Lindisfarne

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

From Waz From Oz Archives
One Off The Uncirculated Master

2nd Act Lindisfarne
01. Lady Eleanor (Start clipped)
02. Scotch Mist
03. Clear White Light
04. Meet Me On The Corner
05. We Can Swing Together (Includes Harmonica Medley)

Bonus Track
GTK TV Show, ABC Studios, Gore Hill, Sydney February 1973
06. Lady Eleanor

Lindisfarne
Alan Hull - Vocals, Guitar & Piano
Ray Jackson AKA Jacka - Vocals, Mandolin & Harmonica
Simon Cowe - Guitar, Mandolin & Backing Vocals
Rod Clements - Bass Guitar, Violin
Ray Laidlaw – Drums

The International Rock Concert Tour Schedule
23rd January 1973 - Groups fly to Australia, unknown when they travel 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


This 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 this time of this show I was a few weeks away from turning 17 so I was allowed to go without supervision.
I went with long-time schoolfriend Ruby, making me the older one this time around.
I have fond memories of this show as this is where we 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 cancerts, we were finally introduced in the early 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, which 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, 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 appear on the artwork accompanying each act in these torrents.

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 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, making 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.
The starting time of 1.PM was pushed back to 2.30 PM.
Because of this delay the Australian bands whose names appear on the printed ads - Buffalo, Sherbet, Mother Earth, 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 play but I don’t remember them doing so.
Their name does not appear in any ads or review of the show.

After the clean-up finished it was time for the first International act Caravan unknown to us & probably the vast majority of the 20,000 spectators.

The 2nd act that day was Lindisfarne, by the time of this tour they were somewhat known out here as they had placed two singles in the lower Australian Top 40 the year before.
I had brought those singles as well as their LP Fog On The Tyne.

Big Knob was still not back from shooting Caravan, he had stayed to take a few shots of Lindisfarne, so he wasn’t back when they kicked off so his mate & wife had to take over recording duties as can be heard at the start of their first song Lady Eleanor.
They missed the opening seconds of it plus right as this song comes to its conclusion the recorder is bumped.
Their well accepted short show set the tone for the rest of the day, the crowd loved their folk-rock sound.

From the 2nd song an instrumental called Scotch Mist the crowd was with them.
I’d can’t remember what was going on before Clear White Light, there’s a call out to a female by the name of Maude from Ray Jackson, then a bout of audience whistling starts up, wolf whistling I think it’s called.
Maybe some Aussie sheila had decided to shed her wet clobber, also something happened just after the acapella start of White Light which receives a round of applause.

Before Meet Me On The Corner the singer acknowledges the poor buggers who were dancing on the roof of the main stand.
This is mentioned in the SMH review of the show.

The final song was their well-known set closer We Can Swing Together, which has the amazing Ray Jackson long harmonica solos.
Some of the names of the tunes he’s plays are on the veritable tip of my tongue but escape me.
Easily recognised is the unofficial Australian anthem Waltzing Matilda, also in there is the theme to the 1960’s UK TV Cop Show Z Cars.
I’m sure Lindisfarne fans (& others) who hear this will be able to put a name to the rest of the tunes played during the song.
The audience enthusiastically demand an encore but alas it wasn’t to be, it didn’t happen most likely because of the time restraints due to the delay.

Alan Hull mentions before this song that this will be their last song because Status Quo & Slade (in that order) have to play before it gets dark.
So maybe even at this stage the line-up change discussions were still going on.
Slade as headliners were scheduled to close the show, but because the promoters were apprehensive that the weather might turn feral again it was decided to swap Slade (the day’s most popular group) with Status Quo’s 3rd place in the line-up.
So Quo close the festivities instead of Slade.

Lindisfarne & Slade were my equal favourites of the day.

After the tour finished & before they flew back home to the UK Lindisfarne performed a show for ABC TV, it was filmed at the ABC's Sydney Studios at Gore Hill.
We tried to get tickets for this taping but failed as they went quick as.
It seems that only one song Lady Eleanor from this performance survives.
The audio of this is Track 6.

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 Lindisfarne fans.
This show will be followed by the 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 1973.

Lindisfarne Mark 2 (with only Alan Hull & Ray Jackson remaining) returned to tour Australia in August 1973.
Their Sydney gig was on the 11th August.
Ruby & myself attended but sadly it was far from sold out, partly because it wasn’t well promoted plus the support act was Sherbet, Australia’s top teenybopper band which guaranteed young females fronting up but possibly keeping older fans away.
They were the wrong support for a band like Lindisfarne, who despite the small crowd delivered a good performance.
Don’t know why we didn’t tape it, another show I wish we had.

Please remember sensitive souls who abhor beat clapping that this practice can be heard in this recording!

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

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