Monday 19 March 2018

Lindisfarne Essay: Keepin' The Rage On Behalf Of The Working Classes



You can buy 'Passing Ghosts - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music of Lindisfarne' in e-book form by clicking here!






Well done, you made it to the halfway part of the book (or halfway through our 'music' section at any rate!) We can't give you a prize to celebrate I'm afraid though you probably deserve one, but we can shake things up a bit by moving outside talking about our respective AAA bands' discography and moving on to what makes them stand out from their peers and offer something no other band can. In truth these essays kind of run across the whole book and you can read them in any order, but now we've reached the halfway point it's quite useful to take stock of where we've been and why before working out where we will go next. Which in Lindisfarne’s case is pretty much where they’d always been going – in a straight line, speaking up for the underprivileged and the oppressed, whatever their country, whatever their class, whatever the century. Like a Geordie CSNY, Lindisfarne made politics a natural part of their sound from day one and made a career out of lampooning authority figures who were so much more ignorant than the people they were trying to control. However it’s an under-rated facet of their work that often gets lost, drowned out by million-selling pop singles and cute novelty songs about fog and sickly sausage rolls…
Occasionally I forget, dear readers, that the rest of the world is not like us. At best the people around me think I’m a little bit eccentric for writing these books in such detail and at such length for so many years. At worst they think I’m insane. Very occasionally some misguided soul will ask me what I’m working on and then look confused by my horror that they’ve never heard what I’m working on. And even more when they try to patiently explain that it’s ‘only’ pop music. We know that isn’t true of course - music at its best is everything: it’s a way of explaining the world, of understanding it, of sympathising with those who would otherwise have no voice, of seeing how other people see the world, a way of feeling less alone and insane in a world that demands we be a certain way, a means of getting to grips with. But it’s hard to express that out loud.  ‘But…but…but, its important!’ I feebly squeak when people ask. The people around me just ask if it’s good to dance to. Sometimes I despair…
Sometimes I get lucky, well semi-lucky. Sometimes people have heard of a band I write about. Sometimes they’ll even be able to hum a few bars of their biggest hit singles. Which can be even more of a curse than when they know who the person I’m writing about it. Take Lindisfarne: everyone by default knows [36] ‘Fog On The Tyne’, even those who claim never to have heard of it or been thirty years too late; it’s just everywhere from radios to football stadiums (Paul Gascoigne has a lot to answer for!) And if by any small slight chance nobody knows that one they’ll almost certainly know the cheery [27] ‘Meet Me On The Corner’. Everything else, though, and they haven’t got a clue. ‘Oh’ they say, ‘You’re reviewing a pop band! Is the rest of their stuff as catchy?’
Err, no. Lindisfarne must be one of the most misunderstood bands there ever was as you’ll know by now if you’ve got this far through the book. ‘Fog’ was written deliberately, as a funny parody of their usual sombre style (it even starts with the same sad slow opening to [31] ‘January Song’). ‘Corner’ was written as a sad folk lament before becoming a bit more commercial. Neither is the true spirit of Lindisfarne great as they are – this is a band who belong on the ‘adult’ shelf, dealing with intricate politics, debate and difficult subject matters. Nobody else was as vocal about problems in British class warfare, the Irish struggles and what the collapse of communism meant to the working class Russians (as opposed to celebrating the victory of Western capitalism). This difference can be summed up in one single album cover, that to 1989’s ‘Amigos’. There the band are grinning inanely, their arms around each other, on an album cover and title that screams ‘1980s pop cheese’. But the album itself is an angry, desperate tirade against how the impoverished were being treated at the end of the Thatcher and Reagan years, when money was poured into ‘star wars’ missile systems during a credit crunch that left so many people out of work. The ‘real’ Lindisfarne can be seen in the subtitle and the working title for the album hidden away underneath: ‘Keepin’ The Beacon Burnin’, a diluted version of their original tagline ‘Keepin’ The Rage’. This is the ‘real’ Lindisfarne and it’s a task no British band ever did better.
Lindisfarne came from some pretty impoverished backgrounds, in a part of Newcastle where nobody was expected to come to anything very much. Alan Hull wrote about this in his song [121] ‘The Bad Side Of The Town’, along side his belief that impoverished communities had something the posher estates never had – a sense of brotherhood, of unity, of compassion as people helped each other out where they could. It’s a feeling that Lindisfarne always took with them across their career as they expanded that community out to their fanbase in a way that not many other bands achieved. It didn’t matter where round the world you lived, or what you did or didn’t do – if you were a Lindisfan, then you were ‘one of us’. And Alan Hull frequently got outraged on their behalf, especially when speaking up for communities that weren’t given a voice in the mainstream media.
