Showing posts with label concerts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label concerts. Show all posts

Monday, 30 July 2018

The Who: Five Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Versions


You can now buy 'Gettin' In Tune - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of...The Who' in e-book form by clicking here! 


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. Think of these as a sort of 'highlights' covering from first to last, to whet your appetite and to avoid ignoring a band's live work completely! The Who, of course, were born for the stage with a power and fire that couldn’t be contained within their (generally) more complex and elaborate studio recordings. To this day ‘Live At Leeds’ is the best-selling AAA live record of them all (just squeezing out The Rolling Stones’ ‘Get Yer Ya Yas Out) and while it was the Rollers who liked to be described as ‘the world’s greatest rock and roll band’ on stage, fans of both (who had to sit through more than a few patchy gigs) knew that The Who surely deserved that accolade. It seems a shame to restrict ourselves to just five concerts (especially given that The Who may well have played more shows than any AAA act bar Neil Young or The Beach Boys, with some three thousand ish – including five hundred odd gigs added to the official tally after their first official break-up in 1982). However until they invent a time machine so I can go back and watch every single one of those shows (sigh, trust me I really would…) this little list will have to do. Please note that, rather than do what we do with most of our bands, we haven’t gone with a ‘final’ gig even though the one performed at New Jersey’s Prudential Centre on March 29th 2017 was announced as the ‘last’ gig. We have of course been here before many many times (in 1982, 1985, 1989, 1997, 2000, 2008, 2014…) and my guess is that The Who will never be able to retire for very long. They just belong on stage too badly…

1)  Where: Paradise Club, London When: July 1st 1962 Why: First Gig Setlist: Unknown

We can though bring you their first gig, what little we know about it (there’s even debate about where and when it was though – some Who books say that it was Acton’ Town Hall on September 1st 1962; some form of this band existed since 1959 by the way but only Roger survived from that lineup and most people don’t count it as ‘The Who’). What we do know is that at the time The Who were still known as ‘The Detours’. They were very different though: Roger Daltrey is not yet their lead singer and is instead their lead guitarist, with vocals handled by Colin Dawson, while Doug Sandom is still their drummer for the next year or so before bumping into Keith Moon and Pete Townshend, down as their rhythm guitar player, is not yet writing any songs. Only John Entwistle is taking up the position he will take up on stage for the next forty years although for now he is playing on a home-made bass he created himself during woodwork lessons. The Detours are in fact all still at school except Roger (who has just left) and Doug (who being ten years older than the rest of the band left what must have seemed a lifetime ago). The setlist is very different too:  no one’s all that sure what the band played but it almost certainly featured nothing from any of the band’s future record (Roger hasn’t even started on his James Brown obsession yet) and probably included Chuck Berry covers (the band definitely played ‘C’mon’ for a time after London’s biggest local band The Rolling Stones started doing it). The band probably got this booking – the band’s first not for a school function or a private wedding – through local promoter Robert Druce, who was contacted as a favour to the band by Pete’s mum. They will continue to play around London’s clubs as The Detours until 1964 when, to their horror, they see a poster for a band named ‘Johnny Devlin and the Detours’ and realise that they need a new name. Oh and a new drummer…

2)  Where: Railway Hotel, Wealdstone When: June 30th 1964 Why: Breakthrough Gig Setlist: ‘Smokestack Lightning’ ‘I’m A Man’ ‘Road Runner’ (incomplete)

The two years up to mid 1964 are a time of growth and development for The Who. Roger moves into lead singer position, Pete writes his first song (‘It Was You’, a ballad he is deeply embarrassed by and is often teased for) and Keith is a new drummer after joining the band from May 2nd 1964. However The Who don’t feel quite right yet. Their set is full of tidy covers of songs every other band was doing (including future live favourite Bo Diddley covers [  ] ‘Roadrunner’ and [26] ‘I’m A Man’ - Roger has indeed ‘made twenty-one’ though the rest haven’t, not for another couple of years yet or four in Keith’s case) as well as blues standard ‘Smokestack Lightnin’. Other songs known to be played on this tour (though not necessarily at this gig) include The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’, Booker T and the MGs’ ‘Green Onions’, Willie Dixon’s ‘Pretty Thing’ and future live favourite [114] ‘Young Man Blues’. They don’t yet have any of the songs from their debut album the next year in place and, well, it all feels a little bare and artificial. Until tonight when Pete gets really angry – this band are great, why are the crowd not dancing? Desperate to get them up on their feet and dancing he starts lunging about the stage, trying to get their attention. Unfortunately in his passion Pete forgets that the venue they’re playing is a very tiny place with very low ceilings and his Rickenbacker guitar launches up and tears a hole right through it. Everyone is watching now but Pete doesn’t want them to stop or freak out over what he’s just done to his guitar. So he nonchalantly plucks it down from the ceiling and stamps on it, Keith choosing that moment to utterly destroy his drums at the same time while Roger and John look on bemused. The audience goes nuts, thrilled at the sheer danger and excitement of it, starting a chant of ‘smash your guitar, Pete!’ that will last for decades. Pete will oblige more times than he says no (and even John will wreck a few instruments in shows a few years from now) and The Who become known as a violent act who care nothing for the destruction of their instruments every night. What no one knew at the time is that, as penniless musicians, The Who couldn’t afford to destroy their instruments every night and spent their time in-between gigs desperately sticking their guitars and drums back together for the next night when they will get smashed up all over again…

