13/01/1980 – Pointed Sticks…

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pointedsticks

“The Buzzcocks of B.C.”?

This was  a free Sunday show, one of four British dates the band performed while they were in the UK recording their debut LP.

Dick Vaughan was in the Kingdom Room that night:

Eventful night. Power cut halfway through the evening and the band couldn’t believe we had high jackpot fruit machines in the bar.

Le Nurb describes Pointed Sticks’ music as being “The Ramones meets Television”, but their general new waviness, melodicism and group harmonies mark them out, as one astute YouTube viewer describes them, more as ‘The Buzzcocks of British Columbia’. Having released a couple of singles on the Quintessence label in their native Vancouver, the band were a natural fit for Britain’s Stiff Records, who duly signed them and released one 3-track single featuring a new song, ‘Out of Luck’ on the a-side and new recordings of both sides of their Canadian debut single on the flip. An album was recorded for Stiff, who ran out of money before it could be released. So the band decamped to Vancouver and re-recorded Perfect Youth for Quintessence.

The band were captured on film by Dennis Hopper in his movie, Out of the Blue before disbanding in 1981. They reformed in the 2000s and were ‘big in Japan’, apparently.

There’s a great article about the band here on the excellent Punky Gibbon website.

And here’s the a-side of their debut Stiff single, ‘Out of luck’:

28/11/1969 – Pink Floyd/Gracious!/[Pongo’s Litter Ginger?]/Explosive Spectrum Light Show…

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By Capitol Records - Billboard, page 25, 30 October 1971, Public Domain,

By Capitol Records – Billboard, page 25, 30 October 1971, Public Domain,

This gig marked a triumphant return to Uxbridge for The Pink Floyd – they’d previously played at RAF Uxbridge in January 1965, only presumably with slightly shorter hair.

The gig, billed as being part of the Brunel Arts Festival Weekend, took place in the Refectory Hall on Friday 28th November. The Floyd’s set included ‘Astronomie Domini’, ‘Green is the colour’, ‘Careful with that axe, Eugene’, ‘A saucerful of secrets’ and, as an encore, ‘Cymbaline’. It was a case of ‘about time too’ really, as the band had previously been booked to appear at the Brunel RAG ball back in January, in the only slightly more salubrious surroundings of the Royal Albert Hall but had been forced to cancel, presumably after an understandably gruelling tour of Scandiavia. Although, having said that, photos taken at the gig suggest there was quite a cool….how can we describe it…? Nordic/Brutalism vibe?… going on at the Refectory as the decade drew to a close. I can’t find any copyright information, so I won’t post the pictures here, but they are available on Tumblr here if anyone wants to have a look. (You can also see them – considerably smaller – here, along with an advert for the show, from the Google books version of Echoes: the complete history of Pink Floyd by Glenn Povey.) They also reveal that this is most definitely a post-Syd’s Pink Floyd appearance as that’s definitely Dave Gilmour on guitar.

Support act Gracious! grew out of rival bands formed in Esher. Singer Paul Davis and guitarist Alan Cowderoy formed the Disciples whilst still at school and were later joined by keyboardist Martin Kitcat and bassist Mark Laird (replaced by Tim Wheatley in 1969), with Davis combining his singing duties with those of drummer until Robert Lipson, another former Esher band rival, turned up to take the drum stool. The band’s initial Cream-inspired progressive blues style soon gave way to a more poppy sound which in turn attracted the interest of Cliff & the Shads producer, Norrie Paramor, who signed them, as the Disciples, to record under his direction. Their Denmark Street studio sessions were produced not by Paramor but by the then less well known and knighthood-less Tim Rice. Only two songs from these sessions ever saw the light of day during the band’s lifetime, although an album worth had been committed to tape by Rice.

