Trundled along down to the Fly By Night club in Freo with Zoe and Dijana to see...
THE SENSATIONAL ALEX HARVEY BAND!!!
Hooooo boy! This five piece glam rock blues punk Scottish outfit from the 70s was my favourite band in high school. Heard about them from Robert Smith of all people, front man of the Cure. Found the SAHB's Live record in Blowfly Records (Barrack St.) for about five bucks. SO AWESOME. They rocked harder than anyone I had ever heard before. Alex Harvey died in 1982, so they've got a new guy, Mad Max Maxwell, fronting the band.
(Mike Drew)
Well, you know, I think Mad Max is okay. He's theatrical enough, bit lower voice than Alex, he didn't go for some of the higher notes, but he had a good stage persona and all. I just think... well, I never saw Alex, obviously, but somehow I missed him. When we were driving home afterwards, we were listening to an old mixed tape of mine with 'Oh, Spartacus' on it, from the Mafia Stole my Guitar album, and it was like... dang! Alex was such a guy.
Anyway! So, the Wednesday gig! Got a few strange and/or bemused looks from the largely middle-aged (ex-Scottish?) male audience. Who are these girls? Have they turned up to the wrong show? They didn't come just to see the support act, did they?
The support act, they were kind of funny. Some local Freo band, the Del Rio brothers, but we dubbed them Dave and Jim. They were pretty good musicians, it's just we weren't so impressed with their humanitarian hippy meanderings when we'd come to see a bawdy brawling Scottish shenanigan. That's all.
Tried to explain to some guy over the noise that was Dave and Jim that I was actually a SAHB fan, I'd heard about Alex Harvey from the Cure.... No, the Cure! THE-- oh, never mind.
Loud! It was so loud. It was like standing in an 119db shiver of sound, just below the threshold of my ear drums bursting, the air was vibrating so much you could touch the music. Okay, maybe that's my young, sensitive, as yet undamaged ears talking. So to speak. Which was strangely awesome, to be enveloped in the sound of these songs which I know like the back of my hand, nodding my head in time, staring fascinated as Mad Max followed his bottom lip around the stage.
Play list: in no particular order! Except the first and the last three songs, which I remembered.
The Faith Healer
Midnight Moses... Isobel Goudie... St. Anthony... Swampsnake... Gang Bang... Framed... Next... The Last of the Teenage Idols... Action Strasse... Amos Moses... $25 for a Massage...
Vambo
Delilah
Boston Tea Party
Yeaaaah! They played Vambo! Vambo rools, OK!
Dijana was so into it. I loved it. (Zoe thought it was okay.) When I'm 58 I hope I'm as cool as Zal Cleminson, the most rockingest harlequin guitarist.
(courtesy patrickraff)
I was the winner of the Teenage Idol competition
And I knew in my heart we would never part...
I was the winner of the Teenage Idol competition
And I knew...
Love y'all.