As early as his first single, before he ever joined Lindisfarne, Hull is singing about the divide of ‘us’ and them’ [11] ‘We Can Swing Together’ is a funny song if you take it that way, a ‘breakthrough’ song where the wannabe songwriter working as a window cleaner and psychiatric nurse paying for the upkeep of three small children was able to put into words how frustrated he was at being told what to do for a lifetime. A late baby boomer, he’d found that the world of peace and love and flowers hadn’t reached Newcastle, where he and his friends got booted out of a party and hauled up in a magistrate’s court for, shock horror, making tiny bit of noise on a Friday night. Hull never forgot the injustice, or the fact that posh men in wigs were judging his community for letting off steam after a hard week’s physical labour, something the judge and half the jury had never experienced. That ‘how dare they judge me!’ comes across in a lot of Hull’s work, long after every other band had caved in and started wearing suits or speaking in posh accents (Lindisfarne were always delightfully Geordie, right up to the very end). [48] ‘Court In The Act’ returns to the same scene with a series of false charges which didn’t happen but ‘sounded like fun!’ The judge, though, has a judge, man – against the person in the dock simply because of where he comes from and how he talks.
There were so many people in Lindisfarne’s sights over the years and what linked them all was that they saw the people they ‘controlled’ as statistics to be treated as cheaply as possible, rather than humans who were suffering. These include 1) town planners: architect [32] Peter Brophy was invited by Newcastle council member [115] Dan ‘The Plan’ T Smith to erect a new building to house as many dispossessed locals as possible for the cheapest possible price, The solution was a concrete monstrosity with few windows and no greenery which achieved its objective of being cheap but led to such ostracisation and ugliness that it made a bad situation worse. Many people ordered to move into the building claimed that they would rather have lived on the streets. I think it should be a law that every architect who designs a building has to live in it for a year to make it habitable and make sure that it is fit for human consumption! [39] ‘All Fall Down’ looks at the people who physically tore up Hull’s old Benwell estate, asking them to ‘tear down’ their prejudice along with the buildings and asking for some green to be set against the concrete.
2) People in charge of homelessness. There’s something of the vagabond gypsy in Lindisfarne’s nature as they lurch from one disaster to another. [15] ‘Winter Song’ imagines how life might have been for Hull had he not met his wife or his bandmates and had been stuck on the dole for eternity. Passing a tramp in the street just as his career is taking off during a harsh snow-filled Christmas Hull starts to think how easily his life could have been the same – and urges us to do the same.
3) Soldiers! It’s not just Hull. Si’s first song, written long before Lindisfarne were formed, is [29] ‘Uncle Sam’, where a Newcastle teen who would never have had a chance in the British army wonders what it might have been like had he been called up to serve in Vietnam or Korea, two spectacularly dunder-headed and un-necessary wars the Americans lost badly but still try to pretend they ‘won’. Si imagines someone just like him, weedy, short, poor of health and complexion, urged to ‘volunteer’ for a war that was itself voluntary and which only he can see through. Other Lindisfarne songs attack war in a more general sense: [72] ‘When War Is Over’ is about things returning to normal in peacetime, as if nothing had happened – which makes the war, whatever it is, utterly pointless for both sides. [171] ‘1983’, meanwhile, imagines the outbreak of World War Three ‘the biggest show I’ve ever seen’ – but that’s all it is, a show, as more innocent people suffer on both sides suffer because of the stupidity of war leaders.
4) Taxmen. Lindisfarne were hit by more management problems than most – but a majority of their problems came from finding accountants who ‘allowed’ them it use their money for charitable ends instead of squirreling it away. Hull described [206] ‘Ode To The Taxman’ as ‘about a sneaky, evil, horrible, slimy sort of a person…’ and sets off on a tirade that takes his vitriol to a whole new tax bracket. The thing is, you see, the taxman is getting away with fiddling his own taxed because he’s one of ‘theirs’ and will never be caught, even after he chases the poor for every last penny. Goodness knows what he would have made of the credit crunch and the bankers’ meanness in the modern age had he lived, never mind the hypocrisy of making out that a non-regulated banking error committed by posh big-headed twonks behind the scenes was all the thought o a few ‘scroungers’ trying to live hand-to-mouth off a few pence. If I know Hull, there would have been entire concept albums about the recklessness and greed of the Conservative Government and a blow-up Ian Duncan Smith doll everyone got to behead night after night.
5) Posh people in general. [55] ‘Country Gentleman’s Wife’ pointedly uses the names of Gentlemen and Ladies, but they’re behaving more like the stereotypical chav: he’s out with his mistresses even though he’s got a wife half his age at home; she’s lonely and sexually frustrated and randy enough to make a play for the passing lowlife she sees outside her door. Only he’s more noble than either of them, protesting at her moral scruples and refusing to take part – until she dangles enough money in front of him. Also [166] ‘Marshall Riley’s Army’ for instance recalls a people’s march from Jarrow in the days of the great depression by so many working class people desperate to work to feed their families – and the politicians in London wouldn’t even read their petition. Alan-Rod collaboration [224] ‘Working For The Man’ also has a poverty stricken person leaving their family and travelling the world in search of work, which no one has. He’s struck by how similar the scheming politicians are in every continent though, always finding work for themselves and not for him and his ilk. Right up until the very end Hull was attacking a system he thought was unfair: ‘Put on your uniform, your top hat and tails’ he mocks as he tries to overthrow the aristocracy from the inside, starting with a song about ‘ne’er do wells’ like many a ‘posh’ band before turning on ‘aristocrats and fat cats’ instead. Everyone in power is too busy singing about statues from the past or liberties that mean nothing – but they don’t know what it really means to suffer. He does. And he has to say something. All of these songs are a sorry mess of the rich’s creating but where it’s the poor who suffer because of it and there’s a sense of many of these Lindisfarne songs that the working classes would be much better off in charge of the world than the rich – it would be a lot fairer for one thing…
