland Road football stadium, and two large indoor concerts at the Royal Highland Showground, Ingliston, Edinburgh. I drove down to the Leeds gig with a group of mates. It was a very hot Saturday, on a bank holiday weekend.
I think The Teardrop Explodes opened the show. Now, I was a fan of this band and of Julian Cope in particular. He was a crazy and intriguing front man and they had some pretty neat pop / new wave tunes; notably “Treason” and “Reward”. However, they were viewed as a “punk” band (and hence not “proper” rock) by a small section of the audience who decided to pelt them with bottles. Not a good start to the day.
We were all quite excited about seeing American rock band Heart who featured the amazing (and beautiful) Wilson sisters; Anne and Nancy. We had all been fans since one of us bought “Dreamboat Annie” in 1976; we all borrowed and played that album again and again. Heart’s set included great versions of some of our favourite tracks from their mid-’70s heyday: Magic Man”, “Crazy On You” and the excellent, rocking “Barracuda”. True to their classic rock roots, their encore was a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll”.
The final guest act was ex-Runaway Joan Jett with her band the Blackhearts, who got the crowd singing along with “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” , which had been high in the charts a few weeks earlier.
There was a long wait for Queen. I suspect that they were waiting until it was dark so that the light show would have its greatest effect. Finally, after what seemed forever, the intro to “Flash” boomed across the stadium, followed by ridiculously loud explosions and blinding white flashing lights. Queen exploded onto the stage, Freddie starting to sing “The Hero”. The sort of spectacular entrance that Queen had perfected. The rest of the show was similarly spectacular with Freddie leading the band in those anthemic classic songs, and goading the crowd to sing along. I remember wondering how they would recreate the David Bowie vocal on “Under Pressure” and secretly hoped that he might run out from stage left 🙂 (I wasn’t the only one; rumours were circulating that Bowie would appear with Queen to sing his parts onstage in Leeds and/or Milton Keynes; but of course he didn’t). Instead Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor shared the vocal parts. Another great performance by Queen.
Setlist: Flash; The Hero; We Will Rock You; Action This Day; Play the Game; Staying Power; Somebody to Love; Now I’m Here; Dragon Attack; Now I’m Here; Love of My Life; Keep Yourself Alive; Save Me; Back Chat; Get Down, Make Love; Guitar Solo; Drum Solo; Under Pressure; Fat Bottomed Girls; Crazy Little Thing Called Love; Bohemian Rhapsody; Tie Your Mother Down. Encore: Another One Bites the Dust; Sheer Heart Attack; We Will Rock You; We Are the Champions; God Save the Queen
Musicians: Freddie Mercury – lead vocals, piano, tambourine, acoustic rhythm guitar; Brian May – electric & acoustic guitars, backing vocals, piano; John Deacon – bass guitar, rhythm guitar; Roger Taylor – drums, electronic drums, backing vocals; Morgan Fisher – piano, synthesizer, backing vocals.
7 Mar
Queen Hyde Park London 18th September 1976
Queen Hyde Park 18th September 1976
Support from Kiki Dee, Steve Hillage, and Supercharge.
The last open air festival event I went to in the long hot summer of 1976 was Queen in Hyde Park. A group of us went down to London by train on a day return ticket, returning straight after the concert on the mail train which pulled out of Kings Cross at midnight. This was a free concert, which drew a crowd of over 150,000, and was organised by Richard Branson. The line-up consisted of Supercharge, Steve Hillage and Kiki Dee. Kiki Dee had just been No 1 in the charts with Elton John and their massive hit Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. There were lots of rumours about that Elton would join her onstage for the song, but he didn’t; instead she was accompanied by a life-size cardboard Elton figure, and we all had to sing the Elton parts with her. Steve Hillage was quite popular at the time, and was great on the day, lots of glissando guitar, and amazing psychedelic trippy versions of the Beatles’ All Too Much, and Donovan’s Hurdy Gurdy Man. There was a big fight in the crowd during his set. But the day belonged to Queen. It was quite a brave move headlining such a major event at what was still a relatively early point in their career, but they pulled it off and were as majestic as ever. Their set was relatively short, around an hour, because of curfew and time restrictions. Apparently Queen were prevented from returning for their usual long encore by the Police. This was just before they released the Day At The Races album. Freddy was amazing, although from where we were standing he was a tiny white figure shining across the massive sea of people (no big screens to watch in those days).
Setlist: A Day At the Races Intro; Bohemian Rhapsody; Ogre Battle; Sweet Lady; White Queen (As It Began); Flick of the Wrist; You’re My Best Friend; Bohemian Rhapsody; Killer Queen; The March of the Black Queen; Bohemian Rhapsody (Reprise); Bring Back That Leroy Brown; Brighton Rock; Son and Daughter; ’39; You Take My Breath Away; The Prophet’s Song; Death on Two Legs; Stone Cold Crazy; Keep Yourself Alive; Liar; In the Lap of the Gods… Revisited
23 Feb
Roundhouse Rising Festival 21st – 24th February 2014
Roundhouse Rising Festival 21st – 24th February 2014
So the Shift-Static guys made it down to London for their big-city debut at Camden’s Chalk Farm Roundhouse, courtesy of Generator and the Roundhouse Rising festival. Second on the bill on the Saturday evening; Gordon, Laura, Charlie, Joe and Will took to the stage at 9pm in front of a packed Studio audience, including many friends and family who had ventured south especially for the occasion. After some technical glitches which were sorted during sound-check, their short 30 minute set went beautifully, without any further hitch. Their aural soundscapes filled the room much to the delight of the crowd, who gave the band a reception fit for heroes. Shift-Static music is a mix of pounding beats, soaring vocals and challenging musical dynamics. In it I hear elements of Joy Division, Julie Tippetts, Portishead and Eno with a smattering of the African rhythms of Osibisa; but they probably won’t thank me for any of those comparisons 🙂 .
Roundhouse Rising is the Roundhouse’s annual festival of new music. Taking place across 4 days, the festival sees live music from over 75 artists plus 3 days of special events dedicated to help new atcs break into the music industry. Each year the Roundhouse works with over 3,000 11-25 year olds enabling them to realise their creative potential in live music, circus, spoken word, theatre and new media. Around 45 of the artists performing this weekend have come through this route.
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