3)  Where: Bolton Institute Of Technology When: April 1969 Why: First Tommy Setlist: [116] Heaven and Hell [4] I Can’t Explain [86] Fortune Teller [56] Tattoo [114] Young Man Blues [87] Overture [89] 1921 [90] Amazing Journey [91] Sparks [92] Eyesight To The Blind [93] Christmas [95] The Acid Queen [97] Do You Think It’s Alright? [98] Fiddle About [99] Pinball Wizard [101] Go To The Mirror [102] Tommy Can You Hear Me? [103] Smash The Mirror [105] Miracle Cure [106] Sally Simpson [107] I’m Free! [109] Tommy’s Holiday Camp [110] We’re Not Gonna Take It-See Me Feel Me [78] Summertime Blues [115] Shakin’ All Over [22] My Generation

By 1969 The Who are an institution. They have survived the great split of 1967 (when Keith and John very nearly broke away to form ‘Led Zeppelin’ with Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and Roger was nearly kicked out of the band for arguing too much!), flower power (1967 didn’t suit their natural destructive sound very much, though a performance at the Monterey Pop festival went down well) and the ‘lost’ year of 1968 (when the band released no new LPs and only novelty singles, unsure as to their new direction). Suddenly though, just as everyone have written The Who off, back they come with not just a new album but a whole new concept of making music. This first performance of Tommy (which we’ve picked as a ‘key’ gig over Woodstock four months later simply because we’ve already written about that elsewhere in this book) is a key moment. No other band had devoted so much of their setlist to a new work and even in reduced form (the band gave the boot to [94] ‘Cousin Kevin’ and [96] ‘The Underture’ in rehearsals figuring they slowed the piece down and would later drop the wordy [106] ‘Sally Simpson’ too) this new part of their show still ran to an hour without a pause or a break anywhere. Bolton fans weren’t expecting to be treated to such a debut and had in fact yet to hear the album which wouldn’t be out for another month (the gig was in fact a ‘dress rehearsal’ for the gig the papers were invited to, at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club in London on May 1st) but the show was a success right from the first and vindicated the faith the band had put into this major change in direction which, had it not been a success, could have easily been the last thing The Who would ever do. In time The Who would perform this setlists more or less complete for the next two hundred odd shows and two years including some of their finest  not just Woodstock but ‘Live At Leeds’ and ‘The Isle Of Wight Festival’ too.  Alas no live recordings exist of ‘Tommy’ all the way up to Woodstock.

4)  Where: Cow Palace, San Francisco When: November 20th 1973 Why: Keith Collapses Setlist: [4] I Can’t Explain [78] Summertime Blues [22] My Generation [145] I Am The Sea [146] The Real Me [149] The Punk and The Godfather [150] I’m One [152] Helpless Dancer [155] 5:15 [156] Sea and Sand [157] Drowned [158] Bell Boy [159] Dr Jimmy [161] Love Reign O’er Me [130] Won’t Get Fooled Again [83] Magic Bus [110] See Me Feel Me ‘Smokestack Lightning’ [117] Spoonful [140] Naked Eye

It’s not every gig that nearly gets cancelled not because of illness or a band split but because the drummer has just overdosed on animal tranquilisers. This gig has gone down in history as the moment when things go a bit mad (well, madder), with Keith having an eveil look in his eyes all night and playing most of the songs in the first set too fast for the band to keep up with (playing havoc with the backing tracks for ‘Quadrophenia’). Come set two he’s visibly struggling and collapses across his kit a few bars into ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’. The roadies heave him backstage and stick him in a cold shower – Keith comes around enough to try again and after a half-hour delay bounds back on to the stage apologising to fans. However he collapses again seconds into the same song and lies there lifeless. A desperate search backstage reveals that Keith has taken not just his normal quantity of booze and drugs but enough animal tranquiliser to fell an elephant. Unwilling to go home and afraid of a riot if the show gets stopped after such a long wait Pete pleads with the audience ‘is there anybody out there who can play the drums? I mean anyone good?’ A nineteen year old named Scott Halpin is out with friends who realise that he is a drummer and push him towards the security guard at the front of the stage - he’s the only person to put himself forward. Bill Graham, in charge of the show as ever, asks him if he thinks he’s up to it – Scott surprises himself by saying ‘yes!’ Pete chats to him, asks what songs he knows, introduces him to the audience and leads him to Keith’s drumkit. Alas The Who have already played most of their live favourites in the first half so decide to stick to the simplest songs in their set. Scott equits himself well and though debate still rages as to which songs he played on (memory being a fickle thing) most people agree that he played at least ‘Naked Eye’ ‘Magic Bus’ and ‘Spoonful’ (The Who also filled in time witrh a drum-less ‘See Me Feel Me’ while waiting for Keith to wake up – it seems odd they didn’t do their near a capella [129] ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ this way too). Poor Scott was exhausted after three songs and couldn’t manage a fourth, making this one of the shortest Who gigs of the era, but he gave the crowd a concert to remember and by all accounts acquitted himself well (he is, naturally, the AAA’s very own time-traveller if you read our April Fool’s Day column, *here*…) Amazingly, shaky audience-shot footage exists though alas only ten minutes worth of highlights (including the moment Keith collapses and Scott playing on ‘Smokestack Lightning’). As for Keith, he recuperated in hospital and never took animal tranqulisers again. He did, however, take lots of other stuff instead…

