deadheaduk

I was listening to Radio 4 earlier and Ozzy Osbourne was on a feature called Inherited Tracks where someone discusses a song they feel they inherited (In Ozzy’s case it was Swanee River by Al Jolson) and one they would pass on. The track to pass on that he chose was Black Sabbath’s Paranoid.

He was saying how every time he does a gig he plays Paranoid at some point and it got me thinking what it must be like if you are in a band on tour and you feel the pressure to play the same songs night after night and what it must be like if you’ve been playing a song at every gig for 30 -40 years.

I think some artist may like the safety of knowing exactly what comes next. I remember seeing Genesis two night running at the City Hall in Newcastle and not only did they play the same songs both nights Phil Collins told the same stories and the same jokes in the same places. On the second night we may as well have just watched a recording of the night before.

Then there are some artists who obviously get fed up of playing the same song and drop it from their repertoire, often to the disgust of the fans. Barclay James Harvest decided on one tour that they weren’t going to play their song Mockingbird. We saw them at the City Hall and after the encore all the lights came on and the fans refused to move. They stayed their shouting and cheering until the lights went back off and the band came back out. They obviously played Mockingbird but instructed the audience not to tell anyone they had!

And then of course there are bands like The Grateful Dead and Phish who seldom play the same songs twice on the same tour. I went to see Phish two nights running in Amsterdam for example – they played for 31/2 hours on the first night and 2 1/2 hours on the second night without repeating a single song and the audience went away happy. Similarly with Ratdog, The Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir’s band – I saw them four times in one week and they only played one song twice.

And then there was Racing Cars – I saw them at Sunderland Poly (Now the University of Sunderland) back in the 70’s. They had been in the charts with a song called “They Shoot horses don’t they” which had obviously attracted a lot of people to the gig. It was probably the only song that any of us knew and they didn’t play it! The did encore with a cracking version of JJ Cale’s Cocaine which they played as the fire alarms were ringing but no one would move till they finished.

Rock and Roll – you pays your money and you takes your choice!