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harvey
Fourth Love
United Kingdom
155 Posts |
 Posted - 15/05/2012 : 12:56:31
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Hey John9 remember what you were doing this evening 15/5/1974. I remember the weather was really hot getting the gear into the Speakeasy.Unlike the last few weeks here recently. I remember the ice machine at the club was really useful. It was not very fast and we kept emptying it. Just looked at a google picture of the Speakeasy, Margery Street, London, as it looks recently. Would not know there was ever a club there. As I was on the computer and had nothing much to do I started to follow the 74 tour round the country on google maps and pics and found a few of the Gigs. Still got more to do but found the old JB's club in Dudley, now unfortunately closed, but not that long ago, still looks similar to how I remember it.Rear entrance still all shingle and rubbish underfoot so impossible to wheel equipment across so had to carry everything. They gave us one of the worst tasting cups of coffee I have ever had. Tomorrow nights gig was at the Civic Hall, Dunstable where some of the photos on this site were taken, Civic Hall is now a supermarket. At Barbarellas in Birmingham , last nights gig we got a free chicken in a basket dinner and free drinks all night.That club all gone now.
So as you can see my old tour diary has turned up. Where did that 38 years go.
Harvey the roadie |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9873 Posts |
Posted - 16/05/2012 : 19:35:14
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quote:
Originally posted by harvey
Hey John9 remember what you were doing this evening 15/5/1974. I remember the weather was really hot getting the gear into the Speakeasy.Unlike the last few weeks here recently. I remember the ice machine at the club was really useful. It was not very fast and we kept emptying it. Just looked at a google picture of the Speakeasy, Margery Street, London, as it looks recently. Would not know there was ever a club there. As I was on the computer and had nothing much to do I started to follow the 74 tour round the country on google maps and pics and found a few of the Gigs. Still got more to do but found the old JB's club in Dudley, now unfortunately closed, but not that long ago, still looks similar to how I remember it.Rear entrance still all shingle and rubbish underfoot so impossible to wheel equipment across so had to carry everything. They gave us one of the worst tasting cups of coffee I have ever had. Tomorrow nights gig was at the Civic Hall, Dunstable where some of the photos on this site were taken, Civic Hall is now a supermarket. At Barbarellas in Birmingham , last nights gig we got a free chicken in a basket dinner and free drinks all night.That club all gone now.
So as you can see my old tour diary has turned up. Where did that 38 years go.
Harvey the roadie
Thanks, Harv....keep 'em coming!
________________________________________________
HIGH ALL THE TIME...
-Mad River
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0PCzH-K1hg
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Dukie
Fifth Love
United Kingdom
410 Posts |
Posted - 16/05/2012 : 23:50:54
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I only saw the opening show of the 1974 tour - Bristol Colston Hall, and it was a major let down. The sound wasn't great for Love and the band were not very together (for whatever reason).Harvey has explained that they used the support band's PA, but the show didn't inspire me to see them again on that tour.
The following year, however, I managed to catch 3 shows and they were all great. I was encouraged to hand out "Reel to Real" flyers at Birmingham by the tour manager and also made it backstage to meet the band. I interviewed the tour manager (Bruce Reilly), but despite being promised an interview with Arthur, it never happened.I did record the Lyceum show and I am pretty sure that John Sterling recorded quite a few shows (from the stage) on his portable tape deck. |
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John9
Old Love
United Kingdom
2154 Posts |
Posted - 17/05/2012 : 00:14:03
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quote:
Originally posted by harvey
Hey John9 remember what you were doing this evening 15/5/1974. I remember the weather was really hot getting the gear into the Speakeasy.Unlike the last few weeks here recently. I remember the ice machine at the club was really useful. It was not very fast and we kept emptying it. Just looked at a google picture of the Speakeasy, Margery Street, London, as it looks recently. Would not know there was ever a club there. As I was on the computer and had nothing much to do I started to follow the 74 tour round the country on google maps and pics and found a few of the Gigs. Still got more to do but found the old JB's club in Dudley, now unfortunately closed, but not that long ago, still looks similar to how I remember it.Rear entrance still all shingle and rubbish underfoot so impossible to wheel equipment across so had to carry everything. They gave us one of the worst tasting cups of coffee I have ever had. Tomorrow nights gig was at the Civic Hall, Dunstable where some of the photos on this site were taken, Civic Hall is now a supermarket. At Barbarellas in Birmingham , last nights gig we got a free chicken in a basket dinner and free drinks all night.That club all gone now.
So as you can see my old tour diary has turned up. Where did that 38 years go.
Harvey the roadie
Hi Harvey -it's good to speak again. If you remember, they wouldn't let me into The Speakeasy. I recall afterwards walking up and down Oxford St quite aimlessly...like some kind of zombie. Eventually I had to admit defeat and caught a late train back to Leicester....having spent money that I couldn't really afford.