5)  Where: Riverfront Coliseum, Cincinatti, Ohio When: December 3rd 1979 Why: Most Notorious Gig Setlist: [44] Substitute [4] I Can’t Explain [122] Baba O’Riley [149] The Punk and The Godfather [125] My Wife [187] Sister Disco [129] Behind Blue Eyes [188] Music Must Change [157] Drowned [192] Who Are You? [155] 5:15 [99] Pinball Wizard [110] We’re Not Gonna Take It-See Me Feel Me [144] Long Live Rock! [144] Long Live Rock! [22] My Generation [58] I Can See For Miles [90] Amazing Journey [91] Sparks [130] Won’t Get Fooled Again [78] Summertime Blues [146] The Real Me

The Who wasn’t an entirely unhappy ship fromn 1973 onwards but its fair to say that Keith’s incident marked a watershed moment in their live fortunes. The ‘Quadrophenia’ live tour hadn’t gone down as well with fans as hoped (especially as they played to a click-track tape and Roger was busy explaining the story every five minutes). A ‘greatest’ hits tour across 1974 and 1975 was the band’s last with Keith who was struggling to keep up with the band, the quartet playing their last full show at The Kilburn in 1977 (now out on DVD) and their last mini-performance together in front of a specially selected audience (and cameras) for the ‘Maximum R and B’ DVD. The Who returned to the live arena with a blast in 1979, eager to make up for lost time now that they had Keith’s replacement Kenny Jones of The Small Faces in tow who could give the band full power again at last. However even this longed for tour was not a happy one: they all missed Keith deeply, Roger struggled to sing to Kenney’s beat the same way he instinctively did to Keith’s and the band realised there was something wrong with the sound, electing to fill it with their first subsidiary musician, John ‘Rabbit’ Brundrick, whose keyboard work is the highlight of many a 1979 show. However it was by and large a miserable experience and the band only pushed through for financial reasons (John Entwistle needing a quick injection of cash to stay financially afloat yet again). The Who still hoped that things would get better though, that all band and fans had to do was adjust to the new sound. And then it happened – the deaths of eleven fans, in a terrible mistake. The arena seated 18,000 people with only 4000 pre-booked tickets – the rest were given on a first-come, first-served basis. Naturally many people wanted to get there earkly to get a ticket. So early, in fact, that The Who were still playing their soundcheck – later than planned due to a delay getting to the venue. The Coliseum had, at the time, a short corridor with single doors that could only be opened one way. It was, after all, everything they needed – they hadn’t held many large rock concerts and weren’t expecting so many people at once. But of course everyone arriving early heard The Who playing, clamoured to see what was happening and hadn’t realised the situation with the doors. The people at the front couldn’t open them quickly enough and got crushed, while more and more people turned up at the end of the line pushing to get in. The organisers decided to only open one official set of doors, to ‘funnel’ the crowd through these, but impatient and angry and sure they were missing a show the surge became too strong. As well as the eleven people who died of asphyxiation, twenty-three people sustained life-changing injuries in the crush. The Who weren’t told about any of this (for fear of cancelling and creating a bigger crisis) and wondered at half-time why the crowd were so subdued. The event had several ripples: The Who, used to violence at their shows since the early days, grew more sickened with touring; the next few shows were immediately cancelled; the venue had a ban on unbooked tickets until as late as 2004; a then-new band named Pearl Jam were the next to play the venue and played a version of [146] ‘The Real Me’ in tribute and the writers of Pink Floyd film ‘The Wall’ then in production decided to base their crowd scene on this moment (which must have been difficult for a guest at the premiere, one Pete Townshend, to sit through). The sad event was also a nail in the coffin of The Who in 1982, with none of the band facing touring with quite the same apetitite they’d once had (though they did still play forty-three shows across 1980, twenty-seven in 1981 and forty-two in 1982, so as usual these things are never clear cut!)  


