Topic: Show and Tell (A Little Bit of UK Rock History)
Just before Christmas I came home from work to be told by Mrs W that she’d been doing some tidying and found an old wallet of mine. When I looked inside I shouted “Oh My God” as some long lost concert tickets I thought I had thrown away were within. Unfortunately, at some time I must have been carrying them around with me for a while as they are a bit dog-eared, but they are still something to treasure. The early 70s was a great time to be a teenage music fan. 
Does anyone else hang on to tickets and programmes too? I’ve started collecting guitar picks from gigs I’ve been to in recent years (they take up less room ) and have some from Buddy Guy, a couple from Warren Haynes and a broken one that Chantel gave me mid song, which you may have seen as my profile pic on fb. I still haven’t got one from Joe, however.
Click the links for a taste of nostalgia.
Stone The Crows @ The Rainbow, October 7th 1972 – one of my favourite bands of the 70s. Maggie Bell has a voice like Rod Stewart had at his best – not like now. In Stone The Crows, Maggie’s voice was full of soul and perfect for Blues Rock and who could forget the tragedy of Les Harvey, Alex Harvey’s brother who was electrocuted when he touched a live mic stand in Wales. Alex certainly didn’t as I don’t think he ever recovered from the loss of his sibling.
Yes @ The Rainbow, December 16th 1972 – this was one of the two shows that were recorded for the Yessongs live triple album and video. Rick Wakeman shone like a star in his silver cape and dazzled all. Joe played a track from Yessongs on his show on Planet Rock a few weeks ago. Bet he wishes he’d been there.
Family @ The Rainbow, September 22nd 1973 – I loved Roger Chapman’s vocals and still do. Sadly, this was the only time I saw them live as they pulled out of an earlier show I had tickets for at a local theatre.
Leon Russell @ The Rainbow, December 3rd 1971 – Gigs often started a little earlier in the 70s and it wasn’t unusual to have two support acts and those appearing at this gig were pretty special. They were the The Grease Band, who were also Joe Cocker’s backing band and had Chris Stainton on keys and Hugh McCullough on lead guitar, who went on to play with Paul McCartney in Wings, followed by the great Freddie King. Leon is one of America’s greatest songwriters and wrote many songs for Freddie King and others. He’s a great musician whether he’s hammering out a boogie on the piano or playing the blues on his Les Paul. Check out the Mad Dogs and Bangladesh DVDs for a taster.
The Rolling Stones @ Wembley Arena, September 8th 1973 – need I say more? This was a date on the Goats Head Soup Tour and I think we were sitting in the back row. It seemed Mick was a million miles away. I remember “Star****er, Star****er, Star” going round in my head all the way home. 
Crystal Palace Garden Party September 15th 1973 – These whole day concerts were legendary and some of the biggest names in rock played the Crystal Palace Bowl. There was a lake in front of the stage and many fans cooled off there or attempted to get nearer the stage. On this date were; Lou Reed with Dick Wagner (who’s on Joe’s list of favourite guitarists) and Steve Hunter (these were the two guitarists on Lou Reed’s Rock n Roll Animal Live album – bet Pete’s jealous 
), Beck Bogart & Appice with some heavy blues, Golden Earring, Tony Joe White and headlining, James Taylor. Some good photos and stories of the day can be found here.
Pink Floyd May 19th 1973 – This was the period when only the really big bands could sell out the aircraft hangar like Earls Court for several nights. The show featured, Obscured By Clouds/When You're In, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Careful With That Axe Eugene, and Echoes, Dark Side Of The Moon suite, with One Of These Days played as the encore. We were toward the back (again 
) up in the nose bleeds and one of the things that has stuck in my mind is the almost life size model aircraft that was suspended on a wire and ‘flew’ down toward the stage to explode during of one of the DSoTM numbers.
Led Zeppelin May 24th 1975 – Another legendary gig and one of 5 at Earls Court in May 1975. Zeppelin were my favourite band at the time and I still have a copy of the programme in almost mint condition.
The Who October 24th 1975 – I was never a massive fan of The Who and went with a group of guys from work. Keith Moon may have had an unorthodox drumming style, but boy he could play those skins.
The Oval Cricket Ground 1972
Two all day events took place at The Oval two weeks apart in September. The first of these featured Quiver (Laurie Wisefield & Tim Renwick on guitars) , that great Welsh band, Man, the UK debut for the new Jeff Beck Group that included Carmine Appice and Tim Bogart before they became BBA, Frank Zappa and Hawkwind closing the show with their light show and Stacia dancing in the strobe lights. 
The promoters took a bath on this weekend with poor ticket sales. The second show was better attended (mainly because it was half the price of the earlier concert) and had some really good bands including the superb Dutch band Focus, Argent, Jack Bruce, Genesis (with Peter Gabriel looking like a giant daffodil 
), Wishbone Ash and ELP to close introduced by dear old Fluff. One of the best all dayers and sadly the last at The Oval, which may have been partly due to the fans lighting fires on the cricket pitch to keep warm! Sadly, I can’t find our tickets for these shows.
ARMS & Princes Trust Concert at RAH September 1983
Finally, we come to one of the best gigs we’ve been to. I had the chance of free tickets to go to either show and chose the latter as Princess Di would be there. The line up was a dream with Clapton, Page and Beck and appearing on stage together for the first time accompanied on keys by Chris Stainton, Steve Winwood and (on the night we were there) Ian Stewart, plus Charlie Watts, Kenny Jones and Ray Cooper on drums (if you thought Bogie and Anton together was pretty good, seeing three drummers in unison is amazing) plus a cameo from Ronnie Lane who organised the events for his MS charity. For me, as a big fan of Clapton’s blues playing, his medley of Ramblin’ On my Mind and Have You Ever Loved a Woman included some of his best work, simply breathtaking. This was the only time I’ve seen him play an Explorer and its wonderful clanging tone was exquisite. This is the sound on the Layla album before EC went Fendercentric. (I think he may have used an Explorer on Same Old Blues from the Behind The Sun album as the tone is similar).
I haven’t found our tickets for this night yet but I do have the programme carefully tucked away. Here’s the group photo from the centrefold. You can still buy the DVD of the ARMS concert from the first night and I can thoroughly recommend it. I believe the ARMS benefit show was taken to the US with a slightly different line up. Did anyone Stateside see it?
If you’ve reached this far, thank you for indulging me. I’d love to hear about your similar experiences. Don’t be shy.
Phil
“The guy who has helped the blues industry the most is Joe Bonamassa and I would say he is more rock than some rock stuff, so to me blues is whatever you want it to be!”
Simon McBride in my interview with him in Blues Matters! Issue #56