6) Mostly though Hull saves his anger for politicians around the world. Hull looks on aghast as he watches the orders given during the ‘Bloody Sunday’ uprisings in Ireland in 1972, as innocent people are beaten up and killed for standing up for their rights. There are many AAA songs about the Irish troubles in this period – including three by ex-Beatles, no less – but Hull’s weary sad song [42] ‘Poor Old Ireland’ has it the best. ‘Imagine if this was you!’ he says to his English listeners, as he ‘sees through the lies’ and argues that no belief or cause is ever enough reason to make ‘blind children bleed’. Over in Russia, too, Hull is quick to point out amongst the gung-ho we-won spirit of the collapse of the Berlin Wall that the Russian people have been left with nothing. ‘Your sadness tears my heart out’ he sighs on [241 ‘Mother Russia’, seeing the atrocities first hand as he empties his pockets during a Russian Lindisfarne tour, ‘But it ain’t easy to explain’. Lindisfarne are the people’s band, no matter where around the world they are, ganging up on the politicians for hurting ‘his’ people. You can hear that wrath on other songs: ‘President Reagan ain’t thinking when he says he wants to teach the Russians good!’ he scowls on [188] ‘Cruisin’ To Disaster’ before turning on Thatcher as a ‘lunatic running the show’ on his angriest song [197] ‘Stormy Waters’. ‘Come on boys…come on girls…it’s time that we all stick together!’ urges Hull, desperate to see the unity in hardship he used to see on his estate, instead of being divided by politicians for their own evil ends. No wonder Hull also writes a song titled [41] ‘Bring The Government’ where ‘if you want your rights you’re gonna have to fight, so bring down the Government please!’
Throughout these songs is the growing gnawing feeling of injustice. Why should Lindisfarne pretend to be anything other than a Geordie band just to sell records – [36] ‘Fog On The Tyne’ is as ‘local’ as a song can be and it still became a best-seller everywhere. Why shouldn’t they be proud of their working class roots – it’s not as if the rich people have anything to be proud about! Why should Lindisfarne let the powers that be go by unquestioned when their policies on war, homelessness, town planning and poverty create so much unnecessary evil in a world already full of it? Lindisfarne all turned to music as an ‘escape’ from their bleak surroundings – the difference to many bands is that they carried on and on and on demanding it. Long after the point where it was fashionable, or they became ‘rich’, or the first objects of their anger faded away from power. Instead Lindisfarne made it their life’s work to speak up for those who had no voice, to represent the grass-roots of what their fans were thinking, even and perhaps especially the people who could never actually afford their music (the problem that many political bands for the working classes have, as they are writing for the smallest possible income group). Yes [36] ‘Fog On The Tyne’ is cute and [30] ‘Meet Me On The Corner’ is pretty and [156] ‘Run For Home’ is sweet and there’s a place for all three of those songs in every self=-respecting catalogue of music. But it’s the politics and anger and the battle against prejudice of all kinds that’s the heartbeat of this band’s legacy, sometimes covered up and gentrified, often raw and sarcastic, that makes them an Alan’s Album Archives band with a catalogue to match any other group out there.
That’s why I’m proud to be a Lindisfan – and a good example of why I sigh everyone tells me that I am wasting my time writing about mere ‘pop’ music. Sometimes this stuff matters and everyone needs to see that there is more to life than what they tell you on the news or in the political party broadcasts. If people suffer, then their voices need to be heard, whether those people are speaking from a ne’er do well council estate in Newcastle’s poorest slum, are speaking on behalf of Russian and Irish citizens or were speaking from several decades ago and are all dead. It all matters, so very very very very much. Without bands like Lindisfarne to fight their corner and to shine a light in the darkness at times the world would be a very lonely place indeed. Instead they give us courage: if this band can come from nowhere to say something, if they can beat the class prejudice and get somewhere through talent, if they can then remember where they came from and help out where they can – well, that makes a difference, however small. ‘They’ say that politics doesn’t belong in music, that it puts off people who might listen to it and that music should ‘only’ be about escapism and dancing and ‘girl power’. ‘They’ are ‘wrong’. Instead music belongs in politics – it levels the playing fields, it encourages debate, it allows you to see things from someone else’s point of view you might never ever have understood in your own life and it really warms your heart when someone speaks up and says something you’re thinking, but nobody around you seems to agree with. As one of Britain’s most working class bands, from one of the most working class areas, who were all educated and intelligent and erudite, Lindisfarne (and CSNY) are often my first port of call when someone then asks me ‘so why is writing about music important exactly?...’ Sadly they never seem to ‘get’ it. But we do, dear reader. And sometimes that’s enough.