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?!) There are, of course, zillions of Who cover songs out there just as there with many of the more famous AAA members. What’s interesting, though, is how much they are spaced out (there is no one Who song covered more than the others, though [99] ‘Pinball Wizard’ and the ‘See Me Feel Me’ part of [110] ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’ probably win by a nose), how many songs have been covered in total (even fragments of rock operas that shouldn’t work without the concept such as [103] ‘Smash The Mirror’, a minor hit for King’s Road in 1973 or obscure John Entwistle B-sides such as Dollface’s contemporary cover of [81] ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’) and how these all seem to ebb and flow across the decades, peaking in the great mod revival of 1979 and to a lesser extent with Britpop in the mid-1990s. There are a few Who tribute albums out there too, such as 2001’s ‘Substitute’ featuring Paul Weller, The Stereophonics , Sheryl Crow, David Bowie and Ocean Colour Scene and 2012’s ‘Who Are You?’ featuring Ian Paice and Iggy Pop, though we’ve stuck with three alternative choices for this week’s article.
1)  [29] Disguises (The Jam, B-Side ‘Funeral Pyre’, 1981)
Paul Weller was a huge fan of the mod scene in general and The Who in particular. The Jam, like The Who before them, always wore their influences on their sleeve and they featured several Townshend songs in their act down the years. [42] ‘So Sad About Us’ is the cover that always gets the most attention, but to these ears the band’s B-side run through an even more obscure Who song from their ‘Ready Steady Who!’ EP of 1966 is better yet. It would have been, in the early 1980s, a very modern sounding song – the whole point of the track is that something isn’t quite right, with its lyrics about forever mistaking strangers for your loved one and a performance that has shimmering guitars meshing with a deliberately ugly bass line and lashings of French Horn. You’re not meant to know which way is up or down and that’s very much in keeping with the new wave music scene. Weller’s arrangement drops the French Horn and tidies everything into a neat jacket but is basically the same – the narrator’s girlfriend is forever wearing disguises and always looks different while he’s forever surprised by new things he finds out about her personality. He sounds detached from us throughout, while the ever under-rated rhythm section of Bruce Foxton and Rick Butler keep up the endless relentless cacophony. The result is one of the last Jam B-sides and one of their best.
2)   [27] A Legal Matter (Richard Thompson, ‘One Thousand Years Of Popular Music’, 2003)
In the millennium Playboy magazine decided to run a feature on ‘the best songs of the thousand years’. They were being facetious of course – they didn’t expect any nominations before 1950 – but they should have known better than to ask music scholar and singer-songwriter Richard Thompson. In total he chose twenty-three songs that he felt best summed up the different passages of human civilisation which veered from Purcell and tales of ‘Henry V’s Conquest In France’ to songs by Prince and Britney Spears. When Playboy, realising their folly, decided to condense the article down and release it as a bare-bones CD instead Thompson took his list out on the road instead, interpreting all of these tracks for a live album instead. ‘A Legal Matter’ is the clear highlight as well as being the most obscure of the 20th century songs on the list. Pete Townshend’s lone vocal on Who debut ‘Sings My Generation’ it’s a tale of impish glee at having escaped the institution of marriage and the fact that his wife has broken the ‘vow’ first. Perhaps cheekily written to reflect Roger’s marital struggles of the time, Richard had his own major public fallout with wife Linda, a singer with a beautiful voice who was co-credited on a string of jaw-dropping albums across the 1970s and early 1980s. Here, though, Richard is alone, singing alone to his acoustic guitar how ‘you’ve got me on the run’ and ‘marrying’s no fun’. The song sounds great stripped to its bare bones like this and – with all respect to a twenty-year-old Pete who copes remarkably well on his first time singing lead in a cold studio environment – sung by someone who can really sing. The song really swings into gear as Richard gets impassioned and whips the song up into more of a frenzy with the cry ‘I’m sorry baby!’ Thrilling stuff.
3)  [62] Rael (Petra Haden ‘Sings The Who Sell Out’, 2005)
We close with a real labour of love that simply must be applauded. There are fan works out there that re-create entire albums – generally Beatle LPs and usually badly. ‘That Dog’ vocalist Petra Haden, though, wins the award for the most inventive re-working of an AAA LP by re-creating the entire ‘Who Sell Out’ album using nothing but her voice. Every lead and backing vocal, every psychedelic guitar solo, every whizzing effect (check out [52] ‘Armenia City In The Sky!’), every groovy bass line, every Moony drum solo, every French horn part, even every jingle is sung one by one and overdubbed on top of each other to create an album that’s if anything even more out-there and psychedelic than the original. Almost all of the album sounds great (though alas [58] ‘I Can See For Miles’ is the only track that doesn’t quite hit the sweet spot) but surely the most impressive moment comes in the re-creation of the album’s six minute closing number. Even the original was ridiculously complicated and that’s from a band all playing at once – re-created everything in ‘aahs’ ‘dums’ and ‘woohs’ is astonishing. Best of all you can actually hear what the words are thanks to Petra’s crystal-clear diction (Roger could have learnt a thing or two from her!) Oh and if that wasn’t enough Haden even re-creates the album covers too. Haven’t baked beans got smaller and redder in the intervening forty years?!? This album must have taken forever to put together but its worth every moment, an astonishing achievement of devotion and attention to detail which leaves me with nothing more to do than take my hat off to her. Pete Townshend too, who said on this album’s release that hearing such love and care devoted to his work was ‘better than a Grammy’.  It’s been a long time since 2005 though – is it too much to hope that Petra is busy working on re-creating the whole of double-album ‘Tommy’ as a sequel?!?





