I guess, although I might not have fully realised it at the time, I was pretty into Barclay James Harvest in the 70s. They were one of the bands who I would go along and see with my mates, and we always enjoyed the show. We sort of took them for granted; they toured a lot, you could always go along and see them; you could rely on them to play well (and they would always play Mockingbird).
I first saw them at gigs in Sunderland Top Rank and The Locarno. The first time was around 1972, at the Top Rank with the great Del Bromham and Stray support. Stray used to have dustbins on stage with explosives in. These were ignited during All In Your Mind, and nearly blew the roof off; I’m sure Health and Safety rules would outlaw such things these days. Barclay James set around this time consisted of early songs such as She Said; Mocking Bird; Medicine Man; Moonwater; Summer Soldier; The Poet; After The Day; Galadriel; Dark Now My Sky. I also saw them when they appeared at the Reading festival in 1974. By the mid to late 70s they were headlining, and selling out concert halls across the UK. I went to see them at Newcastle City Hall in 1977 (ticket above).
That was the Gone To Earth tour (programme to left) and the setlist at the time was: Child Of the Universe; Rock ‘N’ Roll Star; Poor Man’s Moody Blues; Mockingbird; Hard Hearted Woman; Medicine Man; Taking Me Higher; Suicide?; Crazy City; Jonathan; Polk Street Rag; Hymn. There show were always 100% professional, if smewhat predictable. At the time I saw them as an alternative to The Moody Blues, who were on a sabbatical throughout the mid 70s. Mockingbird was (and still is) a favourite song of mine and I would look forward to seeing them play it. 
Barclay James were back at the City Hall in 1978 (ticket right and programme below). This was the XII tour and the setlist was something like: Nova Lepidoptera; Hard Hearted Woman; Poor Man’s Moody Blues; Berlin; Medicine Man; Sip Of Wine; Suicide?; Rock ‘N’ Roll Star; In Search Of England; Jonathan; Child Of The Universe; Mockingbird; Loving Is Easy; Hymn 
Throughout this period the classic line up was: John Lees – vocals and guitar; Les Holroyd – bass and vocals; Mel Pritchard – drums, percussion; the late Stuart “Woolly” Wolstenholme – vocals, mellotron, keyboards. After this tour Wooly left the band, which was a big shock. I remember a lot if talk at the time as to whether the band should, or could, continue without him, which they did. They were back at the City Hall a couple of years later. I’ll write about that gig tomorrow.
Posts Tagged ‘gigs’
24 Jan
Kevin Ayers Newcastle 1974 and 2003
Kevin Ayers and Long John Baldry Newcastle City Hall November 1974
Kevin Ayers Newcastle Tyne Theatre 2003
Kevin Ayers’ legend looms large in English rock history. In 1974 he’d released The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories album on the Island record label, and headlined the now legendary 1 June 1974 concert at the Rainbow Theatre, London, where his band consisted of John Cale, Nico, Brian Eno and Mike Oldfield. For this Autumn 1974 concert tour (see ticket, and programme below), his band consisted of the late great Ollie Halsall, who I’d seen at the City Hall a few years earlier in Patto. Support came from Long John Baldry who by the early 70s had grown his hair, and was looking seriously hippieish. Long gone were the suited blues man days of the 60s and Let the Heartaches Begin (which he didn’t, of course, sing). But the set was still blues-based and Long John’s voice was as deep and impressive as he was tall.
The set consisted of songs from Bananamour, Joy of a Toy and The Confessions of Dr Dream, and was a somewhat shambolic, but enjoyable mixture of English whimsy, reggae and jazz-rock. Ayers did a version Falling in Love Again in the style of Noel Coward and Halsall performed Elvis’ Don’t be Cruel. There were problems with the electricity in the hall, with the power going over several times, and Ayers and Long John Baldry singing to us without any amplication at all at one point. If I remember right, the power failed completely in the end and the show was abandoned. I next saw Kevin Ayers almost 30 years later in the bar of the Tyne Theatre. The approach was similarly eccentric and enigmatic, but just as enjoyable.