An early gig supporting King Crimson introduced that marvel of early electronica, the mellotron, into the now Graciously! named outfit’s world. From here there was only one way to go: cue whole albums with 5 or fewer tracks and names such as ‘Fugue in D minor’ or ‘Opus 41’, 25 minute songs that take up whole sides of an LP and any other hallmarks of the progressive rock idiom that you can care to mention. The band recorded two LPs – Gracious! and This is ….Spinal Tap…erm, no, sorry, couldn’t resist….This is….Gracious! – for Vertigo, before splitting up – in part because the record company weren’t getting too much joy out of the progressive market, despite having the label easily most suited to it.

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A new line up of Gracious! appeared in 1995, the rhythm section of Wheatley and Lipson joined sporadically by Cowderoy. In 1996, the new line-up released an album called – appropriately enough – Echo, and were reasonably sized in Japan.

I can’t find anything at all on Pongo’s Litter Ginger (I think it’s ‘litter’, not ‘utter’…although….) The name appears on the gig publicity that’s survived, but there’s no record of them (he or she?) on the Interweb, unfortunately. I can only assume that, if indeed they played at all, they may have been a college band, possibly one of Wild Wally’s many vehicles perhaps? But hey, who cares? There was a light show. Man.

19/11/1976 – The Flamin’ Groovies….

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This Friday (19th) the Flaming Groovies and the Damned will be appearing in the Kingdom Room. The Groovies cancelled last Sunday’s sell-out concert at the Roundhouse due to illness but I am assured those concerned are recovering and the first date of their current tour will now be at Brunel.

The Flamin’ Groovies are Cyril Jordan, Chris Wilson, George Alexander, Dave Wright and James Hewell [sic – this, I think, is actually James Ferrell]. The band are something of a phenomenon, having now been together since the 60s. Their latest album, ‘Shake some action’ is their latest since the excellent ‘Teenage head’ over five years ago, and it maintains the same high standards.

The band come from San Francisco [and] their legendary live performances are alleged to evoke the demented wanderings of the sixties. In this respect, the Groovies are something of a dying breed…Most of their numbers are self-penned rockers, however they do include tributes to their mentors like the Lennon & McCartney song ‘Misery’ on the latest album done at breakneck speed.

Support group, The Damned, are the latest in a long line of bands currently favoured by the music press, both NME and Melody Maker have been singing the band’s praises in their latest few issues as part of the PUNK rock trend.

                                                                                                    Le Nurb, November 1976

 

Sadly the Damned didn’t appear as support in the end as they’d pulled out of the Groovies tour after just two dates, though they had actually played the Roundhouse gig mentioned above, with the Troggs headlining instead. One suspects there may have been some….differences of some sort there. For more info on the Damned’s activities, check out on this excellent website.

The Shake some action album was produced by another Brunel stalwart, Dave Edmunds whose connection with the Uni goes back to the late 60s ‘midnite raves’ at which his then band Love Sculpture played. The Groovies would also return to Brunel in 1978, playing here on May 26th. That gig was photographed by legendary rock photographer Paul Slattery. You can view some of the pictures here and there are some more photos that look like his but aren’t credited as such, here.

I’ve not been able to establish who, if anyone, eventually played support at the 1976 show, so if anyone was there and can remember, please get in touch…

Update: Barry remembers (or thinks he does…):

My memory says Radio Birdman supported The Grooves. There was a very early Rough Trade record stall set up too

Please get in touch if you can confirm the above or remember anything differently or that we’ve missed…

14/05/1982 – Nick Lowe’s Noise To Go/The Blasters

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Rather like his previous band, Rockpile, which he shared with Dave Edmunds, ownership of Noise To Go would alternate between Nick Lowe and his main collaborator in the latter band, Paul Carrack. Carrack earned his chops with pub rockers Ace before branching out to work with such luminaries as Roxy Music, Squeeze and The Smiths*. Carrack and Lowe were joined by Martin Belmont (ex-Ducks Deluxe) on guitar and Bobby Irwin on drums. At some point, Lowe swapped his telecaster for bass when original bassist James Eller left. I’m not sure which line-up, four of five piece, played at Brunel.