A complete collection of Who reviews:

'The Who Sing My Generation' (1965) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-who-sing-my-generation-1965.html


'Sell Out' (1967) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/19-who-sell-out-1967.html

‘Tommy’ (1969) http://www.alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/the-who-tommy-1969.html

'Live At Leeds' (1970) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-33-who-live-at-leeds-1970.html

'Lifehouse' (As It Might Have Been) (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/news-views-and-music-issue-81-who.html

'Who's Next' ('Lifehouse' As It Became) (1971) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/12/news-views-and-music-issue-14-who-whos.html

'Quadrophenia' (1973) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-60-who-quadrophenia-1973.html

'The Who By Numbers' (1975) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-69-who-by-numbers-1975.html

'Who Are You' (1978) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/review-72-who-who-are-you-1978.html

'Face Dances' (1979)  http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/news-views-and-music-issue-137-who-face.html

'Empty Glass' (Townshend solo 1980) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2008/07/pete-townshend-empty-glass-1980.html

'It's Hard' (1982) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-who-its-hard-1982-album-review.html



Surviving Who TV Clips 1965-2015 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-who-surviving-tv-and-film-clips.html

Non-Album Recordings Part One 1964-1967 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-who-non-album-recordings-part-one.html

Non-Album Recordings Part Two 1968-2014 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-who-non-album-recordings-part-two.html

Pete Townshend “Scoop” 1-3 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/the-who-pete-townshends-scoop-demo.html

The Best Unreleased Who Recordings https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-who-best-unreleased-recordings.html

Live/Solo/Rarities/Competition Albums Part One 1965-1972
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/the-who-livesolocompilationrarities.html

Live/Solo/Rarities/Competition Albums Part Two 1972-1975 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/the-who-livesolocompilationrarities_9.html

Live/Solo/Rarities/Compilation Albums Part Three 1976-1982
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/the-who-livesolocompilationrarities_16.html

Live/Solo/Rarities/Compilation Albums Part Four 1983-1990 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/the-who-livesolocompilationrarities_23.html

Live/Solo/Rarities/Compilation Albums Part Five 1991-2000 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/the-who-livesolocompilationrarities_30.html



Essay: Who Are You And Who Am I?: http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-who-essay-who-are-you-and-who-am-i.html




10cc: Five Landmark Concerts and Three Key Cover Versions


You can now buy 'Memories - The Alan's Album Archives Guide To The Music Of 10cc' in e-book form by clicking here






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. Think of these as a sort of 'highlights' covering from first to last, to whet your appetite and to avoid ignoring a band's live work completely! 10cc often struggled to perform their songs live. They were all four multi-instrumentalists who perfected the art of overdubbing to such a degree that at any given time in the 1970s they could each be playing four instruments at once on record. Doing all that lot while singing is a big ask for any band, with 10cc bringing in a number of auxiliary members to the party down the years. Nevertheless they became a really great live band and it’s a tragedy that to date nothing from their heyday is out on DVD (indeed the only concert that seems to exist is the half hour BBC show ‘In Concert’, which only includes part of their repertoire even in the early days when they didn’t have much. The ‘reunion’ era has made up for this with more live albums than studio sets, especially in the 21st century under the care of Graham Gouldman but even so it feels somewhat as if 10cc’s days as a touring band weren’t recorded properly for posterity. Here, then, are our picks of their performances – some 500 or so for the pre-reunion years and probably double that since 1992 in various configurations.

1)  Where: Palace Lido, Isle Of Man When: August 26th 1973 Why: First Gig Setlist: [22] Speed Kills [18] Sand In My Face [19] Donna [39] Oh! Effendi [27] Waterfall [21] Headline Hustler [30] The Wall Street Shuffle [23] Rubber Bullets (sample setlist from same tour)

Not for 10cc the years of plugging away as a live band before they got their first sniff of a recording contract. Instead 10cc were created after years in the studio backing different bands or playing under pseudonyms before they finally hit the big time with ‘Donna’. Their first gig under the 10cc name didn’t happen until a month after the release of their debut record – one that was already a year old by that point in most cases.  By this point 10cc were already big enough thanks to their #2 and #1 hits (‘Donna’ and ‘Rubber Bullets’) to be headliners and already had extra drummer Paul Burgess in the band. Though 10cc were slow to start as a live band, they were quick to catch up with a 75 date tour that would run off and on until June the next year slotted around recording sessions for second album ‘Sheet Music’. Though three of them had played together live briefly as ‘Hotlegs’ in 1970, it must have been nerve-wracking indeed playing in front of people for the first time with so many dates already booked to follow? What if it had all been a disaster? Instead the gig seems to have gone down very well indeed, the band re-creating five songs from their debut LP (the five simplest?) as well as previewing three from their second LP including recent single ‘The Wall Street Shuffle’. What’s interesting in retrospect is the ratio of the vocalists. In time it will become obvious that Eric is their natural frontman (good looking, that voice, that guitar, that haircut) but here the vocals are about equal: actually Lol gets the most vocals of the night (including two hit singles) with three to Eric’s two and Graham’s one while poor Kevin doesn’t get any (it is hard to sing and play the drums at the same time – they’ll rectify this by their next tour). The first words sung by 10cc live on stage? The characteristically unlikely ‘One fine day I started riding home…’ I’ve always wondered why 10cc were booked to play the Isle of Man (off the coast of Liverpool) as their first show – it’s not that local to home town Stockport, it’s too big to ‘hide’ if the band went down badly and too small to kick off a big tour and interest the press, it’s the sort of job in front of holiday-makers artists tend to do on their way up (or down) when they can’t get anything bigger. The ‘Palace Lido’ started life as the ‘Palace Pavilion Ballroom’ –with the biggest ballroom in Britain – and is now ‘The Palace’ Cinema by the way, seating 5000 in its day (though now oddly its 400 cinema seats. Are we all getting fatter and is it all that popcorn?) However the band are soon booked to play bigger and bigger gigs eventually leading up to their only festival date of their ‘original’ run…

