On This Day 27/09/1977 The Motors

On this day, 27 September 1977, British rock band The Motors played Cardiff’s Top Rank.

Formed in London in 1977 by former Ducks Deluxe members Nick Garvey and Andy McMaster together with guitarist Rob Hendry (who was replaced in May 1977 by Bram Tchaikovsky) and drummer Ricky Slaughter.

Their biggest success was with the McMaster penned song "Airport", a number 4 UK hit single in 1978.

The Motors' debut live performance was at the Marquee Club in March 1977, and they recorded three songs for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show the same month (22 March 1977).

By May they had been signed to Virgin Records, and recorded material for another John Peel session on 12 September of that year.

The Motors' original recording line-up released two albums, both of which met with modest success; 1 released in October 1977 and Approved by the Motors the following year.

Their first single "Dancing the Night Away", which was released in September 1977 reached number 42 in the UK Singles Chart. Two other sizeable hits followed. In 1978, the band released "Airport" – which proved to be the band's biggest seller – and which peaked at number 4. The song was also a minor hit in the United States. The follow-up, "Forget About You", was released two months later.

The Garvey/McMaster/Tchaikovsky/Slaughter line-up split when Tchaikovsky left after they played at the Reading Rock Festival on 28 August 1978. It would become The Motors’ final UK concert.

They played as first support to Status Quo. Slaughter also left the group soon afterwards. Tchaikovsky would subsequently release three solo albums, the first of which took him into the American Top 40 with the power pop song "Girl of My Dreams".

Following the departure of Tchaikovsky and Slaughter, Welsh rhythm section bassist Martin Ace and drummer Terry Williams were recruited to fill in the Motors' studio line-up.

Martin and Terry had together made up the rhythm section for 1970s progressive rockers Man; Martin later relaunched Man whilst Terry joined Rockpile and later had a stint with Dire Straits.

On This Day 26/09/1976 Hawkwind

On this day, 26 September 1976, space rock band Hawkwind played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre. The band had just released their sixth studio album Astounding Sounds, Amazing Music

The title makes references to old science fiction magazines (Astounding and Amazing Stories), the concept being that each piece of music (and its title) would be interpreted as an individual science fiction story. The record cover is a parody of the cover of these magazines, while the inner sleeve carried small ads, with each band member having their own product (e.g. Dr Brock's cure for piles, Paul Rudolph's Manly Strapon, and Simon King's Pleasure Primer). The cover was double-sided, one side illustrated by Calvert's childhood friend Tony Hyde, the other by Barney Bubbles signed as Grove Lane, with initial print-runs having either as the front cover. Bubbles original design was to have been Steppenwolf looming over the city.

This album marked the start of a new era for Hawkwind, having left the management of Douglas Smith for Tony Howard and changed record companies from United Artists Records to Charisma Records. Musically, the dirty heavy metal lead bass guitar playing of Lemmy was replaced by the cleaner, formally trained bass playing of Paul Rudolph. All members of the band were now contributing to the writing and arrangement of the music leading to more width in style, and the recording and production is better defined than previous albums.

On This Day 21/09/1974 Roxy Music

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On this day, 21 September 1974, Art rock band Roxy Music played the first of two nights at Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre. It was the first gig of their Country Life tour. They were supporetd by the Jess Roden Band.

Review South Wales Argus

Country Life, peaked at number three on the UK albums chart.and was the first Roxy Music album to enter the US Top 40, albeit at No. 37.

Country Life was met with widespread critical acclaim, with Rolling Stone referring to it "as if Ferry ran a cabaret for psychotics, featuring chanteurs in a state of shock".

The cover image was controversial in some countries, including the United States and Spain, where it was censored for release. As a result, early releases in the US were packaged in opaque shrink wrap; a later American LP release of Country Life (available during the years 1975–80) featured a different cover shot. Instead of Karoli and Grunwald posed in front of some trees, the reissue used a photo from the album's back cover that featured only the trees. In Australia, the album was banned in some record stores, while others sold each copy inside a black plastic sleeve.

Author Michael Ochs has described the result as the "most complete cover-up in rock history".

