When we’re discussing bands and gigs from back in the day, they tend to really stand out as events, even if after all these years, it’s hard to recall details sometimes. But I think that’s because they really stand out as there were comparatively little other big cultural events in the 70s for working class kids, and few we could call our own. Music seemed to be a special niche that had great importance in our lives. I’m not so sure it does anymore in quite the same way. People don’t seem as enraptured as I remember. Even people who are old enough to know better, spend half of a gig wandering around buying and eating food. I mean, in 1976, that was impossible and unthinkable, as was talking all the way through and filming the bloody gig on a phone. Not living the experience but recording it. Infuriating.
Anyway, I thought it might be fun to look back and list my top five gigs ever. Shows that have really stayed with me all these years and which seemed to shape me in some way.
The first is the Sensational Alex Harvey Band in 1976 at Newcastle City Hall. Having since seen film of their shows, this was standard stuff, but it was my first City Hall gig and it imbued in me a lifelong love of rock. Alex also seemed really old to me, though he was only in his 30’s at the time. He was captivating and really knew how to work an audience, who he always called his “boys and girls” as he ‘read’ from his big book during Framed. The vaudeville style theatrics punctuated by Zal’s cutting riffs made a big impression on this 15-year-old and with Pat Travers as support, who I also loved and was entirely new to me, it was a great night. And the power of a crowd all yelling in time was also a new thing.
The second has to be Led Zeppelin at Knebworth on 4th August 1979, as much for the experience of being at a festival as the music. It stands out in my mind for several reasons, 1) the terrible sound for the first 20 minutes which swirled in and out of the night air, 2) the version of Achilles Last Stand which was otherworldly and I distinctly recall thinking that this rock and roll thing had something profound about it which didn’t surrender to logic or reason. 3) it was the first time I’d been next to an actual pair of (large) human breasts as a biker woman decided to excitedly take her t-shirt off when they came on stage and remained that way, flopping around for half an hour. I didn’t know where to look. Well, I did, obviously. 4) the toilets were just a massive trench. Heinous and put me off festivals for good and prepared me for many nights in hairy pubs’ broken and rancid toilets.
My third favourite gig is Steely Dan at Edinburgh Playhouse one Sunday night in June 2009. This is probably the finest gig of my life. It was when Walter Becker was still alive. It was so tight and in the pocket, it hurt. The groove on Daddy Don’t Live In New York City No More was so perfect, it seemed to be infinite and locked into my very existence plus Aja was a reminder why we are alive. A song so perfect, you can’t believe it was actually invented. For all the shit in the world, beauty is still possible.
Fourth is Gov’t Mule at the Astoria in London. I bloody love The Mule and also saw them at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh. They maintain classic rock’s great traditions of jazz-infused jamming. Just brilliant musicianship. I remember they were playing Rocking Horse which has a climatic solo by Warren Haynes and part way through he stepped on the wah-wah and I swear a fracture in the space-time continuum opened up. It was out of this world and didn’t seem to just be a man and a guitar, it felt more like he’d opened up communication with some higher, more pure force. Yeah, that good.
Lastly, I’ve thought long and hard about this. Was it Robin Trower or Jeff Beck or Barclay James Harvest or Yes or the Steve Miller Band in Northern California or Joe Satriani in Los Angeles? But in the end I went for The Who at the City Hall in February 1981. Great to see them in the provinces again. Not the classic line-up with Moony but I recall they finished the encore with The Real Me. “Can you see the real me, well can ya?” sang Daltrey to end the gig. It was a profound way to finish for this 20-year-old truth seeker.
Five of the best, but it could include so many more including Slade at Xmas, Rush on the Moving Pictures tour and Alvin Lee in 1979. This was the end of the second great era of classic rock (if you count 66-70 as the first) when life was more simple and rock defined and enhanced our life in a thousand unforgettable ways.
Top five gigs...