2)  Where: Knebworth Park Festival When: August 21st 1976 Why: Biggest  Gig?  Setlist: [42] Un Nuit En Paris [31] The Worst Band In The World [63] Good Morning Judge [35] SSSSSSSSSSSSilly Love [61] Don’t Hang Up! [33] Old Wild Men [30] The Wall Street Shuffle [7] Neanderthal Man [5] Run Baby Run [25] Ships Don’t Just Disappear In The Night (Do They?!?!?) [23] Rubber Bullets [56] I’m Mandy, Fly Me [45] The Second Sitting For The Last Supper [43] I’m Not In Love

This is – I think – the biggest audience 10cc ever played to at a gig (200,000?) most remembered for a rare post-Altamont festival appearance by headliners The Rolling Stones. Music historians also remember it as a rare British appearance by Lynyrd Skynyrd before their deadly airplane crash the following year. As for 10cc, it was a big deal too. The final gig after a lengthy and weary 1976 tour, though the band didn’t know it this would end up being their last performance on stage with Kevin and Lol until the brief reunions in 1992. The band were hit with problems from the first when there was a delay setting the stage up, with the crowd growing restless after several delays. Then when the band did appear the sound system started playing up. Many fans at the back missed the opening part of their set and the band played on oblivious – when it did come back on they were about to play ‘Don’t Hang Up’, the quietest song of their set which didn’t exactly grab the crowds. Godley and Crème left partly because they hated the new material their colleagues were coming up with and didn’t know what to play on them. Interestingly one of those songs makes the setlist, with this the only time Godley and Crème ever played on future single ‘Good Morning Judge’. This set is also notable for a two-song return to the ‘Hotlegs’ days, now six years old, with both ‘Neanderthal Man’ and ‘Run Baby Run’ part of the setlist. ‘Un Nuit En Paris’ is also an extraordinary and ambitious set opener, even condensed from the fourteen minutes on record and ‘The Worst Band In The World’ is a daring song to play so early on in front of people at a festival who aren’t necessarily all going to be your fans! Reports say that the biggest cheer was during ‘I’m Mandy Fly Me’ when 10cc sang ‘like a rolling stone I’m inside looking in…’ expectant crowds who were impatiently waiting for the headliners assumed they were about to take the stage and started screaming but still had another two songs to get through first. A film crew did attend the event to film Lynyrd Skynyrd (their footage can be seen in the documentary film ‘Freebird’) and rumours long abounded that at least the audio of 10cc’s set was recorded professionally for possible release as the band’s first live album. ‘Rubber Bullets’ and ‘I’m Not In Love’ must have been taped by a professional film crew for something and survives, in very poor condition it has to be said with the band still beset by sound issues, ‘Bullets’ stretched out to thirteen meandering minutes with Kevin losing his way during a lengthy drum solo. The band seem happy enough with each other though, with lots of smiles between Eric and Lol trying to outdo each other in ‘rock poses’. Meanwhile both men play piano on ‘Love’ while the tapes play the synthesised ‘aaahs’ and the band cut the entire ‘big boys don’t cry’ bit to keep the song to a compact four minutes. Some photos do exist too and oddly show the band with their back to the audience (especially when Eric is on the piano – did they not have room to turn it round on stage?) The full set has yet to come to light, however, if indeed it was ever filmed. Note that the band’s last performance, barring one final encore with that year’s biggest song ‘I’m Not In Love’, is ‘Second Sitting For The Last Supper’. Which nine months later also happens to be …

3)  Where: Apollo Theatre, Glasgow, Scotland When: May 27th 1977 Why: First Post-Split Gig Setlist: [45] The Second Sitting For The Last Supper [25] Ships Don’t Just Disappear In The Night (Do They?!?!?) [27] Waterfall [30] The Wall Street Shuffle [43] I’m Not In Love [56] I’m Mandy Fly Me [58] Art For Art’s Sake [63] Good Morning Judge [64] The Things We Do For Love [66] People In Love [67] Modern Man Blues [70] You’ve Got A Cold [65] Marriage Bureau Rendezvous [68] Honeymoon With B Troop [71] Feel The Benefit