Setlist

Prairie Rose

Beauty Queen

Mother of Pearl

All I Want Is You

A Song for Europe

Three and Nine

Out of the Blue

In Every Dream Home a Heartache

If It Takes All Night

If There Is Something

Street Life

Virginia Plain

Editions of You

Encore:

Do the Strand

Tour Musicians

Bryan Ferry - Vocals & Keyboards

Phil Manzanera - Guitars

Andy Mackay - Sax & Oboe

Paul Thompson - Drums

Eddie Jobson - Violin & Keyboards

John Wetton - Bass

On This Day 17/09/1976 Bay City Rollers

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On this day 17 September 1976, teen pop stars the Bay City Rollers played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre. The band had just released their fourth album Dedication. To promote the release of the album, the Bay City Rollers embarked on a worldwide tour which grossed $2 million which included sales from merchandise. The album was subsequently certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

On This Day 10/09/1976 Queen

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On this day 10 September 1976, legendary British rock band Queen played Cardiff Castle. Also on the bill was Cardiff’s Andy Fairweather-Low, Frankie Miller's Full House and Manfred Mann.

Richie Blackmore & Rainbow were originally part of the package but refused to play Cardiff Castle because they couldn't get onstage their 35-foot high artificial rainbow which they regarded as an "essential part of their act". Probably they weren't allowed to put it up due to upstaging Queen.

Roger Taylor wrote about the show in the autumn '76 fan club magazine, describing the weather as "virtually a monsoon." He adds, "The sight of the rain pouring down through the spotlights on everybody, and of Freddie splashing his way through pools of water at the front of the stage will remain indelibly printed on our memories forever. The fact that people stayed on and enjoyed themselves right to the end made it quite a moving occasion for us. In fact, I was so overcome I just had to wreck me drum kit at the end, which reduced 'Crystal' my roadie to floods of tears rivalling the rain (it was a brand new kit too!). Anyway if you were there thanks for being our bravest audience ever and I hope the pneumonia cleared up."

This is assumingly the final performance of Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon.

In his Queen Live book, Queen archivist Greg Brooks alleges there is a bootleg of this show called "Queen At The Castle," but no such release ever occurred. There are no known recordings of this show.

Setlist

A Day At the Races Intro

Bohemian Rhapsody

(Rock Section)

Ogre Battle

Sweet Lady

White Queen (As It Began)

Flick of the Wrist

You're My Best Friend

Bohemian Rhapsody

Killer Queen

The March of the Black Queen

Bohemian Rhapsody

(Reprise)

Bring Back That Leroy Brown

Brighton Rock

Son and Daughter

'39

You Take My Breath Away

The Prophet's Song

Stone Cold Crazy

Doing All Right

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon

Tie Your Mother Down

Keep Yourself Alive

Liar

In the Lap of the Gods... Revisited

Encore:

Now I'm Here

Big Spender

(Cy Coleman cover)

Jailhouse Rock

(Elvis Presley cover)

God Save the Queen

([traditional] cover)

On This Day 09/09/1975 Kraftwerk

On this day, 9 September 1975, German pioneering electronic band Kraftwerk played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre.

Kraftwerk (German pronunciation: [ˈkʁaftvɛɐ̯k], lit. "power plant") were formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk were among the first successful acts to popularize the genre.

The group began as part of West Germany's experimental krautrock scene in the early 1970s before fully embracing electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers, drum machines, and vocoders. Wolfgang Flür joined the band in 1973 and Karl Bartos in 1975, expanding the band to a quartet.

The year 1975 saw a turning point in Kraftwerk's live shows. With financial support from Phonogram Inc., in the US, they were able to undertake a tour to promote the Autobahn album, a tour which took them to the US, Canada and the UK for the first time.

The tour also saw a new, stable, live line-up in the form of a quartet. Hütter and Schneider continued playing keyboard synthesizers such as the Minimoog and ARP Odyssey, with Schneider's use of flute diminishing. The two men started singing live for the first time, and Schneider processing his voice with a vocoder live. Wolfgang Flür and new recruit Karl Bartos performed on home-made electronic percussion instruments. Bartos also used a Deagan vibraphone on stage. The Hütter-Schneider-Bartos-Flür formation remained in place until the late 1980s and is now regarded as the classic live line-up of Kraftwerk. Emil Schult generally fulfilled the role of tour manager.

