1977

PAICE, ASHTON, LORD

1977 • March

10 – BBC Studios, Golders Green
26 – Birmingham Odeon
27 – Liverpool Empire
28 – Newcastle City Hall
30 – Glasgow Apollo

1977 • April
1st – Rainbow Theatre, London

Paice Ashton Lord played their only live concerts, having cancelled the European shows (posters for some of these have been seen). These were preceded by a special BBC recording in London, aired on radio and TV at the same time in the Sight & Sound In Concert series.  The tour was originally planned for late 1976. Posters for the tour are very rare. Support were Bandit.

IAN GILLAN BAND

1977 • October

This was a very strange tour, but at the time the Ian Gillan Band were struggling with lack of interest from Island Records, and lack of sales too. Their first British tour earlier in the year (May) had not sold very well, but the band were not keen to go back to playing small shows, so it was hard to get a headline tour of bigger venues.  This was resolved when a deodorant company wanted to put a rock show together to promote their product to “the kids”, and a tie-up was organised by promoters Harvey Goldsmith. These proved to be more or less the last gasp for IGB who would emerge in a new incarnation the following year.  The final IGB album Scarabus was issued to tie-in and there was some sort of music talent contest organised as part of the evening. I went to the Birmingham show which was very strange, IGB seemed very out of place at such an event!  Enthusiastic ambassadors for the deodorant were busy trying to whip up interest with free samples, etc.  The posters for the tour were all similar, a big silk-screened offering with the venue added, an example is shown below.

4th – Portsmouth Guildhall, UK
6th – Glasgow Apollo, Scotland, UK
7th – Manchester Apollo, UK
9th – Birmingham Odeon, UK
13th –  London Rainbow, UK

The tour set list from notes of the time and other sources (this may not be 100% accurate!) : Clear Air Turbulence / Over the Hill / Child in Time / Mercury High / What’s Your Game / Scarabus / Tryin’ to Get to You / Twin Exhausted / Smoke on the Water / Lucille / rock and roll medley.  I cannot recall if there was a proper support band, I don’t remember one.

This unusual advert was placed by the leading concert promoter of the time, Harvey Goldsmith, and includes both the IGB shows plus a plug for the upcoming Bingley Hall show by Rainbow as well as many more big names of the time. Thanks to Stephen Clare for the image.