The first song played by the new-look band led by Eric and Graham, as if to say ‘where were we? Oh yes!’ This concert then marks the debut of three new members of the band on stage: Rick Fenn (whose still in the band now), Tony O’Malley and Stuart Tosh. This setlist is much like the official concert album ‘Live and Let Live’ recorded in London and Manchester a month and two months later (albeit in a different order in some cases) and is high on songs from new album ‘Deceptive Bends’ as well as the live debut of single ‘Art For Art’s Sake’ that never was performed by the Godley-Crème era band live. Again it’s interesting that 10cc should re-launch themselves here at this middling sort of venue: it’s too big to hide if the new-look band with so much riding on them goes wrong but it’s hardly the sort of place to show the press what you can do (Scotland’s too far for most of them to travel for one thing, unless you’re at a really big arena) while the Stockport bound band had no obvious links to the area. The shows were particularly well regarded at the time for their back projections at a time when this sort of thing was quite new – most of it features Eric and Graham mucking about in the diving suits from the ‘Deceptive’ album cover. Alas this gig doesn’t exist in any format, but the Hammersmith Odeon one that made the record does.

4)  Where: Winter Gardens, Margate, UK When: October 20th 1983 Why: Final Gig  Setlist: [22] Rubber Bullets [35] SSSSSSSilly Love [48] Life Is A Minestrone [56] I’m Mandy, Fly Me [114] 24 Hours [30] The Wall Street Shuffle [110] Runaway [64] The Things We Do For Love [63] Good Morning Judge [118] City Lights [58] Art For Art’s Sake [108] Lying Here With You [84] From Rochdale To Ocho Rios [115] Oomachasooma (Feel The Love) [74] Dreadlock Holiday [43] I’m Not In Love [71] Feel The Benefit

And here is where the journey ends, at least the first time round. By now 10cc have changed a lot in style and execution. Now in snappy suits with short hair and several periphery musicians in tow, they look more like Madness than the prog rockers they always were. Eric is still recovering from the car crash that nearly killed him in 1980 and keeps his sunglasses on the whole time, partly to protect his eyes. Sadly though, with Graham naturally quiet on stage and no one else to make introductions, this also makes it feel as if the band are distant from us somewhat. Thankfully the music is quite brilliant, with 10cc performing three songs from their masterpiece out that very same month ‘Windows In The Jungle’ and classic B-side ‘Runaway’ (the only live performances these songs will ever have is on this tour). None of them sound quite as sharp as the record somehow and ‘City Lights’ especially lacks punch, but its brave to have a stab at such complex works like this on stage. This gig doesn’t exist in any form sadly, but one from three days earlier – at the Hammersmith Odeon once again – does and was broadcast on UK TV. The last words the band sang on stage from their uninterrupted run? ‘If all the people in the world could sing together how would it sound? What would we feel?’  That would be it for nine years. Two reunion albums later and we arrive at…

5)  Where: Esbjerg Rock Festival When: June 3rd 1995 Why: Last Gig (Sort Of!) Setlist: [58] Art For Art’s Sake [56] I’m Mandy, Fly Me [  ] Welcome To Paradise [63] Good Morning Judge [  ] Take This Woman [30] The Wall Street Shuffle [  ] The Night The Stars Didn’t Show [  ] Margo Wants The Mustard [18] Sand In My Face [  ] Code Of Silence [  ] Ready To Go Home [64] The Things We Do For Love [71} Feel The Benefit [74] Dreadlock Holiday [43] I’m Not In Love [22] Rubber Bullets [35] SSSSSSSSSSSilly Love [48] Life Is A Minestrone ‘Johnny B Goode’ (sample setlist from same tour)

This isn’t, of course, the final 10cc gig technically. Graham and Rick still tour under the 10cc name to this day and are more prolific than ever in terms of the gigs they’ve notched up. However this is the gig that feels like the end of an era – the last one to feature Graham and Eric alongside each other on stage. At the time the two weren’t getting on at all well. Unwilling to make music together at all, they’d only revived the 10cc name after their record label Mercury reminded them that they still owed two albums. 1995’s ‘Mirror Mirror’ is a sad album for fans, with Graham and Eric dividing the album up between them and the pair never working together in the studio on an album that’s effectively two solo albums stuck together. So the fun on this tour is seeing them play on the other’s tracks for the only time with two songs apiece, with only Rick for company this time. The best part of the show is a new format though – an acoustic set in the middle where the three perched on stools to play these songs. There’s a very surprise revival of ‘Sand In My Face’ for the first time in two decades too! The very last song played by the band on stage? Erm, Chuck Berry’s ‘Johnny B Goode’, a song the band had never played before this tour – no I wasn’t expecting that either, but then this is a band who always like to give us the unexpected!