A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF LINDISFARNE ARTICLES TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM ARCHIVES:


'Nicely Out Of Tune' (L) (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-37-lindisfarne-nicely-out-of.html

'Fog On The Tyne' (L) (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/news-views-and-music-issue-88.html

'Dingly Dell' (L) (1972) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/news-views-and-music-issue-146.html

'Roll ON Ruby' (L) (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/lindisfarne-roll-on-ruby-1973.html 



'The Squire' (AH) (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/alan-hull-squire-1975.html

'The Old Straight Track' (JTL) (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/news-views-and-music-issue-109-jack-lad.html




‘Jackpot’ (JTL) (1976) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/jack-lad-jackpot-1976.html

'Magic In The Air' (L) (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/news-views-and-music-issue-15.html


'Back and Fourth' (L) (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/lindisfarne-back-and-fourth-1978.html

‘The News’(L) (1979) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/lindisfarne-news-1979.html

'Sleepless Nights' (L) (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-83-lindisfarne-sleepless-nights.html


'Dance Your Life Away' (L) (1986) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2017/01/lindisfarne-dance-your-life-away-1986.html


‘Amigos’ (1989) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/lindisfarne-amigos-1989.html


'Elvis Lives On The Moon' (L) (1993) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/lindisfarne-elvis-lives-on-moon-1993.html


'Here Comes The Neighbourhood' (1998) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/lindisfarne-here-comes-neighbourhood.html


'Promenade' (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/lindisfarne-promenade-2002.html


Si Cowe Obituary and Tribute (2015) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/simon-si-cowe-lindisfarne-guitarist.html


Surviving TV Clips http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/surviving-lindisfarne-tv-clips-1971-1996.html


Live/Solo/Compilation Albums Part One 1970-1987 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/lindisfarne-sololiveraritiescompilation.html


Live/Solo/Compilation Albums Part Two 1988-2015 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/lindisfarne-sololiveraritiescompilation_29.html

Essay: Keepin’ The Rage On Behalf Of The Working Classes https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/lindisfarne-essay-keepin-rage-on-behalf.html



George Harrison: Five Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Versions



'Unknown Delight - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of George Harrison' is now available to buy by clicking here! 





