Live Gigs Report Feb: 1974

One Page Music Scene Magazine, February 1, 1974

CRIMSON EARTH

MOTT THE HOOPLE

ELTON JOHN

MOTT THE HOOPLE & QUEEN

YES

J.S.D. BAND

SAM SLOW AND THE ZINGERS

Readers Report

CRIMSON EARTH

by Jock Graham

RECENTLY I went to a local hall to see Amon Duul II, but owing to something wrong with their vocalist, they didn't turn up, so another group by the name of Crimson Earth turned up.

They had only eight hours notice so it was good work. The group consists of five members, two guitarists, one drummer, bassist, one vocalist. They played numbers such as "Railroad" (by Status Quo). "Easy Road" (by Wishbone Ash), this I considered better than the original. They were on for one and a half hours with a ten minute break in which all the group members left the stage apart from the lead guitarist who gave a mind-blowing ten minute solo.

Their vocalist stands out most, be-cause of his vast bulk! Good vocalist though. They also did some of their own material which was good & funky.

Their stage act I'm afraid leaves much to be desired. With the bassist bouncing about, freaking it and good knows what else, while the rest of the group tried their best to disown him. The 2nd guita-rist must either have been deaf/dumb or Irish, because he neither spoke nor moved, but the music was excellent, a great evening. The price of tickets? A mere 30p.

MOTT THE HOOPLE by Helen Akitt

I WAS a bit worried that I would find the town hall full of boppers; like everyone else I'd read of Mott's enormous U.S. successes. However the capacity crowd proved to be musically appreciative Queen opened the night, playing a pro-mising set, and were well received. Amid cheers of relief it was announced that despite the bomb scare, Mott would still play.

From the moment they hit the stage, Mott had the audience with them; an audience which would have been on its feet from the first number, "Drivin' Sist-er", had the bouncers allowed it. Mon-day was the first night of their tour, and as lan said, it was a long time since they'd played Leeds. We were glad to have them back.

The P.A. was really excellent - a rare feature nowadays and every word could be easily distinguished. "Hymn For the Dudes", and "Rosie" were per-formed with a poignancy that almost had the audience in tears, "Roll Away The Stone was greeted with rapturous applause, although "Angeline", the only early track they played, was obviously less well known.

But, surprisingly, it was "All The Young Dudes", and not "Memphis", which had the audience really going, and the crowd was allowed to surge for-ward for the rest of the set, during which

Mick Bolton and Morgan Fisher proved their worth on keyboards.

Unfortunately, crammed against the stage, the vocals got lost, and we could only distinguish "Violence" from Aerial Bender's familiar guitar chords. He seemed definitely at home in the band, carrying on a mock battle with lan, who stood majestically still and silent against Buffin's drums, eyes closed and head thrown back, looking like a victorious king after battle.

But he had every reason to look proud, for Mott have at last, it seems, found the right direction, and have reached the top without losing any of their musical highness. Besides, anyone who has the ability to move a crowd to the extent they moved the audience that night, has a right to be proud.

ELTON JOHN

by Judy Clough

ON NOVEMBER 29, my friend, her friend and I went to see Elton John.

He was playing at the King's Hall, Belle Vue. We arrived late and Kiki Dee had already started. She was very good and I can't see why she's not been re-cognised by the public before now.

At about 9.15 Elton John came on. The first number was "Funeral For A Friend" from "Yellow Brick Road". It was very dark and a mist was all over the stage, suddenly, a spotlight went on and Elton was sat at the piano.

The whole show was brilliant, with most of the music coming from the "Yellow Brick Road" album. Tracks such as "Grey Seal", Benny And The Jets" and "Love Lies Bleeding".

For the encore Elton sang "Crocodile Rock" and "Saturday Night" and with both of them everyone was singing along. He left the stage at about 10.45 for a well-earned rest.

It was a really great night and a good time was had by one and all. I would re-commend anyone to go and see Elton John when he's in their town.

MOTT THE HOOPLE & QUEEN

by P. Fearnley

ON MONDAY, November 12, I went to see Mott at Leeds Town Hall. Their sup-port group were Queen, a fairly new group which should go far. They came on dressed to kill, with the lead singer brandishing part of a mike-stand like a sword. They went through the first two songs mentioned below, adding a heavy

rock theme to them and the other three were just great. "Jailhouse Rock", "Hey Big Spender" (Eartha Kitt rememb-er?) "Liar", "Keep Yourself Alive", and "Sons & Daughters".