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?!) The 10cc catalogue doesn’t hold quite as many songs ripe for covering by other bands as some other AAA acts. 10cc tend to go for the maximum sound and invention they can so there’s little point in copying many of their songs, while most bands wouldn’t get their weird or surreal humour. Most of their cover versions are restricted to the obvious ones: [43] ‘I’m Not In Love’ [64] ‘The Things We Do For Love’ and [23] ‘Rubber Bullets’ (oddly I can’t find a single decent version of this song aside from the original, even though it’s 1950s good humour and riffs seem like an obvious starting point for so many different directions it could go). To date there has yet to be a full 10cc tribute CD either, the way there are for so many other AAA bands out there. Thankfully it’s not all bad and these three cover songs at least are all inspired in their own ways.

1)  [43] I’m Not In Love (Richie Havens, ‘The End Of The Beginning’, 1976)

There are – would you believe – around a hundred cover version of ‘I’m Not In Love’ out there and probably more I haven’t tracked down yet. Almost all of them are wretched and a struggle to sit through for more than a few seconds: they’re slow, they’re pompous, they’re performed without the ‘loved up’ voice of Eric Stewart that makes what’s actually quite a cruel lyric sounds believable and few budgets stretch to the sheer delight of the synthesised ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’. You can always rely on Woodstock opening act Richie Havens to have a go, though and his version of the song is a masterpiece. Tougher than the original, with a full band sound covering for the synthesisers, he somehow finds some gospel strings to pull in the original and turns the song into a weary sigh. This narrator sounds as if he knows that he’s genuinely in love, but can’t go through with it for whatever reason (maybe he’s in an arranged marriage?) Richie’s rough sandpaper vocal removes all the awed beauty and gooey eyes of 10cc’s original for some hand-wringing and pained ‘no no nos’. The result is an excellent cover that’s very different to the original (it dispenses with the entire ‘big boys don’t cry’ passage for a start, replacing it with a synth solo) but somehow just as emotional.

2)  [64] The Things We Do For Love (Karen West, A-Side, 1982)

Karen is something of a one-hit wonder, he one hit being her down-to-earth no-nonsense cover of this song five years after the original. Starting her career as a backing singer, she recorded this song simply on the side in between sessions and was surprised when it became a big hit. It’s nice hearing this song done more simply than 10cc did it and on a far smaller budget (there’s just a piano and some synth drums throughout) you can hear just how much of the prettiness is in the song not the 10cc production values. There’s a nice soaring quality on the ‘oooh you got me…’ chorus and an odd and very 1980s sound effect that sounds like Karen was playing a computer game while doing some overdubs. The result was a surprise hit maybe but it’s heartfelt and her vocal nails the ups and downs of love in the original rather well. Sadly Karen looked elsewhere for more material, with two flop sequels taken from the Cliff Richard back catalogue that deserved to sink without trace, and went back to singing backup vocals. It’s a shame she didn’t hook up with 10cc on their reunion tours, where I suspect she would have sounded rather good.

3)  [33] Old Wild Men (Steve Hogarth, ‘Live Spirit, Live Body’, 2002)
Marillion’s lead singer (known in the band and to fans as simply ‘H’, but not to be confused with the wally from S Club 7) must have an impressive record collection as he’s always trying to slot a few forgotten gems from the 1970s into his solo shows. Here’s one of the very best, an unexpectedly faithful cover version of Kevin and Lol’s gorgeous song from 10cc’s second album ‘Sheet Music’. Singing with a similar sweet falsetto to Kevin, Hogarth still manages to get the sweet ‘n’ sour feel of the original on a song about old men ‘waiting for miracles’ and there’s a clever guitar part that manages to do single-tracked what three guitarists and a gizmo put together for the finished album. Heard like this, with less effects, you realise just what a pretty song this is.


A NOW COMPLETE LIST OF 10cc ARTICLES TO READ AT ALAN’S ALBUM ARCHIVES:



'How Dare You!' (1976) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/10cc-how-dare-you-1976.html


'Meanwhile' (1992) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/10cc-meanwhile-1992.html

'Mirror Mirror' (1995) http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.nl/2016/09/10cc-mirror-mirror-1995.html

Pre-10cc: 1965-1973, A Guide to Mindbenders, Mockingbirds and Frabjoy and Runciple Spoon!

Non-Album Songs Part One 1972-1980 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/10cc-non-album-songs-part-one-1972-1980.html

Non-Album Songs Part Two 1981-2006 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/10cc-non-album-songs-part-two-1981-2006.html

Surviving TV Clips, Music Videos and Unreleased Recordings https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/10cc-and-godley-creme-surviving-tv.html

Solo/Wax/Live/Compilation Albums Part One 1971-1986
https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/10cc-solocompilationlivewax-albums-part.html

Solo/Wax/Live/Compilation Albums Part Two 1987-2014 https://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/10cc-sololivecompilationwax-albums-part.html

Landmark Concerts and Cover Versions http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/07/10cc-five-landmark-concerts-and-three.html

10cc Essay: Not-So-Rubber Bullets http://alansalbumarchives.blogspot.com/2018/06/10cc-essay-not-so-rubber-bullets.html