23 Jan
Blood Sweat and Tears Newcastle City Hall 14 June 1974
Blood Sweat and Tears Newcastle City Hall 14 June 1974
Spinning Wheel by Blood, Sweat and Tears seemed to be on the radio all of the time in the late 60s and early 70s. I only saw the band once, when my friend Norm and I went to see them when they came to Newcastle in 1974. The line up of this band changed many times over the years, and both Al Kooper and David Clayton-Thomas had left by the time of this tour. Nevertheless B,S & T put on a competent performance and played favourites ‘You’ve made me so very happy’ and ‘Spinning Wheel’. As I recall the City Hall was pretty empty for this gig.
The line up consisted of Bobby Colomby drums (by then the only original member!), Jerry Fisher lead vocals, Jerry Lacroix vocals, David Bargeron trombones, Georg Wadenius guitar, Larry Willis piano, Ron McLure bass, Tony Klatka sax, and Bill Tillman vocals. This was version 5 or 6 of the band, whose memberships has changed many times over the years with more that 100 (!) musicians passing through. A version of B,S & T continues to tour to this day.
22 Jan
ABBA Stafford Bingley Hall 11 November 1979
I’m starting this weeks posts with a guilty pleasure. I’ve always had a broad taste in music, and over the years, I’ve been to see quite a lot of straight pop acts, and artists from other genres. One concert that I am particularly proud of attending, and feel no quilt at all about, is Abba. My mate Davy and I went to see Abba at Stafford Bingley Hall at the height of their fame in 1979. Abba toured the UK twice, once in 1977 and again in 1979, and played around a dozen shows in the UK in total. Their first tour was at smaller venues such as Glasgow Apollo, and I remember regretting missing them on that tour. So when they announced some dates at larger venues in 1979, I bought a couple of tickets to see them in Stafford Bingley Hall. The concert was on a Sunday, and we drove down to the concert on the afternoon, and as I recall, went to a chinese restaurant for a meal before the gig.
Stafford Bingley Hall was used for gigs throughout the 70s, Davy and I also went there to see The Who in the mid 70s. It was a big old cattle market, and smelt like one! For the ABBA concert they laid plastic seats in rows, we were in Row 18, which wasn’t too far away from the front. I don’t recall there being any support act for this gig. One thing I do remember is we were both were quite tickled that the actor, John Forgeham, who played Jim Baines in Crossroads at the time was sitting in the next row. 
The setlist will have been something like: Gammal Fabodpsalm; Voulez-Vous; If It Wasn’t for the Nights; As Good as New; Knowing Me Knowing You; Rock Me; Not Bad At All; Chiquitita; Money Money Money; I Have a Dream; Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight); S.O.S.; Fernando; The Name of the Game; Eagle; Thank You For The Music; Why Did It Have to Be Me; Intermezzo No. 1; I’m Still Alive; Take a Chance on Me; Summer Night City; Does Your Mother Know; Hole in Your Soul; The Way Old Friends Do; Dancing Queen; Waterloo. The four members of Abba were accompanied by a band, and by a large choir of local children for I Have a Dream. They played all the hits and a selection of album tracks. The sound at big gigs wasn’t great in those days, and I seem to remember that being the case at this gig; it was quite quiet in comparison to a more traditional rock concert. Davy and I really enjoyed it, and I still look back on this gig with fond memories and feel quite lucky that I got to see Abba. My programme is above. After the gig we then drove straight back up to Newcastle, which is around 200 miles. It started snowing as we got further north, and I dropped Davy off at Newcastle City Hall, where he joined the queue for tickets for Paul McCartney and Wings which went on sale the next morning. I went home for a few hours sleep, got up went to work for a short time, then went through to Newcastle and met (a very cold and tired) Davy who had managed to get the Wings tickets, but thats a story for another day.
21 Jan
Jeff Beck Newcastle City Hall 1974, 1981 and 2004
Jeff Beck in Newcastle 1974, 1981 and 2004
Writing my post about the Grangemouth Festival, where Jeff Beck headlined, made me think about the other times that I’ve seen Beck. The most recent was at the O2 a couple of years ago, when he co-headlined and dueted with Clapton. It was a great gig, with an astounding performance from Beck. I’ve seen him three other times, making five in total.