Live-gig reports from Music Scene Readers. Send about 200 words on any gig, by a well-known group or a local band, to Readers Report, Music Scene, Fleetway House, Farringdon Street, London EC4A 4AD. The authors of reports printed will each receive an LP record token. And don't forget; write good and none of that gooey-eyed fan mail stuff.

After Queen's set we were warned that someone had said that a bomb was to go off in the hall at 9.45.

At nine, with no further ado, Mott came on with an amplification unit sounding like a bomb. After a few heavyrock numbers, lan asked for sil-ence and then they did "Rose" (The moving, quiet B-side of "Honaloochie Boogie")

During "All The Young Dudes" the balcony seemed to sag below us and downstairs the crowd stormed to the stage, not to disperse until almost an hour later when the concert finished. The other numbers played included 'Roll Away The Stone" (the first time they played it live), "All The Way from Memphis", "Hymn For The Dudes" and "Rock And Roll Queen"

The encore was fantastic, including a brilliant guitar solo from Aerial Bender, some throbbing drumming from Buffin, a bird-shaped guitar (Overend's) and some great vocals from lan as they went through the themes of "Get Back" and "Jean Genie" (among others).

Then all too soon, it was all over, but it went like a bomb.

YES

by Caroline Churcher

AS THE lights fade, so Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite" begins. Before it too has faded, the hall echoes with the sounds of cheering as five discernible figures appear in the darkness on stage. And for the next three hours, the Winter Gardens at Bournemouth resounds to the music of Yes.

Verging on the classical, they devoted the first half of the concert to their best album to date "Close to the Edge". The album is great, but to hear it live is like hearing it for the first time.

But if that was good, the second half was quite exceptional.

Far from resting on their laurels, Yes have composed a symphony so unique that it will be no easy task to surpass it. "Tales from Topographic Oceans" (Jon Anderson's brainchild) is immaculate, and their performance was spellbinding. The intensity with which they executed the four movement work transferred itself to the audience, and after eighty minutes of music, Yes received well de-served appreciation. They did "Rounda-bout for a loudly entreated encore. Special mention must go to Roger

Dean for his incredible stage set, and Mike Tait for superb lighting.

Definitely "Concert of the Year" for me.

J.S.D. BAND

by Vicky McCutcheon

KNOWING LITTLE or nothing about them, I went to see the J.S.D. band playing at the local Polytechnic on November 18. My attitude being, any

group who dares to venture across the Irish Sea deserves all the support they can get.

When I arrived the support group (who aren't widely known) were playing to an estimated crowd of five people two of whom were ever faithful jobswor thies.

However around 11 o'clock, straight from the nearby pubs, arrived a few more rockers and the hall begin to fill up. The singer began by apologising for being sober, due to the fact that there was no pub on the premises they mustn't have known that there is always a pub within throwing distance in Ire-land.

The J.S.D. band come from Scotland and their music was in true Scottish style -jigs and reels played on a violin.

The appreciative audience were soon on their feet dancing, apart from a few at the front who were either too drunk or too lazy to move.

The two most memorable and popular numbers proved to be "Glasgow" and "The Fox".

At 1.30 a.m. the band were finally allowed to leave the stage and an ex-hausted audience crawled home to bed.

SAM SLOW AND THE ZINGERS

by Sebastian Tombs

IN GOING to see this group at our local disco, I treated it as just another night out; a quick dance with me girl (I'm not a very good dancer), walk her home and say "Good Night". But as I was about to find out, tonight I was in for a big sur-prise.

Although they didn't sing many of their own songs, I was able to judge the quality of their sound, and their appear-ance. They had a stereo-typed sound, loud with a lot of echo, terrific. This was greatly emphasized when they did a rendering of "Free Electric Band" that Albert Hammond would be proud of.

They looked an expensive group to set up, as the stage was crammed with equipment. There was plenty of cha-racter in the lead singer. He had all the capacity to lead his group into stardom. The power to get to all the crowd was there also they got to everyone even me and believe me, I take a lot of getting to.

The original material that they did was alright, too. I especially liked one called "Dusty Red Knight". It was a stompy, easy-to-learn, song, but the lyrics were thrown together, e.g. "Dusty red knight, yer makin' me fight, Dusty red knight, yer gonna tell 'em yer right..." etc. etc. They were clearly taking advantage of the audience's ignorance (which could be a good quality for a future commercial group). But apart from that, they had all the get-up-and-go to make it big (if they get a better lyricist), All in all, I think I did enjoy myself.