Support were Californian rock n rollers The Blasters. Here they are performing Little Willie John’s ‘I’m shakin”.

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Thanks very much to Pete Watt for sending us his diary entry for this show:

The Blasters attempt to do just that to us with a rockabilly-based set. I remain unblasted. The Nick Lowe line-up includes Paul Carrack, and it is especially good to hear Tempted by this lot. Incidentally, this appears to be the last gig I went to which was put on at a college. Seemingly imperceptibly, since the back end of the 70s, such gigs had dwindled. I say imperceptibly, as this was more than compensated for by the emergence of pubs putting bands on, as well as a proliferation of more ‘purpose-built’ venues, ranging from the Sundowns (albeit short-lived) through the Hammersmith Palais / Odeon set-ups, the Town & Country Club, to the erstwhile Astoria and Scala and multiple O2 sites. I think it’s fairly well documented by others that the demise of the college circuit, once such a fertile ground for a wide variety of bands, was predominantly down to the cutting of Government funding to Student Unions, who suddenly found themselves unable to afford those bands anymore: a great shame.

Not much info attached to this, but here‘s a clip of Noise to go in action – looks like it could be a Rock Goes to College concert…?

Rockpile also performed at Brunel in February 1980, supported by the Fabulous Poodles. We’ll try and post up a bit more about that one in the near future, but thanks to Dick Vaughan for the info…

 

*Oh alright….he was in Mike & the Mechanics too. Nobody’s perfect.

24-25/01/1969 – Love Sculpture/Gun/Joe Cocker/Spencer Davis/Aynsley Dunbar/The Bakerloo Blues Line (Midnite rave, pt. 2 – The Lyceum Ballroom, The Strand, London)

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lovesculpture

Barely a week after the Royal Albert Hall show, the Brunel student body was presented with a further London treat – another ‘midnite rave’, this time at the Lyceum Ballroom.

Clem Clempson (guitar, vocals), Terry Poole (bass) and  Peter ‘Pete’ York (drums) were the three main stations on The Bakerloo Blues Line when they played this show. I say ‘for this show’ as they appear to have had a somewhat ‘Spinal Tap’ relationship with their various drummers, having managed to get through about a dozen in their brief eighteen month existence. One of them, Colin Flooks, somehow survived his tenure to become much better known as Cozy Powell. Clempson went on to join Colosseum [sic] and, later, replaced Peter Frampton in Humble Pie.

Similarly humble were Liverpudlian Aynsley ‘The Hawk’ Dunbar’s beginnings. He was the drummer in Freddie Starr (yes, he of ‘ate my hamster’ fame) and the Flamingoes before joining the Mojos and playing on their fabulously quirky hit ‘Everything’s alright’. Dunbar went on to work with some of the legends of the British Blues and Folk scene (John Mayall, Peter Green, John McVie, Paul Butterfield and Donovan among others). Around 1967 he joined the Jeff Beck Group and plays on the classic LP Truth (along with Rod Stewart, Nicky Hopkins and Ronnie Wood – and, of course, Beck himself). His next job, with Frank Zappa and the Mothers, took him to the States and culminated in an appearance as part of the Mothers alongside Elephant’s Memory in the gargantuan live jam featured on the second disc of John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s 1972 double LP, Some time in New York City. 1973 saw him replacing Woddy Woodmansey on the drum stool with the remaining members of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars’ for their swansong covers LP, Pin Ups – if you’ve not heard his work on that album’s version of his earlier Mojos’ hit, you’re in for a treat – as well as the accompanying (and sadly underexposed) 1980 Floor Show TV Special. Dunbar stayed in the seat for Bowie’s next project, Diamond Dogs, so it’s him belting the snare of classics like ‘Rebel rebel’… Who else? Lou Reed, Journey, Jefferson Airplane, Whitesnake….we could go on. Basically, if Aynsley didn’t played with someone, they probably weren’t worth playing for. (Apart from the Bakerloo Blues Line, obviously…he appears to be the only drummer who *didn’t* play with them, and why I guess we will never know).

