Climax Blues Band: Tuesday 9th April 1974, The Penthouse, Scarborough

The ‘FM Live’ tour

Colin Cooper (vocals, saxophone, harmonica, guitar) / Pete Haycock (guitar, vocals) / Derek Holt (bass, keyboards, vocals) / John Cuffley (drums)

Great band! They were in transition at the time, and had dumped the ‘Chicago‘ bit from their name but the musical style remained pretty much the same – plenty of chugging boogie and slide guitar!

The studio album that they had out at the time was my personal favourite, the wonderful ‘Sense of Direction’. However, I suspect that the tour was designed to plug 1973’s ‘FM Live’ album which was recorded in America by one of the FM radio stations. It was released over there as a double album with the strange system of organising the sides on the two records as side 1 backed by side 4, and side 2 backed with side 3, the idea being that you could stack the two records so that sides 1 and 2 would play consecutively without you having to get up; flipping the two records then allowed sides 3 and 4 to play through without getting up again. A great idea back then, but really quite annoying nowadays! I know this for certain because that’s the copy that I have. This was all irrelevant in the UK anyway, as we got a single album with fewer tracks.

(l-r) Cuffley, Holt, Cooper, Haycock.

I was very pleased to catch the band and was also probably slightly fortunate because, judging by the official gig lists that I can find, the band spent 1974 zig-zagging between the USA (where they were hugely popular) and the UK. I have managed to locate a full page advert in a contemporary music ‘rag’ which covers this tour although, as you can see, our gig on the 9th isn’t listed, suggesting that it must have been shoehorned in simply because the band were up in the area (they were in Redcar on the following night, the 10th). This was unusual for us because it was a Tuesday night, Friday being the more regular ‘rock/progressive’ night at the Penthouse.

New Musical Express, 23rd March 1974.

There are no official setlists from around April, but one from Washington University on 27th October features some of the songs which they would have played for us: ‘I Am Constant’, ‘The Seventh Son’, ‘Losin’ the Humbles’, ‘Country Hat’, ‘Using the Power’, ‘Milwaukee Truckin’ Blues (Chipper’s Song)’, ‘Right Now’ ‘Loosen Up’ and ‘Going to New York’ many of which feature on the live album and although that track list was probably tweaked for its American audience, I am as sure as I can be that at our gig they definitely played some of those along with ‘Flight’ and ‘Amerita / Sense of Direction‘ (a Climax track which I absolutely adore).

One memory that I do have of this gig is that when the roadies were clearing up, I managed to snag a ‘promo’ sticker of the band’s ‘new’ logo, the one featured on the cover of the UK release of ‘FM Live’ and I subsequently stuck it on the front of one of my two old ‘Band Books‘ which I then stupidly threw out in the 1980s. I’ve never seen another one since. Steve Cocking, on the other hand, still has his…

I would see the band again in August 1975 at Reading Festival but for now, this was a great little gig at my all-time favourite venue.

Setlist: unknown, but see above.

Footnote: My good friend, Steve Toal, recalls this was “the only time I got back stage to meet a band; it was my 18th birthday. All I remember is one of the roadies passing a huge joint to John Cuffley, the drummer!”

Then in 2022 I commissioned a 1″ tin pin-badge of the band…