The ‘Georgie Fame’ album tour
Georgie Fame (keyboards, vocals) / Colin Green (guitars) / Bernie Holland (guitars) / Alan Skidmore (tenor saxophone) / Eddie Thornton (trumpet) / Brian Bennett (drums & percussion)
Now, I’ll be absolutely honest here and admit that I really can’t be sure that I was at this gig or not. I had been going to Penthouse gigs since February, but it is entirely possible that I deemed this act too ‘old’ for my taste. I’ll include it here but, if pressed, I’d have to say that it’s unlikely that I was actually there.
There is no recorded setlist for this, but only a couple of weeks previously Fame had ripped it up at the Reading Festival where he performed ‘Pink Champagne’, ‘See Saw’, ‘Moody’s Mood for Love’, and ‘You Can’t Sit Down’ amongst others, so we’ll have to presume that we got the same.
And, as an aside, the same issue of Melody Maker which reported that Reading triumph (31st August 1974) also ran a review of the new album – below – where it was clearly entitled ‘Survivor’ and not ‘Georgie Fame’. I wonder what happened to make them change the name? 🤷🏻♂️
Setlist: unknown, but see above…
UPDATE: I was definitely in attendance! See Steve Burns’ comment below and my subsequent response.
Rumours and memories abound for this one! As well as the aforementioned comment by Steve Burns, David Thompson of The Penthouse Facebook Group recollects, “If I remember correctly, Mr Fame wouldn’t go onstage because he was superstitious and a band member had fallen ill, leaving 13 members left to perform. I believe the situation was rescued by Barry Hampshire busking sax to make it up to 14.” Mark Palmer says, “Surprisingly, my mum went to this as a fan but she didn’t care for it – too much F’ing and blinding apparently!”
And a small Penthouse advert from Melody Maker, 7th September 1974, plugging our gig. NB Sailor played on 4th October, not Seventh Wave (who actually played 8th November).
And from that same edition of Melody Maker comes this full-page record label advert for the album and tour…
Gigs'n'Stuff 
Oh dear, what can I say? So much excitement when we heard that an international superstar was playing at the Penthouse, and so disappointing in the event. Fame had a huge band with him, mostly name musicians apparently (eg Hendrix’s drummer), they could hardly all fit on the stage, and his current album was being plugged heavily. But … just not what we were expecting, not “rock” music for a start, the place was overrun with middle-aged couples in evening dress who thought they were at some kind of cabaret show, and sorry to say Georgie’s perceived onstage arrogance went down badly with the regulars. In my opinion, we Penthouse crowd were generally a pretty open-minded bunch, and would encourage any band who could be bothered to come to Scarborough and look as if they were giving it a go, but the audience reaction was as flat as any gig I’ve ever been to. Probably in the last analysis a mismatch of punters’ expectations against the artist’s, but it’s hard to express any appreciation to a performer who ends his set with, “Don’t bother asking for an encore”.
LikeLike
Great memory that, Steve.
Now that you mention it, I do recall once being in amongst a crowd of not-your-average Friday night rockers, so this would almost certainly have been it.
I’d completely forgotten about the condescending line regarding an encore, though.
What a prize b@$^@πd! 😡😠
Roger 🤟
LikeLike