After Grangemouth I was keen to see Beck again, so when Beck, Bogert and Appice came to Newcastle City Hall in January 1974 I made sure that I was there. The set was similar to that he played at Grangemouth the year before. This was classic rock, but there were hints of the more experimental guitar technique that Beck was to move into in the future. The setlist for their Live in Japan 1973 DVD is: Superstition; Lose Myself With You; Jeff’s Boogie; Going Down; Boogie; Morning Dew; Sweet Sweet Surrender; Livin’ Alone; I’m So Proud; Lady; Black Cat Moan; Why Should I Care; Plynth/Shotgun. I would guess that the set that night will have been similar. 
By 1981 Beck was more into jazz-rock, and his 1981 show at the City Hall reflected this. As I recall, Ian and I went to this gig, and the set was all instrumental. Beck no doubt gave us some great guitar playing, but I found it a bit too much, and I was bored by the end. He’d released the Wired and There and Back albums in 1975 and 1980, and the set mainly comprised tracks from those lps, with no old songs, and definitely no Hi Ho Silver Lining. Looking at published setlists, around that time the set was something like: Star Cycle; El Becko; Too Much to Lose; The Pump; Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers; Space Boogie; Led Boots; Freeway Jam; Diamond Dust; Scatterbrain/Drum Solo; Blue Wind; Goodbye Pork Pie Hat/You Never Know; Going Down. 
It was over 20 years until I saw Jeff Beck again. By 2004, when Will and I last saw him in Newcastle, he was still playing mostly instrumental, with a singer for a few of the songs. By now he’d moved into a more experimental mode, using techniques which blend rock, jazz and sounds from the 50s and 60s; shades
of The Shadows, surf guitar, Duane Eddy, Dick Dale and Santo and Johnny. He was awesome that night, and I realised again just what a craftsman he is. My programme for the 2004 gig is to the left. His instrumental version of The Beatles Day In The Life is a revelation. His set from The Albert Hall concert a few days later was: Resolution; Star Cycle; Freeway Jam; Roy’s Toy; Big Block; Cry Me a River; Stratus; Goodbye Pork Pie Hat; Angel; Even Odds; Brush with the Blues; Nadia; Nothing but Love; Loose Cannon; Blancet; Rollin’ and Tumblin’; Blue Wind; Voyage Home; Rice Pudding; Cissy Strut; Led Boots; A Day in the Life; Where Were You; You Never Know; Encore: People Get Ready. Still no Hi Ho Silver Lining. I’d resigned myself to never seeing him play the 60s classic. However, that was to come as a surprise at the gig with Clapton (see my earlier blog).
20 Jan
Billy Connolly Newcastle City Hall January 19th 2012
David and I really enjoyed Billy Connolly last night. We met him briefly at the stage door before the show and I got my ticket autographed (see scanned ticket to the right). He was on for over two hours without a break and told us some great stories. He looked great, with a smart new hair cut which he explained was for a movie that he is currently filming. 
His stories seemed to be completely natural and improvised; it would be interesting to go along again tonight and see how much of the show is the same. Lots of swearing, and crudity, vomit was a bit of theme of a few of the stories….great fun. A couple of friends from work were there; their comments were: “crying with laughter at the finish. It was really weird the way he came on and just started talking as if he had been doing it all night, then a complete stream of consciousness for 2.5h and then just stopped and left. He is very charismatic on the stage and you felt as if he was just having a chat with you down the pub.”
19 Jan
Billy Connolly Newcastle City Hall 1975
I last saw Billy Connolly in 1975 at Newcastle City Hall. Tonight I’m going along with David to see him again at the same venue, a gig that I’ve been really looking forward to since I bought the tickets. 1975 was a breakthrough year for Billy Connolly. He made an appearance on Parkinson which catapulted him to fame in the UK, and his single DIVORCE was a hit later that year. When I saw him at the City Hall, he was on great form, a wonderful storyteller, lots of bad language, and wearing his famous banana boots. I remember being disappointed when I went to buy my customary programme. I was told programmes had sold out earlier in the tour and there were, therefore, none on sale at the City Hall gig. I consoled myself by buying a small bottle of Billy Connolly whisky (!) which was drunk a long time ago. Unfortunately I can’t find the bottle. Think it was called “nip o sweety”?!
I’ll report back after the gig on how Billy shapes up these days. More later.
