1974 and 1975

My first Friday night at The Mayfair came in 1974 a few days after my 16th birthday. Sadly The Mayfair is now long gone but a great great place to see a gig, well I think it was, I cannot be 100% sure as Fridays at The Mayfair involved imbibing lots of Snakebites in plastic glasses! I'm not clear on who played on those Friday evenings but I'm pretty sure I saw The Sensational Alex Harvey Band there for the first time, Edgar Broughton played there and Beckett, who's lead singer went on to front Back Street Crawler. There's no doubt a few others who are now just a distant memory. In 1975 the only band I can definitely recall seeing there was Alvin Lee. Around that time I would arrive at The Mayfair in a long grey RAF overcoat, no wonder I was so thin back then, I must have spent most of Saturday totally dehydrated and nursing a hangover!

The RAF coat almost got me beat up one night, back in those days Newcastle was split between the 'Skins' and the 'Hairies'. Coming out the Mayfair a friend and I were just about to start the long walk up the West Road when we heard a shout behind us, coming towards us were 7 or 8 skinheads intent on giving the 2 'Hairies' a good seeing too. Not fancying the odds it was time to run, we must have been alcohol fueled, or they were drunker than us, as we outpaced them reaching the Big Lamp where they gave up and headed off down Elswick Road while we continued back home to Fenham. Pity I can't remember who we'd seen that night!

Only one gig at The City Hall that year, the rather wonderful Sensational Alex Harvey Band, a great live band who's staging was getting more and more elaborate. Alex Harvey was one of the best front men I've seen.