Dukie's comments on the Bristol gig reminds me that it was that one whose unfavourable review I read first....but there was no way on God's Earth that I was going to let that put me off. I agree entirely with Dukie about the smaller, tighter band that rolled up in the UK the following year. I think that I too must have caught them on an excellent night....in Liverpool. I understand though that the Manchester leg was quite another story! |
Edited by - John9 on 17/05/2012 01:25:56 |
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harvey
Fourth Love
United Kingdom
155 Posts |
Posted - 17/05/2012 : 01:29:54
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Trouble with the old Speakeasy was that it was a private club that would let anybody in if it was not busy. It was usually fairly busy but was the favourite haunt of musicians and roadies etc etc and as it was a Wednesday night a lot of them were probably not gigging that night so it was packed so they probably decided to make it a members only admission as soon as they realised it was going to be busy. I am sure quite a few people were disappointed. It was so busy and went on so late we had to leave the gear there and go back in the morning and I think I did most of the work loading the van as the other 2 members of the crew were a bit out of it. I then had to drive them and the crew up to Dunstable in the truck, only 34 miles according to my diary. Dunstable gig (tonight 38 years ago) was good but lots of people on stage either side and Bruce wanted them moved so I was told to get them off the stage somehow. So I probably tried to throw the person that took the pictures posted on here at Dunstable off the stage. Bruce was in a funny mood that night and seemed to be arguing with everybody.
To return again to the Colston Hall gig as mentioned on here a few times before. Love seemed pretty unrehearsed and had not been in the country long. It was the first time we had seen the P.A. and the changeover, after Casablanca had been on and as I remember played a great set, was an absolute disaster as all the mics got plugged up wrong and it took some time to sort out. The sound engineer had never heard Love before and I do not think the band were very confident. Arthur was pretty out of it. The back line amps were all rented Marshall (rip Jim) and Hiwatt so must have sounded strange to the guitarists. Only the Acoustic bass rig was something that Bob Rozelle had probably used before. In the afternoon after the equipment was unloaded as all the backline rig was rented I thought I had better check it before the sound check and found that all the earth wires had been disonnected from the mains leads so had to sort that out. The kit belonged to the support band drummer (Charley Charles rip.later of the Blockheads , Link Wray etc) as well and Joe did not seem really happy with it. So all Love had when they arrived were the guitars so it is not surprising that the gig was a bit of a shambles. The monitor system was very under powered and I had to lend them a couple of amps to beef it up a bit for later gigs. As was the norm in those days the monitor mix was controlled from the out front mixing desk so the sound engineer did not really know what the sound was like on stage and had to rely on the band shouting 'We cant hear the f..ing monitors' and when he turned them up they would feedback as there was only one feed to all monitor speakers and however carefully you position mics so they will not be too near or facing monitor speakers someone always moves something. A problem most bands suffered with until onstage monitor mixing came in which we used when we used Elton John's P.A. at the Rainbow gig. on the 23rd May. Musicians today !! all radio mics and in ear monitors etc.... They just do not understand!!!
Harvey the roadie |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3491 Posts |
Posted - 17/05/2012 : 02:15:38
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wasn't there talk of Bryan coming on that tour?
but then there was ALWAYS talk of Bryan coming on tour.. |
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harvey
Fourth Love
United Kingdom
155 Posts |
Posted - 17/05/2012 : 14:52:10
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We had listened to Love records before the tour to see what they were like but I think we had heard that Bryan and Arthur had a falling out possibly over the tour so Bryan would not be coming. I am still not sure that Arthur really wanted to do the tour (did he ever want to tour?) as he was not sure how he would be received. The list of gigs on the tour was not really inspiring with about half either at colleges/university or small/medium sized clubs. Not that I expect Arthur had realised how small some of the gigs were. I think the record company were the driving force behind the tour and Arthur just went along with it. He was in a pretty bad state with his habit and I think the band carried him a bit. Maybe Bryan could see that and did not want to be involved in what could be (and probably was) a pretty awful tour with only occasional high points. Maybe Bryan thought it would not work without the strings and horns and I think he was right. You cannot reproduce the sound on the records with a 5 piece and several people commented on how different the sound was from what they were expecting. The band in 74 were all very good musicians and did their best with strange equipment at the beginning and the loss of John's effects pedal for most of the tour may have had an effect. But how much of the experience of a gig in the seventies, where sound systems were evolving all the time so chances of producing a similar sound to the record were not easy, was the fact that an artist you wanted to see was on stage playing 'live' so the sound problems, either from technical or musicianship were often forgotten about. You could see gigs where a 4 piece band had played on the record and it would sound like the record at the gig but the more complicated the music got the more musicians had to be used to make it sound good so trying to make a sound originally using many musicians using a 5 piece was not easy. But it was the 70's as opposed to the 60's where the sound was usually pretty awful with only the vocals coming out of a couple of speaker columns designed for speeches at conferences struggling against 100 watt backline amps and the kit which was usually unamplified. Hence the lack of 'live' gigs on TV as it was better to go and re-record the track and mime to it. It was not until people realised that Rock and Roll was here to stay and would not go away that the technical people started to design sound systems that would cope with the problems. Started in America with the Iron Butterfly Rig I think and the British followed on firstly by just increasing the number of amps and column speakers and channels on the mixer amps but eventually got into the bass, middle and treble system. So from someone who worked at some pretty awful sounding 60's gigs through to some pretty awful sounding gigs in the 00's, live music can be difficult.
