it's a mad mad world.......
1975 Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel
The summer comes to a crescendo as we headline the now famous Crystal Palace Bowl.
We have a quadrophonic sound system installed along with underwater fireworks and a plank under the water of the pond in front of the stage so Steve can "walk on water"....
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From left: Duncan MacKay, Stuart Elliott, Steve, Jim Cregan and George Ford.
You can see on my date sheet that on April 15th I went to Wembley. I had this backstage pass to a Genesis concert at Wembley Arena, and I think it was the last time I saw them with Peter Gabriel as the front man. The show was promoted by Harvey Goldsmith, and run this night by Norman Perry. I went on to work with Norman in 1977 on the' Who Put the Boot In' concerts. We became good friends and Norman had a very successful career moving to Canada and creating his own very successful concert promotions company called Perryscope.
A couple of days later I mention on the date sheet still going to the Speakeasy. This was an infamous club around the corner from Oxford Circus, in Margaret Street. What an amazing place that was, I had a membership and used to go there quite regularly. There is still a site devoted to it's history at https://thespeakeasyclub.com/
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You could not go to two more different concerts in the same week. In May 1975 I went first to Wembley, to see the Rick Wakeman concert 'in the round'. I had never seen this kind of concert production in Wembley Empire Pool before so it was interesting. As one person commented on the YT site, it was a pity the singing wasn't as good as the playing, but I guess you can say that about a lot of Prog.....:)
Later on in the week I then took my Mother to the Royal Albert Hall to see Frank SInatra in concert, with a huge orchestra backing him. It was a very emotional evening for my mum as she watched her hero singing just feet away from her, it was lovely ..... I have put a YouTube clip in of a concert that was just days before the actual one we saw too.
The video below, although not great quality, has some fantastic photos of the day at Crystal Palace Bowl. I remember the day well, and for all the planning and hard work put into the production, the main event with the underwater fireworks, did not happen because the fans jumped into the pond in front of the stage, and it was deemed too dangerous to set them off. The sound system at that time was also very cool. We used a quadrophonic system and had our record producer, Alan Parsons, mix the live sound that day, which somewhat pissed off our regular man Bob Gross........
A bit of repair work before soundcheck. These desks, famous for their design of quadrophonic capability.
Steeleye Span in support.
After the show at Crystal Palace I have a well earned holiday and go to the States, both east and west coasts to visit my new found friends from the previous two visits there in '74 and earlier this year.
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For those of you that may never have heard of Harry Enfield, Harry is a very famous comedian that has been very popular on UK TV since the late 80's. YouTube him, he's hilarious.
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