It’s not clear quite what the Spencer Davis Group line up would have been for this show. The Winwood brothers (Muff and Steve) had both already left the band and there look to have been several line-up changes in the last year of its existence. The group split for good shortly after they’d finished the band’s last LP, Funky later in the year. If anyone was at the Albert Hall show and happened to be making a note of such things, please get in touch…

1969 would be a pretty momentous year for Joe Cocker. In August, the Sheffield-born blues shouter would provide one of the decade’s touchstone performances – of ‘With a little help from my friends’, at the Woodstock Festival – as well as having a big UK hit with the song. On Cocker’s death McCartney spoke of his gratitude to the singer for producing such a soulful version of the Sgt. Pepper track. Joe also had a pretty good band. As well as keyboardist and subsequent Eric Clapton sideman Chris Stainton and future Fairport Convention drummer Bruce Rowland, Cocker could boast luminaries such as Neil Hubbard (rhythm guitar), Alan Spenner (bass) and Henry McCullough (lead guitar). I had the great pleasure of seeing Spenner and Hubbard play with their funk outfit Kokomo at a pub in Brentford in the late 1980s. The pair also grace many of the post-reformation Roxy Music albums and also worked with Bryan Ferry’s on his solo albums. Perhaps partly on the back of his performance of ‘With a little help…’ at Woodstock*, Henry McCullough went on to be the guitarist in the first incarnation of Paul McCartney & Wings.

Brothers Paul and Adrian Gurvitz were probably fated to join a band. Their father road managed acts including Cliff Richard and the Shadow and The Kinks and by the age of 15, Adrian was already touring with the likes of Screaming Lord Sutch and Crispian St. Peters. Originally called The Knack, the band became The Gun in 1967 – presumably to great relief in late 1970s Oak Park, Michigan. The renamed Knacksters recorded an unreleased single and a few radio sessions for BBC’s Top Gear show as a five piece before slimming down to the core power trio format so prevalent in the era. This line up – Paul on guitar and vocals, Adrian on guitar and Louie Farrell on drums – signed to CBS in 1968 and had a hit with the title track from their debut LP, Race with the Devil. A second album, Gunsight, followed before the brothers Gurvitz and Farrell went their separate ways only to reunite in 1971 as Three Man Army. Between 1974 and 1976, the Gurvitz boys were joined by Ginger Baker to form Baker Gurvitz Army. Adrian would later achieve some success as a solo writer and performer, and was responsible for perhaps the finest opening couplet in the history of popular song on his number 8 hit ‘Classic’ in 1982.

Cardiff blues rockers Love Sculpture are notable for having first brought singer and guitarist Dave Edmunds to the attention of the record buying public. The band – Edmunds, John David on bass and Rob ‘Congo’ Jones on drums – grew out of the unlikely sounding Human Beans. They had a number 5 hit in 1968 with a novelty reworking of Khatchaturian’s ‘Sabre dance’,  and recorded two LPs (Blues helping and Forms and feelings), before splitting in 1970. Edmunds went on to have a big solo hit with ‘I hear you knocking’ and a later blossoming in the late 70s and early 80s with Rockpile, who would go on to visit the University proper, and to great acclaim, in 1980.

 

*Jimmy Page plays on the studio version.