18 Jan
Grangemouth Pop Festival Scotland 23 September 1972: Jeff Beck, Billy Connolly and others
The Grangemouth Pop Festival
Line up: Beck Bogert Appice; Status Quo; Steeleye Span; Lindisfarne; The Everley Brothers; Beggars Opera; Average White Band; Sunshine; Billy Connolly; The Chris McClure Section; MC: John Peel. All for £1.50!
I’m going to see Billy Connolly at Newcastle City Hall on Thursday night. I’m looking forward to the gig, and it made me think about the couple of times I’ve seen Billy Connolly in the past. The first time I saw him was at The Grangemouth Pop Festival in Scotland in 1972 (see ticket right). At the time he was unknown outside Scotland and, as he delighted in telling us, he was scared shitless about this gig, as it was his biggest to date. The festival was organised by Great Western Festivals, who had also run the excellent Lincoln Festival which I attended earlier in 1972, and was billed as Scotland’s first pop festival. My friend Nicky and I went by train to the gig. 
Grangemouth is north west of Edinburgh. The festival took place on Saturday 23 September 1972 and was part of the Grangemouth centenary celebrations. It was held in a sports stadium, which was in an industrial area, next to a gasworks, which spewed smoke over us at various times during the day. It wasn’t that well attended as I recall, with quite a heavy atmosphere, drunkenness, and some fights as the day went on. The promised line up was good, however a few of the bands who were billed did not play; a not uncommon occurrence in those days. Billy Connolly (see left from the programme of the festival) delivered a set pretty early during the day which was a mix of comedy and folk songs, and was one of the hits of the day for me. He’d just had a success at the Edinburgh festival and was just starting to make a name for himself.
Other highlights of the day were Beggars Opera who were also local heroes with great swirling Hammond organ, The Everley Brothers who sang all those timeless hits, and Steeleye Span, who were still playing quite traditionally-based elecric folk at that time, before the days of All Around My Hat. Status Quo were at the top of their game in the early 70s, and were great favourites of Peel, who was DJ/MC for the day. Marsh Hunt was to seen wandering around the crowd. The extract to the right, which is taken from the newspaper programme (also see below) shows the line up and timings. Chris Mclure, who was another local hero, also played. Unfortunately, neither Uriah Heep or The Electric Light Orchestra played. 
Beck, Bogert and Appice were the main reason we went along, and Beck was a revelation. His guitar playing eclipses Clapton in my view, and I was in awe of him that night. I remember him playing Superstition and am pretty sure that he used a mouth-tube, which was the first time I’d seen suc a strange contraption, and was a few years before Peter Frampton used one on Show Me The Way. I can’t remember much of the set, but I’m pretty sure it contained Morning Dew, a new song called Black Cat Moan, Going Down, and an epic version of Keep Me Hanging On, which Bogert and Appice will have brought with them from Vanilla Fudge. After the gig we got the train back to Edinburgh, where we spent the night trying, and failing, to sleep on some pretty hard and uncomfortable benches, until it was time for the first train back to Newcastle on the Sunday morning.
17 Jan
Redcar (Coatham) Bowl: gigs again?
Redcar Bowl: The Adverts; Atomic Rooster and other memories
I read a report the other day that a lady from Teesside is planning to put gigs on at The Redcar Bowl again. It would be great to see that the old Coatham Bowl active again as a concert venue. My mates and I spent some great nights during the 70s, usually Sundays as I recall, at the Coatham Bowl. We often stopped off in The Lobster for a drink before the gig. They used to have a lobster on a string which crawled up the wall when you came in the door. I wonder if it is still there? A lot of great bands played there throughout the 70s, following on from the days of the Redcar Jazz Club, which saw all the greats play in the 60s. I remember gigs by Lindisfarne, Chris Rea, The Flaming Groovies with The Damned supporting, UFO, SAHB without Alex, Split Enz (Finn brothers prior to Crowded House), Magazine (awesome), The Adverts (see ticket stub), Frankie Miller, Meal Ticket, Mr Big, The Rich Kids with Midge Ure and Glen Matlock, The Climax Blues Band, The Jags (the guitarist hit a guy in the audience over the head with his guitar for spitting at him!), Atomic Rooster (see ticket stub), Dave Edmunds Rockpile with Nick Lowe, Destroy all Monsters, X Ray Spex, my personal 70s favourites Penetration, The B52s, Dead Fingers Talk (great band; forgotten and very underrated), and many others that I can’t remember.
