The Saints @ Sydney, Australia 1977-04-14

THE SAINTS

The Real Thing TV Show Studio Session

ABC TV Studios
Gore Hill
Sydney, New South Wales
Australia
14th April 1977

- audience recording, 2020 transfer from the master tape -

01. Orstralia #1
02. Lipstick On Your Collar
03. River Deep Mountain High
04. Runaway
05. (I’m) Stranded #1
06. International Robots
07. Run Down
08. One Way Street
09. (I’m) Stranded #2
10. Lost And Found
11. Kissin’ Cousins
12. Demolition Girl
13. Erotic Neurotic
14. Orstralia #2 (End Cut)

---- bonus tracks ----

The Real Thing, ABC TV Show
audio from the broadcasts

15. (I’m) Stranded - Broadcast 15th December 1977
16. Demolition Girl - Broadcast 22nd February 1978
17. Erotic Neurotic - Broadcast 1st March 1978

Flashez - ABC TV Show 21st March 1977
18. Kate Fitzpatrick Interviews The Saints

Countdown - ABC TV Show May 1977
19. Erotic Neurotic

Flashez - ABC TV Show August 1977
20. Ray Burgess Interviews Ed Kuepper & Ivor Hay.

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The Band
Chris Bailey – Vocals
Ed Kuepper – Guitar
Ivor Hay – Drums
Kym Bradshaw – Bass Guitar

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The Real Thing session - Recording By Waz From Oz & Ruby
2020 digitisation of master tape by audiowhore
Artwork By Waz From Oz

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Floydee Clause

Please be aware that this recording has some audience participation, you know people enjoying a live show plus it’s not a top shelf recording.
So hopefully you’ll bypass this torrent, which means you won’t need to post as per usual a negative comment.
From comments in PM’s I’ve received it seems there is a word for folks such as yourself which from your comments sums you up.
I’m sure that you’ll continue to be one, however, I do worry about you going blind.

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The Saints

This recording is the one that I referred to in the notes for the Blondie Sydney 12th November 1977 torrent of a much-admired Australian band being on Side A of the Blondie master cassette.
It may not be a top shelf recording but IMHO its is a historical artefact of a seminal Australian band.

I first heard The Saints from a friend who worked at Sydney’s ABC Double J (as it was then) radio station in late 1976.
They had a copy of the privately released (I’m) Stranded single & they put it on a cassette for me. I loved it.
The single was regarded highly in the UK, in fact Sounds Music magazine's John Ingram called it-
 "Single of this and every week. ... The singing's flat and disinterested, the guitars are on full stun. ... It's fabulous!”

He continued, there’s a tendency to blabber mindlessly about this single, it's so bloody incredible …for some reason Australian record companies think the band lack commercial potential.
What a bunch of idiots. You like Quo or The Ramones? This pounds them into the dirt. Hear it once and you'll never forget it.

Back here in Australia there was little interest in this Brisbane band, until overseas interest started to trickle back to Australia & the band were signed to EMI.
The (I’m) Stranded single was released in January 1977, followed in February by the LP of the same name.
Ruby & I bought both & immediately became fans. IMHO it still is one of the best Australian LP’s ever released.
They started to get airplay, especially on Double J so the band started to get a good following.
I never saw them as a punk band, they had formed in 1973, I saw them as a rough and ready rock and roll band.

Sometime in May through my friend at Double J, I was told that the band were doing an in-studio concert for an upcoming ABC TV show which later became known as The Real Thing.
Of course we wanted to attend this taping.
If I remember correctly the ABC had asked Double J to find interested people, my mate there asked me if Ruby & I were interested in going, we were & so our names were put on the list.

A Saints website has this taping taking place at the ABC studios in Forbes St, Darlinghurst.
But to coin a phrase that’s fake news, as is the date they say for the recording being in May.
The show was recorded at the ABC Studios at Gore Hill over on the north side of Sydney & on my cassette cover I’ve written 14th April 1977, so I assume that’s the correct date.

