Caravan

International Rock Festival
Randwick Racecourse
Sydney, NSW
Australia
28th January 1973


From Waz From Oz Archives
One Off The Uncirculated Master
Remastered By audiowhore

1st Act Caravan
01. He Who Smelt It Dealt It
02. The Love In Your Eye >
To Catch Me A Brother >
Subsultus >
Debouchement >
Tilbury Trews
03. For Richard Part One

The Band
Derek Austin - Keyboards
Richard Coughlan - Drums
Stuart Evans - Bass Guitar & Vocals
Pye Hastings - Vocals & Guitar
Geoff Richardson - Viola

The International Rock Concert Tour Schedule
23rd January 1973 - Groups fly to Australia, then unknown when they fly to New Zealand
27th January 1973 - Auckland, New Zealand - Hamilton Racecourse
28th January 1973 – Sydney, NSW - Randwick Racecourse - Taped
29th January 1973 – Brisbane, QLD - Lang Park Oval
31st January 1973 – Perth, WA - Subiaco Oval
3rd February – Adelaide, SA - Wayville Showgrounds
4th February – Melbourne, Vic - Melbourne Showgrounds
5th February – Canberra, ACT – Canberra Showgrounds

The 'International Rock Concert' in 1973 was the 3rd Various Acts Festival that I’d attended.
The first was in late 1969, an all Australian artists line up by the name of Operation Stairlift.
The 2nd was Deep Purple / Free / Manfred Man in May 1971, also held at Randwick Racecourse.
My rather most times lenient ... other times not so lenient parents allowed me to attend these events if I was accompanied by a responsible adult older teenager.
The latter mostly being school friends’ older brothers & sisters who in reality were just as irresponsible as us, especially at the Deep Purple / Free / Manfred Mann gig when we had to look after the older one’s when they became dead set shit faced drunk.

At the time of this show I was weeks away from turning 17 so I was allowed to go without supervision.
I went with long-time school friend Ruby, making me the older one this time around.
I have fond memories of this show as this is where we first met Recy (Maree) & Roger, two fellow music lovers a year or so younger than us.
The four of us attended many of the same concerts over the years, remaining friends off & on up to the present day.
Sadly Recy passed away in January of this year. Roger & myself spoke last week.

Also, at this show but unknown to me at the time was Big Knob.
Over the years I’d spot him at many concerts. We were finally introduced in 1980 & we got to talking.
I’d mentioned I’d taped a number of shows he’d been at, running off some names.
Among those names happened to be his most loved band, of which I am also a fan.
He mentioned he had taped a few shows himself in the 1970’s.

I asked who, he replied all four overseas acts at Randwick 28th January 1973.
They were still on the original reel to reel tapes, he hadn’t played them in years.
Not long after I transferred his master reels onto cassettes for both of us, this was before CD-R’s were on the market.

Last week I caught up with Big Knob and he refreshed me about how he recorded that concert which as of this writing is now 47 years ago.
He’d lugged an Akai portable stereo reel to reel recorder to the show.
He & his party where seated further back up in the stands.
Once an act was about to kick off he would hold one mic, his wife the other.
While each group was performing he’d make his way down to the front section to take some photos of the bands, when doing this he’d hand his mic over to his mate.
These photos for each act that day will appear on the artwork accompanying this torrent.

Estimates for the audience at this show range from 20,000 to 26,000, I’d say it was somewhere in the middle.
Some brave souls even managed to get themselves up onto the roof of the stands.

The line-up for this show was supposed to be some Australian bands first, followed by English acts Caravan, Lindisfarne, Status Quo & Slade.
All but Caravan were familiar to me as I’d brought singles & LPs by the others especially Slade.
Slade being the most well-known of the bunch having by this time various Top 40 hit singles in Australia plus the extremely popular Slade Alive LP.
Unfortunately, because of Slade’s skinhead past this show attracted late to the party local skinheads.
These clowns did cause some bother for a few people that day, unfortunately one of these was our friend Roger.
I’ll write about that when I do the Slade torrent.

The night before the show it had pissed down, continuing overnight & only stopping a short time before the show.
This made the grounds something akin to a paddy field.
Remember this was a racecourse so in front of the covered stands it was grass plus the actual dirt racetrack.
I remember my platform shoes often sinking into the mud as well as the bottoms of my fetching flared jeans becoming mud catchers.
I don’t recall that it rained again after the first act of the day was underway.

As the rain had soaked the stage plus everything on & around it, it had to be cleaned up, dried off before any act could go ahead.
So the starting time of 1.PM was pushed back to 2.30 PM.
Because of this delay the Australian bands Buffalo, Sherbet, Mother Earth and Robin Sinclair didn’t get to play.
Newspaper reports state that no Australian acts played at this show due to the delay, however online I’ve read comments from people that attended this show that Aussie band Blackfeather (who had a No 1 hit 1972) did in play but I don’t remember them doing so.
Their name does not appear in any newspaper ad or review of the show.

After the clean-up finished it was time for the first International act Caravan.
They were unknown to us & probably also to the vast majority of spectators that day.
Sorry Caravan fans but to this 16 yo, Ruby, Recy, Roger and I’m sure countless thousands there that day their brand of music didn’t generate much interest.
I felt sorry for them as they were the odd band out, a prog rock band probably shouldn’t have been on a rock orientated line up.

Just after Caravan arrive onstage & introduce the first song a huge loud burp / belch can be heard which gets a round of applause.
This is not care of someone near the recorder but from one of the members of the band or a roadie burping into a on stage microphone.
One can not only hear the folks laughing near the recorder but the crowd in general.

Sadly, that burst of applause seems to be the most they received during their set.
Applause also followed when the singer announced their last song but that died quickly because he goes on to say that the last song will last for 20 minutes!
The mic picks up voices around the recorder saying 20 minutes in a disgruntled way, hurry up, we want Slade, off, off, off.
There’s an Aussie Neanderthal who finds he has to occasionally yell “Keep rocking”, “Rock me baby” & assorted variations of this not only during Caravans set but he can be heard saying variations of this in the other acts sets.

I became so disinterested during Caravan's set that if I had known about the decades later craze of people discovering Christ's face appearing on toast, in soups, in various foods & other places I would have ventured off looking to see if I could spot his face in the surrounding mud!

Slade played another Sydney gig on the 6th of February 1973 with Caravan as support, which we attended but I don’t remember Caravan so methinks that we didn’t go into the Hordern until half time.

This tour seemed to be somewhat of a curse for two of the bands on the bill as Caravan shed some members on their return to England & Lindisfarne broke up after this Aussie tour.

Anyway, I'm sure that this previously uncirculated recording will appeal to Caravan fans out there.
This show will be followed shortly by the Lindisfarne, Slade & Status Quo sets from the same day.
Later the following February I embarked on my taping career, my first show being the Stones at Randwick Racecourse on the 26th February.

Please remember sensitive souls that abhor beat clapping plus audience chit chat, some of the latter can be heard in this recording.
The beat clapping is saved for the other three acts to come!

Thanks to Big Knob for the recordings & photos, thanks as always to audiowhore.
Enjoy,
Waz







Images for all shows as well as full size images for this show.

Images for this show:

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