17/01/1969 – Georgie Fame/Ten Years After/Family/John Peel/Principal Edwards Magic Theatre (Brunel University Rag Week Ball, Royal Albert Hall)

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19690117 Brunel at RAH

Another prestigious venue, and another excellent bill – one which, with no disrespect to those who did play, could have been even more spectacular had a certain popular beat combo by the name of Pink Floyd not been forced to cancel. As it is, the evening’s entertainment for the first part of the 1969 Brunel students’ carnival looks far from shoddy. All in all, a good weekend for live music at ‘Albert’s Hall’. The following evening’s bill featured The Soft Machine. Oh, and Jimi Hendrix…

Georgie Fame began life as Clive Powell in Leigh, Lancashire. His first reasonably sized break came when he successfully auditioned to become pianist for the Larry Parnes stable of artists. Parnes not only gave him his stage name, as was his wont (and one of the better ones), but also work backing a roster that included big British stars of the late 1950s such as Billy Fury, Marty Wilde and Joe Brown. But the gig also meant that by age 16 Fame would already have performed with such luminaries as Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent. He was eventually hand picked by Fury to be a part of his own personal backing band, the Blue Flames. After a disagreement between the Flames and their singer, the band left Billy and took up a prestigious residency at the Flamingo club in Soho that would last for three years. Fame would go on to become one of the most respected performers amongst his musical peers, many of whom would be regular attendees at the trendy London clubs at which the Blue Flames were a fixture during the ‘swinging’ sixties.

tenyears

Formed in 1966 and named in honour of guitarist Alvin Lee’s idol Elvis Presley (it’s said to be the anniversary of his initial success that the name commemorates*), Ten Years After were one of the best and most successful of the British blues boom groups. 1969 would be a pretty good year for the band as they’d issue the album Stonedhenged and, in July, become the first rock band to be invited to play at the prestigious (not to mention snooty) Newport Jazz Festival.

Family’s 1968 LP, Music in a doll’s house, as well as being a highly esteemed recording in its own right, has the dubious distinction of having stymied no less an act than the Beatles. The fabs had intended to title their own 1968 offering A doll’s house but thanks to the lads from Leicester, they were left with little option but to bung their brand new double album, 30 song opus into a plain old white sleeve and just name it after themselves. The Liverpool band never really recovered from this blow, whereas Family would go from strength to strength and even reached the dizzy heights of an appearance at Brunel itself in the 1970s.

principal

Principal Edwards Magic Theatre seem emblematic of the late 60s psychedelia scene. More a troupe than a band, their 14 person line-up included poets, dancers and sound and lighting technicians, as well as humble musicians. They were also signed to John Peel’s Dandelion label. I bet they had fun dividing up the royalties…

*…or that of the Suez Crisis, depending upon who you believe…

23/10/1982 – Mari Wilson/Dale Hargreaves and the Flamingoes…

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The advert in the 21st November issue of ‘Le Nurb’ promises Mari Wilson ‘tonite’, but this gig looks to have taken place on the Saturday (23rd Oct 1982). (If anyone who was there can remember and confirm, we’d be grateful.)

mari

Judging by Andy Evans’ contemporary review, a good time was had by all in the Kingdom Hall. Mari – otherwise known as ‘the Queen B (hive)’ or ‘the self proclaimed Neasden Queen of Soul’ seems to have made a pretty good impression:

‘They started their show and sparks began to fly as the audience took to the charms of the spotlit ensemble. The crowd once again rocked and swayed to the rhythm of the band. There was little floor space near the stage which was unoccupied. The spirit of sixties soul was recaptured right there on stage….They are not one of those groups with a powerful message to share with the rest of humanity, instead they just want everyone to have fun and enjoy themselves…Even the tacky choreography of the Marines and the Marionettes was to be taken none too seriously….

My favourite song of the night had to be Mari’s interpretation of Julie London’s hit ‘Cry me a river’ for its sheer effect on a noisy audience. They instantly warmed to this change in direction and applause at the end of the song seemed to suggest this. One thing I had never realized about Mari’s voice was just how powerful it really is, none of your studio enhancing here! In fact, the live version of ‘Just what I always wanted’ seemed better than the chart version.

…the crowd left the room with smiles beaming and laughter ringing off the walls, they had been entertained. But I became really sorry for Kurt (the short one who bears little resemblance to Dustin Hoffman and stands in the middle). Ashe guys in the band traded boys’ talk over how many kisses they’d got, he strolled around the Kingdom Room like a lost bloodhound searching for love… ‘

                                                                                                            Le Nurb, 29th Oct 1982

Aaaah!

