I may not have been ’round when Jesus Christ had his moment of doubt and pain, but I was ’round when William Jellett, the infamous hippie known as “Jesus” who danced at seemingly every gig, certainly in London, in the 70s, grooved outside The Roundhouse in Camden ahead of the gig there by Pink Fairies supported by Little Bob Story, The Hammersmith Gorillas and some bunch of upstart punks called The Stranglers.
Nineteen seventy-six was my first year of gig-going, and so the 1973 live albums – and, by extension, the concerts – celebrated in this issue make the past seem like a very exotic, foreign place to visit indeed. I may not have been there at the Rainbow to witness Eric Clapton battling his demons or at Leicester’s DeMonfort Hall and Manchester’s Free Trade Hall to see the Genesis captured on Live, and I definitely wasn’t there on either night to see everybody’s favourite firm of progressive rock solicitors, Beck, Bogert & Appice, at Kosei Nenkin Hall, Osaka – I couldn’t have been; I would have missed double-Spanish the next morning – but via the power of vivid music writing those shows are brought to life here, should make you feel that You Were There, and will hopefully encourage you to check out the generally quite affordable recordings of the momentous nights in question.
There are amazing musicians featured in this magazine issue – Tom Waits, Manfred Mann, Janis Ian, Alice Cooper – who I’ve never seen in concert. Then there are the artists who I have seen live: Primal Scream, The Boo Radleys and Blur. The latter I spent a very memorable week on the road with back in 1991. In fact, the idea of enjoying a band live and direct, and being up close and personal with them, was taken, that week, to new extremes by Damon Albarn – look no further, for proof, than the inset photo of yours truly being assailed by the mockney frontman.
See you next month,

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