1973 and all that!

1973, the year I spent every bit of pocket money on gigs and good old vinyl, I was still to young to get in to The Mayfair (that would come next year!), so all these are City Hall gigs.

Starting with....
The classic Deep Purple line up on the Machine Head tour, Nazareth were support who later went on to greater things! It was an awesome gig and quite possibly the loudest one I've ever been to.

In March I managed  two gigs, Groundhogs and Status Quo. I can still remember the drone of the mellotron during the opening of Earth Shanty from Hogwash. Don't remember an awful lot from the Status Quo gig. It's Piledriver era so I probably went because I'd heard 'Paper Plane'

Next up 2 gigs in two nights, there were probably only about 50 people in the City Hall for The Edgar Broughton Band, 'Out Demons Out'. As for Fanny, well I don't remember anything at all about their performance! 

After this came Faust, now this one I do remember, for two reasons. First the insane Gong were support and the Faust set was cut short because the drummer had an attack of food poisoning! Still it was my first taste of Krautrock, Faust took to the stage in darkness only lit by the orange 'on' lights of their amps. Faust Tapes was duly purchased along with Tago Mago by Can and Zeit by Tangerine Dream, the Kraftwerk albums came a couple of years later. I'm still listening to Tangerine Dream to this day!

Argent, Rory Gallagher,  Uriah Heep and a return for Nazareth ended the year. The Rory Gallagher gig started a life long love of his guitar playing.