Slade @ Sydney, Australia 1973-01-28

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kpyHt2mnElurbsX3cY7RLuhBnj_C_q0g?usp=sharing

Slade

International Rock Festival

Randwick Racecourse
Sydney, New South Wales
Australia
28th January 1973

From Waz From Oz Archives, One Off The Master

3rd act of the festival - Slade

01. Noddy Holder's Introduction
02. Hear Me Calling
03. Look Wot You Dun
04. Move Over
05. Gudbuy T’ Jane
06. Darling Be Home Soon
07. Keep On Rockin’
08. Jimmy Lea Lady Be Good Violin Solo
09. Coz I Luv You
10. Take Me Back ‘Ome
11. Get Down & Get With It
    Encore
12. Mama Weer All Crazee Now

Slade
Noddy Holder - Vocals, Rhythm Guitar & Rude Comments!
Dave Hill - Lead Guitar & Backing Vocals
Jimmy Lea - Bass Guitar, Violin  & Backing Vocals
Don Powell – Drums

The International Rock Concert Tour Schedule
23rd January 1973 - Groups fly to Australia to start tour, 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

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 were 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 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 concerts, 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 hand his mic over to his mate and make his way down to the front section to take some photos of the bands.
These photos appear on the artwork included with 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.

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.
So the starting time of 1.PM was pushed back to 2.30 PM.
Because of this delay the Australian bands didn’t get to play.
They were supposed to be Buffalo, Sherbet, Mother Earth and Robin Sinclair.
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.
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.
The Caravan recording is here-
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=693093

Lindisfarne, the 2nd act of the day ignited the audience from the start of their short set to the finish.
The audience demanded an encore, but time restrictions put an end to that, but their performance set the tone for the rest of the day.
The Lindisfarne recording is here-
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=693094


The 3rd act of the day were the headliners Slade, whom because of the fear of more inclement weather had swapped places with Status Quo.
So that band closed the day’s activities. Slade were whom the bulk of the audience had dead set come to Randwick to see.

Slade were extremely popular down under.
The Slade LP had been in the charts for 6 months, it was actually No 1 when they arrived on these shores and stayed in the No 1 position for three weeks.
From the end of February 1972 up to January 1973, they had 4 singles in the Australian Top 40, the highest reaching No 11.
I would have bet money that they’d scored No 1’s to top 10 chart success, but no they hadn’t.
T. Rex funny enough had higher chart success than Slade. But the latter had plenty of airplay all the same.

For those Woke / politically correct DIME members please be aware that the band's singer / guitarist Noddy Holder can be heard making many vulgar comments.
His comments were greeted warmly by the crowd who lapped them up.
Noddy’s comments didn’t bother me at the time nor do they now, they were part & parcel of Slade’s live performances, like it or lump it I say!.

The band walked on, Noddy acknowledged the audience for having earlier sat out in the rain, then straight into Hear Me Calling, the audience participation started from the get-go.
Ruby and myself were halfway between the stage & the grandstand, we were dead set packed tighter than a fish’s arsehole.
It was a task at times to raise one’s arms about one’s head to perform beat clapping as a notorious DIME member calls it!
Slade were one of the loudest bands I’d ever heard in concert, Noddy’s voice was especially powerful it went right through you.
This recording is just under being distorted because the band were so loud.

Noddy’s rude comments commenced after the first song finishes “If there’s any young ladies in the audience what’s feeling a bit warm by now, we wanna see them dropping their knickers (for Americans that’s panties) & we wanna see all the fellers having a quick feel” which is greeted by audience cheers.
He’s at it again after Move Over suggesting because it’s become even warmer that females should take their clothes off so see we can see a few tits.
Then he asks the males in the audience to put their hands up if they want to see some tits.
Countless hands went up accompanied by another roar of approval.

In Darling Be Home Soon, he tries to get the audience to sing some football team songs, a popular exercise back in the UK but not so much here.
He asks, gets a pretty lukewarm response, telling us he can hear fuck all, so it’s quickly dropped.
Aussie audiences are somewhat shy when it comes to group singing at gigs, not so much beat clapping.
Noddy had more luck getting the audience singing along in the last few numbers.

Another thing I remember was during Jim Leas violin solo right up on the roof of the grandstand a guy in a kilt (he must have been a true Scotsman because one n all could see his meat & two veg) performed a jig for everyone’s entertainment.
He was a brave soul as not only was he doing this on a roof, it must still have been wet from the earlier rain, it’s a wonder he didn’t highland fling himself right off.  
The same goes for Dave Hill who in his platform boots would get up on his stage monitors & buggerize around.

A few songs in we noticed a disturbance in the crowd nearer the stage in front of us.
I knew it was a blue (Aussie slang for a fight, blue is also the Aussie slang for a person with red, ginger hair).
I didn’t know it at the time, but it turned that we knew two of those involved in that blue.
After Slade & between Status Quo we wandered around, we came across two young person’s somewhat distressed & we spoke to them to see if they were ok.
This was our first meeting with Recy & Roger who both became long-time friends of mine.
They told us what had happened.  
Once Slade were underway their Sydney skinhead fans started wading thru the crowd, pushing & shoving all in their way to get to the front of the stage.
Unfortunately, Recy & Roger were two of the people in their way, Roger was first elbowed out the way, when he turned around to see what was going on he was punched a number of times.
He’s a mild person & wouldn’t be able to defend himself against one person let alone a few of them.
His assailants were probably pissed off even further because at the time he sported long curly hair plus was wearing an Hawaiian shirt.

Recy being of Greek-Cypriot heritage could get dead set fiery at times & she jumped on the back of one of Rogers attackers.
While she was flailing away on the back of the skinhead it distracted attention away from Roger, who had managed to drop to the ground, crawling away to safety through the legs of audience members, a feat in itself seeing how packed it was.
He watched the rest of the show from the side.
Some of the skinheads not only made it to the front of the stage but were invited up to dance with Slade.
They can be seen dancing onstage in one of the you tube links at the bottom of this blurb.

Listening to this recording with fresh ears it struck me at just how many excellent singles Slade released in the period ranging from 1971 to 1973.
Lindisfarne & Slade were my equal favourites of the day.

In the early CD-R period I traded copies of this show, which has been on DIME in the past but equ’ed from the CD-R.
As this is from the master tape it will be superior to all previous versions.

Ruby & myself also attended the Slade / Caravan show at the Hordern Pavilion on the 6th February 1973.
On Slade’s 1974 Australian tour we fronted up at the two Sydney shows also held at the Hordern on the 21st & 24th February 1974.
I didn’t tape any of these shows, the reason being we usually ended up in the front sections at the Hordern.
With Slade audiences being rather overtly enthusiastic it would have been a chore to record a show amongst a non-stop moving audience plus we wanted to enjoy ourselves.

Somewhere in my archives I’ve a recording of the 24th February 1974 show, which might have been taped by Doris Death, I’ll have to hunt it down.

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

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

Some related Slade footage is at the links below-

GTK ABC TV
Live Randwick footage
Slade Get Down & Get With It
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_VtpC2uigc

GTK ABC TV
Live Randwick footage
Interview with skinheads & audience members,
Slade’s Sydney Press Conference & Gold Records Presentation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMQaAx8O87Y

GTK ABC TV
Live Randwick footage with dubbed sound
Interview with skinheads dancing on stage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR3-uqq6bjw

BBC TV
Live Randwick Footage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMlxS_ZT5Dk