After the 1975 Autobahn tour, Kraftwerk began work on a follow-up album, Radio-Activity (German title: Radio-Aktivität). After further investment in new equipment, the Kling Klang Studio became a fully working recording studio.

The group used the central theme in radio communication, which had become enhanced on their last tour of the United States. With Emil Schult working on artwork and lyrics, Kraftwerk began to compose music for the new record.

Even though Radio-Activity was less commercially successful than Autobahn in the UK and United States, the album served to open up the European market for Kraftwerk, earning them a gold disc in France. Kraftwerk made videos and performed several European live dates to promote the album. With the release of Autobahn and Radio-Activity, Kraftwerk left behind avant-garde experimentation and moved towards the electronic pop tunes for which they are best known.

On This Day 12/05/1971 Colosseum

On this day, 12 May 1971, jazz rock band Colosseum played Cardiff’s Top Rank. Colosseum, one of the first bands to fuse jazz, rock and blues, were formed in early 1968 by drummer Jon Hiseman with tenor sax player Dick Heckstall-Smith, who had previously worked together in the New Jazz Orchestra and in The Graham Bond Organisation, where Hiseman had replaced Ginger Baker in 1966.

During a British tour in 1971, Colosseum, with doubtful enthusiasm from their management and label, set about recording shows with the Granada mobile, with the intention of capturing their onstage magic, and a clutch of hitherto unrecorded numbers, on a live album (Jon Hiseman, feeling their three studio albums to that point had lacked something of this). In Jon’s 2010 autobiography ‘Playing the Band’, it is explained that while nobody could by then recall how many shows had been recorded, the first was at Canterbury, the third was at Manchester University on 13 March, there was another at Manchester University on 18 March and the final recording was made at the Big Apple in Brighton on 27 March. Somewhere in between, there had also been a recording made at Bristol. The second show in Manchester – a free gig – was put on because the band had felt the first one was below par, with a ‘huge row’ in the dressing room after, and they were desperate to try and get something good on tape.

After the Brighton show, their manager, Gerry Bron, pulled the plug on more live recordings and Jon became despondent. However, they all listened again to the first Manchester show at Lansdowne Studios and realised it was much better than they’d reckoned at the time. Thus, five tracks from Manchester on March 13, and one from Bristol (date not given, track not identified) – according to Jon in his book, the only one from a show other than Manchester that they thought was any good – became the June 1971 double LP ‘Colosseum Live’. It would be their last album, bar a compilation of oddities, until reforming in 1994.

On This Day 09/05/1979 Iggy Pop

On this day, 9 May 1979, American singer, musician, songwriter, actor and radio broadcaster Iggy Pop, played Cardiff University. Support was provided by The Zones.

He had just released his third studio album New Values. New Values was Pop's first record for Arista and the first collaboration by Pop and James Williamson since Kill City. The album also reunited Pop and Williamson with multi-instrumentalist Scott Thurston, who had played live piano for the Stooges on Metallic K.O. and Kill City.

Although guitar was played by Williamson on "Don't Look Down", Scott Thurston played guitar on all other tracks, with Williamson concentrating on production. Likewise, although one of the songs was written by Pop and Williamson, five tracks were collaborations between Pop and Thurston.

Although well-received critically, the album was not a commercial success, only reaching number 180 in the US Billboard 200 chart.

Iggy Pop at Cardiff University

Writing in NME at the time of the album's release, Paul Morley wrote that New Values "conclusively endorses Osterberg as thinker and Iggy as performer, and the relationship is positive and proud." The New York Times considered New Values to be "bland" compared to the earlier David Bowie-produced albums.

Charlotte Robinson of PopMatters wrote that the album's "delicate balancing act of tough with tender, rebellion with contentment, sincerity with humor, cocksure wailing with nuanced balladeering ... makes the album a winner".