Evans is a little less sentimental where support act Dale Hargreaves and the Flamingoes are concerned.

dale-hargreaves-and-the-flamingos-scared-to-death-zap-international-safari

‘A peculiar combo …not because they are different, but because they are so incredibly ordinary…They looked as if they’d been dropped in from the set of The Man From UNCLE and their first two numbers seemed to closely follow this kind of sixties spy theme…

References to several other non-exciting pop bands were made by members of the audience as they attempted to convince themselves it was like watching the the Jags, the Pinkees or the Yachts. Their set was ragged, lacking in originality and showed, in my opinion, little hope for the future…’

Nice suit though….

Andy proves to have been prescient with regard to the group’s success. They released the ‘Scared to death’ EP on Lightbeat Records in May ’82 and a couple of months later the title track was picked up for single release by Safari (Toyah’s record label). After that, nada….

 

19/01/1968 – Louise (plus light show and ‘supporting group’…)

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Pyjamarama…

Louise were regulars on the same pyschedelic 60s circuit as Brunel favourites such as The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Paper Blitz Tissue and Geranium Pond (yes, since you ask, we *are* just showing off now, actually…) but there’s very little information on them currently online apart from a YouTube posting of their only known recording session. We’ll see if we can find out a bit more about them on our Facebook page, which if you haven’t already had a look has some fabulous contributions from people who were actually at the gigs and are thus a bit more likely know what they’re talking about!

Sadly even less is known about the following Rag weekend’s attraction, Symphonic Cucumber, although we suspect the involvement somewhere down the line of the gender resistant life and soul of the late sixties Brunel social whirl, Mr. Pete “Wild Wally” Saunders. We’ve put some feelers out (ooh er madam) to try and find out a bit more about Wally but so far all we know is that he was at some point very active in the social life of the university, having booked many of the acts we’ve documented on here already, and that he had his own Rock ‘n’ Roll Show band who played the uni circuit in the early seventies (even going so far as to support no less than Slade in the summer of 1970…)

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“…the one and only leaping, jumping…”

Oh, and he liked wearing dresses.

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“….and this is me…”

So please, if you know any more about either Louise or Wally, please get in touch…

20/02/1980 – The Vapors

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A touch of The Vapors

The Vapors big hit was ‘Turning Japanese’, which I used to own before, ironically as it turns out, smashing it up when I ran out of guitar picks (well, it still felt like the punk era, even in the early 80s…) The band were managed by Rick Buckler of the Jam and their first LP, ‘New Clear Days’ had an excellent punning title and a super cover featuring the British weather forecast map covered with radiation warnings which gave the cloud symbols a rather more ominous dimension than Michael Fish ever could. The band featured two Smiths – drummer Howard and bassist Steve – neither of whom were related and brilliantly named lead guitarist Edward Bazalgette went on to direct a couple of episodes of ‘Doctor Who’. And that’s about the extent of my knowledge of The Vapors. But thanks to the wonders of social media, we’ve been canvassing opinion from our ever-expanding network of former Brunel students and local residents and found a bit more gen on the night the Vapors descended upon Uxbridge…

John William Aikman remembers:

A couple of us were minding our own business, wandering across the perimeter road on our way somewhere when a battered old car with four scruffy mod types in it, drew up and the driver wound down the window and said something along the lines of ‘Oi, mate, we’re The Vipers, where’s the gig tonight? Kingdom room or summat?”, it took a couple of seconds for me to work out what he’d said (what with me being a northern git). ‘Vipers?’ I queried. ‘No, The Vipers’ came his puzzling reply. ‘Vipers?” I repeated. He looked at me with a look of pity, mixed with contempt. ‘The f***ing Vipers!’