Ruby & I travelled into the city & for some long-forgotten reason instead of taking the train to a station near the ABC studios we decided to walk over the Harbour Bridge, then onto Gore Hill, which is a fair hike.
I remember it being a sunny day so that might have encouraged us healthy 21 years old to do a marathon.
It was held on a weekday so we must have both pulled sickies.
From memory when we arrived at the studios, we were surprised that there wasn’t many of us, maybe 30 - 40 people if that.
I’ve only ever seen the footage once since that day & thinking then it was rather empty.
On the front cover artwork there are screen shots from the show & the one of the stage doesn’t show many people in front of it.

The studio it was filmed in was rather bare, in the middle was a raised square tier with a drum riser on top, and there with some raised seats some distance away from the stage.
It was rather open & we didn’t want to be caught taping, so we put the cassette recorder on a seat, surrounded it with our jackets with the mic poking out of one of the sleeves, hoping that no one would park their arse on it or move them to another seat.
Luckily no one did, but the taping position gave the recording a somewhat muddy sound to it.

We were given instructions to clap & cheer, but we seemed to be a bit lethargic when I listen back to it.
It wasn’t a continuous show, there were breaks in the performance while technicians did this & that.
During one of these breaks Ruby & I sat on the stage & talked to Chris Bailey who was cheerful & might have had a drink or two before starting the recording.
The other members were somewhat distant.

Apart from the single (I’m) Stranded which was played twice (the 2nd version being the one that was later broadcast), and 4 songs from the 1st LP, the rest of the songs were new to us Saints fans.
They played 4 new songs Orstralia x 2, International Robots, Run Down & Lost & Found (all with early different lyrics) that wouldn’t be released until their 2nd album (my favourite Saints album) Eternally Yours in May 1978.

They also performed 4 covers, Kissin’ Cousins from the 1st LP, Lipstick On Your Collar (Connie Frances), Mountain High River Deep (Ike & Tina Turner) which both came out on an EP entitled One Two Three Four in October 1977, the 3rd cover was Runaway (Del Shannon) that has never been officially released.

The recording captures everything played that day except for the arse end of the 2nd performance of Orstralia which was when the cassette ran out.

It was a great day, we waited & waited for the show to be broadcast on the telly & when it finally was broadcast in December 1977 only one lousy song was shown.
Two further episodes had one Saints song each. I’ve never seen them again.


The Real Thing-

The Real Thing was an ABC TV series that showcased live Australian musical performances.
The live performances were filmed by the ABC from March to July 1977 escpecially for the upcoming series.
Some were live concerts; others were performed live in the studio.
There were 13 episodes of The Real Thing with the first of these being screened on 1 December 1977.
Each episode was 30 minutes long and usually just showed 1 song from the acts that were filmed. Each show included around 7-8 songs (1 per band).
Different songs from each of the bands were shown across various episodes.
The Real Thing was originally screened late on Thursday nights (after 10pm) but then moved to late on Wednesday nights in 1978.
The show was hosted by Ron E. Sparks, a radio DJ.
Songs from The Saints session are listed as being screened in episodes that aired on 15 December 1977 (the 3rd episode), then another song was shown in the episodes screened on 22 February 1978 and 1 March 1978.


Bonus tracks

As for the bonus tracks, I taped some off the TV, others I’ve collected over the years.
The Saints were banned from the ABC TV Countdown show after their one & only performance in May 1977 for rubbishing this teenage pop show in the press.

My recording seems to be the only other audience recording of the original Saints apart from the bootleg of their London Roundhouse performance of the 6th June 1977 where they supported the Ramones & Talking Heads.

In the first interview for Flashez (another short-lived ABC TV music show) the Saints were interviewed by the well-known Australian actress, Kate Fitzpatrick.
It seems she didn’t know much about the band she was interviewing, as Chris Bailey convinces her that he is the band's drummer who also does the singing.

In the early 2000’s Ruby encountered Chris Bailey, told him we had taped their ABC TV show & asked him would like a copy.
Chris said for sure & so he was sent a copy.
If you’re reading this Chris would you like an upgrade?

Thanks to audiowhore

Enjoy,
Waz

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https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ALkKsBKYmiQcLg17_zY7uvq31vvv2cEs?usp=sharing