FIVE LANDMARK CONCERTS: 


I don't know about you, dear reader, but so far this book/website has seemed awfully studio-bound: yes there are the odd live albums dotted round in the discographies but a touring life was usually as important if not more so to our AAA artists. Even we can't go through every gig they ever played however, so what we've decided to do instead is bring you five particularly important gigs with a run-down of what was played, where and when and why we consider these gigs so important, along with one particularly good one that summed up the band's setlist during their live peak (or one of them, anyway). Think of these as a sort of 'highlights' covering from first to (in some cases) last, to whet your appetite and to avoid ignoring a band's live work completely! As for George, well he probably played less gigs than any other AAA artist (barring Lennon), with around seventy-five shows  in total across a thirty-one year solo career (with another 500-ish as a member of The Beatles of course, it's not as if he was sitting with his feet-up or had a phobia or anything) which has made picking out the most important ones a bit trickier. George wasn't a natural spot-light-loving performer either; he was, after all, the Beatle who first wanted to stop touring complaining that he couldn't be heard at gigs and only went back on his word for matters of great global significance (the BanglaDesh shows), slowing album sales (the 1974 'Dark Hoarse' tour) or when he really really needed the money (the 1991 Japanese tour). However the live concerts are an under-rated part of George's canon as a result and the fact that we have two live albums to enjoy at a ratio of 75 gigs played (with another show screened live on US telly) also means that Harrison's live career is better represented on record than most (though that half-planned live album from 1974 never did come out and probably never will!) Here, then, are five live shows, remember this is la-la-la-la-live!
1) Where: Madison Square Gardens, New York When: August 1st 1971 Why: First Charity Fundraiser and So Much More?! Setlist: [24] Wah-Wah [23] My Sweet Lord [34] Awaiting On You All [31] Beware Of Darkness 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' 'Here Comes The Sun' 'Something' [38] Hear Me Lord [45] Bangla-Desh (plus Dylan, Preston, Shankar and Russell songs)
We've already spent a whole review studying this gig, but it's too important not to mention again with so many 'firsts' about it: George's first live gig, the first time two Beatles were seen together on stage since 1966 and the first concert organised purely to raise funds for charity with none of the musicians getting paid a cent (not even travel expenses). Actually there were two gigs, at 2.30pm and 8pm, George figuring that as he had Madison Square booked for the whole day anyway the band might as well perform twice and raised double the funds with the exact same show repeated again (although, typically, Dylan's set was shorter the second time round!)The gigs were hard work to organise, especially at short notice, but it's measure of both the music world's big heart and their respect for George that he actually ended up with too many people on stage offering support and Harrison later talked about his grief at having to turn so many artists down (we don't know who though - presumably artists he hadn't worked with before given how many of his friends were on stage with him).  For the people who went one of the biggest surprises - not much remarked on now it happens all the time - was the presence of a 'film' taken from TV reports of the BanglaDesh disaster that was shown on the 'big screen' while the roadies were setting up the instruments in between Ravi's 'Eastern' set and George and co's 'Western' one. The music of course was largely great, despite the odd fluffed line and the clear speed with which the concerts had been arranged and everybody left feeling as if they'd seen a special show, maybe the first of many - which, sadly, legal hassles through Apple and the Inland Revenue put paid to, with George too grumpy and perhaps too shy to go through the whole thing again without his 'buddies' alongside him. Note though how many of the line-up will return for the 1974 Dark Hoarse tour and the Harrison tribute 'A Concert For George' in 2002, showing just how friendly George really was with the musicians who agreed to help him - and Ravi - out for this gig. The BanglaDesh shows may have taken a while to get the funds where they were needed, but it's the shows that keep on giving - literally with funds raised from the CD re-issues, the DVD and the first legal downloads all continuing to help UNICEF, not to mention all the other charity gigs the show inspired, Live Aid included. George remains the only Beatle mentioned by name at a meeting of the United Nations (when these gigs were singled out for praise by UN General Kofi Annan as an 'example' of what the world's artists should be doing) with at least $12 million raised to help UNICEF in BanglaDesh (this is a 1980s figure that misses out on those re-issues - the total is probably more like $20 million nowadays).