Gradually it dawned on me who the hell they were. Nice public school boys from Surrey with faux Cockerknee accents. (Try saying ‘The Vapours” like you were a cast member of Eastenders, it was an easy mistake to make). Anyway, having set them on their way we decided they’d be worth an evening out and a jolly good night it was too. Excellent band with some cracking tunes. The first album (New Clear Days) remains a favourite to this day. They creamed up with the difficult second album, Magnets, had a second single that was ok (Jimmy Jones) and disappeared in a puff of whatever.

Andy Miller:

Yes I was there. Great gig. I had seen them supporting the Jam on the ‘Setting Sons’ Tour a couple of months before, remember them playing ‘Turning Japanese’ three times and also most of ‘New Clear Days’ – the album they released in July 1980. I still have Steve Smith’s plectrum (Bass) that he gave me at end of their set.

We’re hoping Andy still has the guitar pick so we can post a picture…otherwise I may have to smash another record…

17/06/1977? – Elton John (Shoreditch College)

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A cheeky one…

It’s May 1978. You’ve booked a band for your college’s valedictory dance night and they cancel at the last minute. What do you do? Pop round to Elton’s, obviously!

It might sound far-fetched but that’s exactly what the enterprising social committee at Shoreditch College (which would go on to become the Runnymede Campus of Brunel University) did when the act they’d originally booked – Jimmy Helms – pulled out [see below for alternative accounts]. Throw in a couple of bottles of wine, and you’ve got yourself a band. Well, an Elton at any rate. Hilton….?* Or maybe not. The wine, at least, appears to be urban legend. It was actually thus, according to Allen Ibbotson, who was on the very social committee in question:

Contrary to rumour he did not perform for two bottles of wine. He was in fact offered a bottle of whiskey which was bought for him from the college bar. However, he refused this because he had several hundred bottles at home. He did the gig in return for a engraved memorial Shoreditch College Valedictory one pint glass tankard.

 How do I know this?

I was on the committee. I paid for the whiskey. I was sat in the vestry at the chapel when he wrote out his set list on the back of his chequebook.  He was a real gem as not only did he do the gig but he also spent a couple of hours with us after chatting away in the halls of residence.

Hopefully Elton’s chequebook would confirm that he played the following songs:

Crocodile Rock
Daniel
Rocket Man
Your Song
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Bennie And the Jets

(I’m presuming there were more – the boy’s a born entertainer and not one for half measures. I’m sure he’d have given the Shoreditch crowd their money’s worth….or rather, their engraved memorial Shoreditch College Valedictory one pint glass tankard-worth.)

And if you *still* don’t believe any of this, there’s a picture here to prove it….

*Old Eric Morecambe gag.

Update: Gerwyn adds:

There are a few things wrong with this account, I’m afraid.

1) the year was 1977, not 1978. I was in ’79 year, and didn’t live on campus in my first year, which is why I missed the gig. Moreover, my partner was in ’80 year, and she confirms that it happened before she started at ‘Ditch.

2) it would be unusual to have a valedictory gig in May; it should happen just before the third years leave – in late June, or early July. I suspect that the NME story was published many months after the gig happened.

3) I think the act that had been scheduled to play was Jimmy James and the \Vagabonds, not Jimmy Helms. This would make more sense as the latter was American, whereas the former were British-based Jamaicans.

As to the whisky vs wine controversy: I can confirm that he was “paid” with wine. I know this because some of the rugby club collared me a couple of days later, and persuaded me to go with them to John’s house in Old Windsor and drop the bottle off – probably because they were shrinking rugby violets, and I was a scary punk. I seem to recall that it was a cheap bottle of Laski Riesling from the college bar.

Katie adds:

This was the 17/06/1977 why do I know this, because my mum was one of the 4 people who went to his house and asked.

I’ve amended the date in line with this as other comments seem to corroborate 1977, rather than 1978 as I’d originally posted. Thanks to everyone who has commented to give us a fuller picture of events.