The last time I was there was when Will and I went to see Peter Green with the Splinter group, which was probably in the 80s. I have some ticket stubs for gigs that I attended at the Bowl, but for many of the gigs I paid at the door and didn’t get a ticket, or the ticket was given up on the way in. Of the two gigs I have shown tickets for here (I have others which I must dig out), I have little recollection of The Adverts gig, in fact I can’t remember being there at all! I do remember loving the Gary Gilmore’s Eyes single and seeing the The Adverts a few times at Newcastle, once supporting Iggy at the City Hall, and another gig at Newcastle Guildhall, where The Adverts were supported by Penetration and Warsaw, before they became Joy Division. I also think I saw them at the legendary Middlesbrough Rock Garden. The Atomic Rooster gig was part of a reunion tour, as I recall. Vincent Crane, who is sadly no longer with us, was a master of the swirling Hammond organ, who served his apprenticeship with Arthur Brown. He would do an organ solo called Gershatzer (thanks John for the correct spelling!), his piece de resistance, during which he would collapse and fall to the floor under the organ. The first time I saw him collapse I thought it was for real, but after seeing him do so a few times, I began to realise it was part of the act! I love 60s Hammond solos, and Vincent was one of the best.
A series of gigs are planned (see http://www.roundelpromotions.co.uk ) with others to follow. Good luck with the gigs; see you at The Hollies in August. Hope you do manage to get The Damned to come back to play in Redcar; it’s about time I saw them again. I’ll remember to stand near the back, I don’t want the Captain to pee on us as he did (naked) at the Rock Garden.
Update on March 4th 2012. I don’t know what has happened, but the Roundel Promotions website doesn’t seem to exist anymore and I read on a local news site that the gigs are not going ahead as planned, which is a shame. I was looking forward to seeing The Hollies in Redcar, but I guess that’s not going to happen now. Does anyone know what happened to the plans?
15 Jan
David Bowie Roker Park Glass Spider Tour 23 June 1987
David Bowie Roker Park Glass Spider Tour 23 June 1987
Support Acts: Big Country
“Good evening Newcastle”, said David Bowie as he took the stage at this gig. Big mistake for a gig in Sunderland; rivalry between the two towns run deep, particularly in the context of football, and saying this in Roker Park, the home of Sunderland football, was not a good idea. It was to be an omen for the rest of the gig, which wasn’t one of Bowie’s best. In theory, this should have been a great gig. Bowie has a great band, with Peter Frampton coming in on guitar. He had promised that this tour would see a return to theatricals of the scale of the US Diamond Dogs tour. There was great anticipation for the gigs, which ultimately played to 3m people, exceeding the Serious Moonlight tour.
The day was wet, as I recall, and Big Country went down a storm, perhaps better than Bowie. Bowie’s setlist focussed on his more recent catalogue, and particularly his latest lp Never Let Me Down, ignoring the Ziggy era. The stage set was Ok, but somewhat silly, and personally I didn’t think it was as impressive as promised. At one point Bowie came down from the stage on a swing, and the spider just looked strange (but was it a forerunner of the recent U2 stage set up?). The programme for the gig (shown left) was obviously produced for the word tour, with lots of glossy photos of David, and nothing about the support acts; there was also an edition of the Sunderland Echo produced specially for the event (see below).
Setlist: Up the Hill Backwards; Glass Spider; Day-In Day-Out; Bang Bang; Absolute Beginners; Loving the Alien; China Girl; Fashion; Scary Monsters; All the Madmen; Never Let Me Down; Big Brother; ’87 and Cry; Heroes; Time Will Crawl; Beat Of Your Drum; Sons of the Silent Age; Dancing With the Big Boys; Zeroes; Let’s Dance; Fame; Encore: Blue Jean; Modern Love. Towards the end of the gig Bowie said: “I’m glad the rain has kept off”. It then poured down during the encore. Not a good day; I was slowly losing faith in Bowie, and I was to suffer further disappointment at a Tin Machine gig a few years later (see my blog of a few days ago). Tomorrow I’ll report on The Reality tour which I caught in Dublin in 2003, and which restored my faith in Bowie.
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