2) Where: Pacific Coloseum, Vancouver, Canada  When: November 2nd 1974 Why: First Gig Of First Tour Setlist: [59] Hari's On Tour (Express) [53] The Lord Loves The One That Loves The Lord [51] Who Can See It? 'Something' 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' [48] Sue Me Sue You Blues 'For You Blue' [47] Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) 'In My Life' [63] Maya Love [65] Dark Horse [26] What Is Life? [23] My Sweet Lord
George put on the BanglaDesh shows in 1971 because he wanted to raise money and awareness for a good cause. He put on his North American 1974 tour because he couldn't stand being in an empty house without wife Patti anymore. Those facts alone spoke volumes about the mindset behind them and the way the shows were perceived, even though there wasn't actually that much difference between them (both sets of gigs featured Ravi and Billy as 'special guests' for instance). For crowds, though, there were a number of things that meant the 'Dark Horse' shows never quite hit the spot: George's new songs ('Dark Horse' was a far less popular album than 'All Things Must Pass' had been), the treatment of old songs (lines got tweaked for Beatle classics 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' and 'For You Blue' whilst Lennon's 'In My Life' was nearly unrecognisable as a brass-filled weepie ballad sung by Billy Preston) and George's failing vocals, which meant he largely stuck to guitar and all too often handed his vocals to his keyboard player. Throw in a couple of badly rehearsed jam instrumentals, the horrid 'The Lord Loves The One That Loves The Lord' right at the beginning and an overlong Ravi Shankar set partway through the show rather than beginning (as the BanglaDesh gigs had been) and a Beatle who was clearly a little lost, depressed and overwhelmed and you can see why this tour went down as such a disaster. Which is a shame because, at times, the shows really spark nicely on bootleg: 'What Is Life?' and 'Dark Horse' especially have a real gutsy rawness that really suits them and once you're used to them the renovations of old Beatle classics make some sense (even 'In My Life' which is, after all, a song about never being able to stand still that sadly never did get played in concert by its creator Lennon). Some of the audience loved it too - including an incognito Paul and Linda McCartney who happened to be in New Orleans recording the Wings album 'Venus and Mars' in early 1975 when George and co were passing through - they sat through the whole show in wigs and hats and through they'd gotten away without being spotted before the girl in the seat next to them turned round and said 'it was good wasn't it Paul?!' Loyally they spoke in the press about what fun they'd had, while Billy Preston (who never asked to sing any lead vocals) is the show's standout star, friend enough to lend a hand on the vocals and sounding great despite the boos he often received - but the press and some of the fans (heard booing throughout the set at some gigs, though admittedly others offer rapturous applause) weren't having it and this forty-five show tour (way too many for a nervy and often inebriated performer like George to get through) ended up being pegged a 'disaster' by fans, critics and George himself. He wouldn't be seen on stage for another eleven years and wouldn't set off on another tour for another seventeen. There is, so we think, a rough cut of at least one of the shows sitting in the Harrison vaults somewhere (with two songs leaked on the internet) probably with the soundtrack of a few others taped out there worthy of release - plus many a bootleg taped in poor sound by the fans in the audience (who actively grown whenever Ravi or Billy walk up to the microphone!)
3) Where: National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, UK When: March 15th 1986 Why: 'Heartbeat '86': Twelve Year Silence Broken! Setlist: 'Johnny B Goode'
Oddly, 'BanglaDesh' didn't set an immediate prescient for all-star musical fundraising shows. 'Live Aid' in 1985, however, did and it seems strange in retrospect that George and Ringo weren't at least asked to appear either alongside Paul's closing set or on their own (a measure, perhaps, of just how far George had sunk into anonymity in the years before 'Cloud Nine'). Harrison doesn't seem an obvious candidate to appear at this show either - a fairly low-key even organised to raise money for Birmingham's Children's Centre and mostly featuring Brummie bands. George probably got the call from two ways: a casual friendship with Denny Laine (then at war with McCartney) and organiser Bev Bevan of The Move, who knew George's current collaborator Jeff Lynne well (ELO reformed for the event and headlined, alongside The Moody Blues - marking their first time on stage with Laine since he left the band in 1966 - and UB40). Sadly George got rather lost amongst the throng, too nervous and out of practise to agree to playing his own set so he popped up on the all-star jam at the end instead, a rollicking version of Chuck Berry classic 'Johnny B Goode' (last performed by George as part of The Beatles on a Saturday Club show on February 15th 1964!) Sadly George doesn't appear on the fundraising single 'Action!' either. Largely forgotten by the history books, this is a key event in Harrison's career not so much for the show itself but because it started the process of George slowly coming out of his touring hibernation - a much higher profile 'birthday' gig for Carl perkins alongside Ringo followed shortly afterwards.



