TAKE THIS FLIGHT TONIGHT…
Gig Review of:
NAZARETH
at ‘City Hall’, Hull
(17 September 1981)
Humberside might be in recession, but for Nazareth it’s business as usual. The ‘City Hall’ is a large echoing labyrinth of Victorian excess better suited to Symphony Orchestras, and more than several bands have retired defeated by its eccentric acoustic properties. But the Naz ride smooth and effortless through a set distinguished by pristine competence, if topographically undistinguishable from any other set they’ve done over the last ten years. Their galvanisation of Joni Mitchell’s “This Flight Tonight” made perfect radio programming sense in 1973 – a no.11 hit, now they do it note for note with big-haired Dan McCafferty’s voice slewing alarmingly from a leap to a hoarse crawl over a vocal range that would stagger seismic print-outs, yet running through the entire gamut of emotions from A to B!
Next they’re doing Tim Rose’s “Morning Dew”, thumb-printed by all the Naz stylistic flourishes, Pete Agnew’s gut-thumping bass riff churning and vibrating on hot rails to hell, yet that energy paced, the climaxes spaced, the sound well balanced. Originally featured on their debut LP ‘Nazareth’ (November 1971), it could’ve been a hit in 1974, or 1976, or 1978, but no – it’s reconfigured into their new 1981 single! Deep Purple archivists in the audience tonight might recall that Roger Glover recorded the song as part of Episode Six in 1966. That same Roger Glover who took producer credits for Nazareth’s breakthrough ‘Razamanaz’ (May 1973) album – boasting hit singles “Broken Down Angel” and “Bad Bad Boy” (no.9 in August) – ‘we’re gonna razamanaz you tonight, we’re gonna razamanaz you ALL night!’, as well as its equally successful ‘Loud ‘n’ Proud’ (November 1973) sequel. ‘Damn right!’
Afterwards, the promoters can be heard bemoaning the mere six-hundred punters who traipsed here to be assailed by this near two-hour album-full-of-hits spectacle. But if Nazareth fall between several stools, there’s plenty of empty ones here to fall between! Restraint, like intelligence and ability, don’t exactly bring kudos in what passes for the current Music Scene. But, inoculated into sheer competence by marathon American tours, I doubt if the Naz even notice…
1 comment:
In my mind, I seem to have confused up to now, Nazareth with a local North Carolina band with a somewhat similar trajectory: Nantucket.
Both seem to have been trying very hard for commercial success in a hot genre (Heavy Metal/Southern Rock); but had roots in another style of music (Brit Invasion/Beach Music); each is named after U.S. lesser known geographic locations which were not the point of the groups origins (Nazareth, Pennsylvania/Nantucket, Massachusetts); each had similarly named hits (Love Hurts 75/Heartbreaker 78); both faded in the early 80s -Nazareth more so -; and both groups continued playing well into the OOs.
I have no memory of Nazareth, but I do have a Nantucket memory with a Scottish connection. Nazareth, in what I think was 1981, was supposed to be playing at North Carolina State University at some sort of outdoor campus festival. The event was rained out at the last moment. Our dorm was next door to the festival and somebody went down to see if they could get the band to join us at our dorm room party. They didn't find the band, but did find some Roadies. The Roadies were fine, until they showed an amazing ability to suck down a huge amount of beer from the keg. With concerns as to supply shortage (many of the folks were underage and could not easily get more) a moment of panic ensued.
The solution was solved by someone put on his tape of Scottish bagpipe music on the stereo and turned up the volume: which acted much like garlic to vampires and drove the roadies away.
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