Harvey the roadie |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3491 Posts |
Posted - 17/05/2012 : 23:05:10
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still surprised that Rhino Records released Love Live after, it was just Sterling putting his tape recorder on the stage and hoping for the best! (Bryan was with them then, for a time. Arthur probably blew it with him again over the money)
Can't imagine that many people picked up on Real to Reel at the time; its a good album, but is it Love? |
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Ashrob
Second Love
49 Posts |
Posted - 21/05/2012 : 17:12:02
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| Harvey - was the JB's gig unscheduled ? I live in the area and attended the Birmingham gig. I can see no mention of it in Torben's gig guide. |
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harvey
Fourth Love
United Kingdom
155 Posts |
Posted - 21/05/2012 : 17:40:19
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Hi Ashrob
I am pretty certain that the JB's Dudley gig was Casablanca the support band only. I do not have any special note in my diary but from memory Love did not play there on Friday 31st May. Now somebody will say that they saw them there in 1974. I have a gig pencilled in for Edinburgh on that night as we did Glasgow on the 30th but the Edinburgh one was cancelled and the JB's one could have been arranged at fairly short notice. Tonights gig at the University of East Anglia in Norwich was fairly uneventful apart from a lot of interference on the PA which was caused by a large printing press in the same building which caused lots of problems during the sound check but we managed to get them to stop using it in the evening when the gig was on. Arthur had a really bad evening and kept complaining about getting 'the freezes' but I think someone found him something for his habit. There were lots of chairs at the gig which were made out of foam and I think someone in the crew took a fancy to them but one ended up in the truck until it got left on the roof of the truck at the Biba's Rainbow Room gig and fell off somewhere in Kensington. Tomorrow night the 22nd was the Dingwalls gig where Arthur got punched by someone from the audience. I think what he took tonight was still affecting him on Wednesday as he did not seem to feel the punch and did the Rainbow Theatre gig at Finsbury Park on the 23rd without any ill effects.
Harvey the roadie |
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harvey
Fourth Love
United Kingdom
155 Posts |
Posted - 21/05/2012 : 18:01:06
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Further information regarding Torben's list for the 74 tour. The 25th May was definitely Leeds University, the Social Sec was an extremely attractive young lady and certainly got Joe's attention. One of Love, I think it was John, was trying to get off with one of the backing singers in Casablanca who had replaced one that left during the tour and Joe was taking the mickey out of him and Arthur told him to shut up and the band were fooling about with some animal costumes they had found backstage and Arthur told them to stop messing about. Only time I saw him get angry all tour really. They all stopped immediately so it was obvious who was boss. Arthur might have been nervous as one of the backline Fender Amps was not working but I found that the on/off warning light bulb had been smashed and was shorting out the power supply to the valves so once I sorted that out everything was ok.
Also the 26th May gig at Watford with Silverhead never happened and the 27th May gig at the Greenwich Festival at Charlton House with Alvin Lee did not happen either.
Harvey the roadie |
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Joe Morris
Old Love
3491 Posts |
Posted - 22/05/2012 : 02:58:49
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shame about the chair getting lost in Kensington of course after falling off that truck..  |
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harvey
Fourth Love
United Kingdom
155 Posts |
Posted - 22/05/2012 : 12:57:43
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Reason they forgot about it was they were in a hurry to get away from the Rainbow Room at Bibas as Arthur had short setted and the crowd were quite angry. Also they were trying to steal the turntables the DJ had left. I say they because it was the other two members of the crew, I had my own van there and as it was a London gig I went home that evening as soon as the truck was loaded. Rainbow Room was on the top floor and the goods lift was quite slow so we could not get out very quickly which is another reason why the multicore cables got left behind which made things awkward at the Manchester Free Trade Hall gig the next day on the 29th.
Harvey the roadie |
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Ashrob
Second Love
49 Posts |
Posted - 22/05/2012 : 20:31:08
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| Thanks Harvey. My recollections of the Barbarella gig are that we got there late because of a puncture but Love had only just started. The group played energetically with Arthur looking rather disinterested. At no particular point in a song Arthur would suddenly signal for the song to end and the band chaotically responded. After less than an hour Arthur walked off and the band followed. Much clapping and cheering for an encore resulted in an appearance by someone who simply said 'Arthur says no way' and that was it. We went home. |
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harvey
Fourth Love
United Kingdom
155 Posts |
Posted - 23/05/2012 : 00:42:15
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That happened at several gigs on the tour.
Harvey the roadie |
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waxburn
Old Love
USA
735 Posts |
Posted - 23/05/2012 : 05:12:53
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quote:
Originally posted by harvey
That happened at several gigs on the tour.
Harvey the roadie
geez harvey, that sounds like it was a brutal tour. |
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Memories of The 1974 tour