4) Where: Yokohama Arena, Japan When: December 1st 1991 Why: Second and Final Tour Setlist: 'I Want To Tell You' 'Old Brown Shoe' 'Taxman' [47] Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) 'If I Needed Someone' 'Something' [26] What Is Life? [65] Dark Horse 'Piggies' [137] Got My Mind Set On You [127] Cloud Nine 'Here Comes The Sun' [23] My Sweet Lord [101] All Those Years Ago [138] Cheer Down [133] Devil's Radio [25] Isn't It A Pity? 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps'


By 1991 George was itching to go on tour again for various reasons: partly financial as the Handmade Films law suit was still hurting his pockets and Friar Park was costing a lot to upkeep, but also partly because son Dhani was by now a twelve-year-old music addict and had never actually seen his dad play a live show. George was still nervous after the pasting his last tour got though and wondered aloud to best friend Eric Clapton if it was really worth it organising a band and putting up with the press when he could just stay at home with the plants? Eric came up with the perfect compromise, 'loaning' his own band to George and teaching them Harrison's pick of songs himself so he wouldn't have so much work (as wel as playing the 'opening' act himself) and telling George that they could start the tour in Japan where reviewers were much kinder to bands from the West than in Europe or America (the idea being that George would love it so much he'd tour both of them as well - though in the end George put the tour on hold 'indefinitely' and the tour never did make it out of Japan). The tours were a big success financially and commercially, with George - the first Beatle to tour Japan since the mid-1970s given Paul's heroin bust there in 1980 and John's half-planned tour the same year sadly cut short by his murder - received like a God. Unfortunately, though, he didn't often play like one. Deeply rusty after so many years away and missing home and hearth (even if his family travelled with him) George sounded out of sorts the whole tour (judging by both the official live album recorded in the middle of the tour and the bootlegs around of the beginning and end). The biggest problem is that he still isn't rehearsed, ad libbing a few extra lines in his Beatle tunes that he hadn't bothered to remember and deliberately revising others (most notably changing 'It's only me and not my mind' to 'it's not me and just my mind' on 'I Want To Want To Tell You'), while leaving pretty much all the guitar solos to Clapton to perform. Shakey and wobbly throughout, George sounds like he'd rather be anywhere else but on stage and it's a sad way for his regular gigging days to come to an end. The fans and critics were kinder, but the best summary comes from Dhani's disappointed re-action to the first show: 'Why did you do so many of your own songs dad? They're boring. Why don't you play a set of Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins instead?!' George, tickled, added 'Roll Over Beethoven' as an encore at every subsequent show!

5) Where: Madison Square Gardens, New York When: October 16th 1992 Why: Final Gig! Setlist: [27] If Not For You [142] Absolutely Sweet Marie

George's last ever stage performance was, typically, nothing much to do with George at all even though there were so many parallels with the first for 'Bangla Desh' twenty-one years earlier. George was back at Madison Square Gardens backing Bob Dylan as he decided to change the set-list on the spot again - it was as if no time has passed at all! This time round though George didn't have to organise a thing and the shows were there to celebrate Bob's thirtieth anniversary in show business - at the time something of a record! Sadly The Traveling Wilburys didn't perform their one and only live gig as rumoured before the shows and instead George and Bob together duetted on their old 'All Things Must Pass' co-write (never played live before) and then George sang a song of Bob's that was later released as on the official live recording 'The 309th Anniversary Collection'. Neil Young, also performing, dubbed the night 'Bobfest' during his show a nickname which stuck! Not the best way for George to bow out perhaps, but then he didn't know it was at the time, with the last songs Harrison sung on stage being the decidedly odd 'Now here I stand, looking at your yellow railroad, in the ruins of your balcony, wondering where you are tonight'.



THREE KEY COVER VERSIONS:



Sometimes when artists pick up that musical baton they pay tribute to their heroes by covering their favourite songs. Here are three covers that we consider to be amongst the very best out of the ones we've heard (and no we haven't heard them all - do you know how many AAA albums out there are out there even without adding cover songs as well?!) Most covers of George's songs are invariably of his Beatles' work: 'Here Comes The Sun' and 'Something', especially, are ripe for re-plucking being famous the world over, but we've decided to dig a little deeper and select a few from his solo catalogue instead. We've also ignored the plentiful cover versions of [137] 'Got My Mind Set On You', by far the most covered track associated with 'solo' George, because strictly speaking that was a cover anyway (though not that many people knew this Rudy Clark number before George sang it). There are, after all, lots of other lovely cover songs out there to list. George, in turn, was a keen practitioner of using covers to promote other people's music (with two Hoagy Carmichael covers in his discography plus an Everly Brothers and a lot of Dylan) so we're sure he'd have appreciated this little list more than most - and indeed played on quite a few of the best Harrisong covers around anyway!
1) [35] All Things Must Pass (Billy Preston, 'Encouraging Words' 1970)
George's 'apology' for taking [23] 'My Sweet Lord' off Billy and using it himself after first promising it as an 'exclusive' was offering him the pick of any other Harrisongs he fancied. Billy, already a participant in the 'Let It Be' sessions where 'All Things Must pass' had been rehearsed, asked for this song and it was duly produced for his second 'Apple' album released shortly before 'All Things Must Pass'. This is a very different version, arranged by Billy with George's knowledge and approval, featuring schmaltzy strings and an almost crooning kinda voice unusual for the soul singer. This version of the song sounds more like a 'standard', or an upbeat gospel number, and lacks the quiet intimacy and emotion of George's. It's still a strong reading through, especially the massed choir harmony and Billy's improvisations that interestingly focus on the 'happy' side of the song rather than the 'sad' ('I'm so glad that it's gonna pass!') I actually prefer it to the better known cover of [23] 'My Sweet Lord' from the same record, which is a little bit too clap-happy in its new arrangement (even if the new funky beat works surprisingly well!)
2) [25] Isn't It A Pity? (Nina Simone, 'Emergency Ward' 1972)
Actually it was Lennon who had the Nina Simone fetish growing up (the 'Nowhere Boy' film makes constant use of her 'I Put A Spell On You') but Harrison who got the 'cover' after the Civil Rights activist bought a copy of 'All Things Must Pass' and fell in love with this song. A simple olive branch of peace and equality regardless of gender, religion or race, it sounds like a lot of her own politicised work. George's song of weary resignation wasn't quite working for her as it stood though so Nina became one of the first people (other than Sinatra at least!) to change the lyrics to a Beatle composition. As well as altering the arrangement, making the song bluesy and upbeat and replacing Phil Spector's production with a simple piano part, Simone improvises 'Forgetting to give back, forgetting to say thankyou, forgetting to give a note right back, isn't it a pity?...We're all the same, we're all guilty...Mankind has been so programmed to have nothing to do with care...I don't think it's applicable to me, the beauty that surrounds them, child isn't it a pity?!' The main theme the song keeps returning to though: 'Can't they see we're all the same?' Some fans hate it for messing round with history, but to these ears it works, slowly building up verse by verse as Nina swaps the song around, picking and choosing the parts that resonate with her and throwing in a few of her own observations. The moment when a band finally kick in, some three and half minutes in, turning this into a singalong epic works pretty well too. Surprisingly this song is amongst the most covered of George's solo career, with another nine more recorded covers including one more straightforward version by Matt Monro at the end of his career and yet another version by Billy Preston. 
3) [24] Wah-Wah (Ocean Colour Scene, 'A Hyperactive Workout For The Flying Squad' 2005)
I like Ocean Colour Scene. While other reviewers tend to laugh at them a bit nowadays for switching so readily from the grunge with which they started to Britpop and most people only know them today for their best-selling 'Mosely Shoals' LP they shared Oasis' brilliance for updating the past to sound like the (then) present with enough of their own distinctive flavour to be more than just another 'nearly' Britpop band. They clearly owned a good record collection between them too with some excellent obscure covers, of which this one might just be the best. Caught halfway between George's simple demo and Phil Spector's fireworks factory, this spin on George's bitter tears makes a similar amount of noise merdly from the meshed guitars. The arrangement is simpler, the drumming is more basic and the guitars sound tinnier than usual, but the sudden surprise very 1990s horns and the power of the massed echoed vocals works really really well. Funkier and rawer than the 'Pass' take, singer Simon Fowler clearly finds something in George's lyrics that he identifies with too and the result is a highlight of perhaps the band's patchiest CD (though 1999's very CSN-ish moment 'Profit In Peace' is still their crowning glory).

 A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF GEORGE HARRISON ARTICLES TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM ARCHIVES:
'Extra Texture (Read All About It)' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/george-harrison-extra-texture-read-all.html
'Thirty-Three And A Third' (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/george-harrison-thirty-three-and-third.html

'George Harrison' (1979)
http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-74-george-harrison-1979.html

‘Somewhere In England’ (1981)
http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/george-harrison-somewhere-in-england_20.html
‘Cloud Nine’ (1987) https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/george-harrison-cloud-nine-1987.html
'Brainwashed' (2002) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/george-harrison-brainwashed-2002.html
'Hidden Harrison - The Best Unreleased Recordings' http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/george-harrison-hidden-harrison-best.html
Live/Compilation/Spin-Off Albums Plus The Occasional Wilbury http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/george-harrison-live.html
Non-Album Recordings 1968-2001 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/george-harrison-non-album-recordings.html
Surviving TV Appearances 1971-2001 http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/george-harrison-surviving-tv.html

Essay: Why The Quiet Beatle Always Had So Much To Say https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/02/george-harrison-essay-why-quiet-one.html
Five Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Songs https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/george-harrison-five-landmark-concerts.html