The ‘Strange New Flesh’ tour
Mike Starrs (vocals) / Gary Moore (guitars, vocals) / Don Airey (keyboards, vocals) / Neil Murray (bass) / John Hiseman (drums, percussion)
Once again I can’t really remember this gig particularly well, which is surprising as I would almost certainly have remembered Gary Moore back then from his time in Thin Lizzy around 1974.
Categorised as a progressive jazz-rock fusion band, this was an outfit with some ancestral pedigree and with players who would go on to forge solo careers or serve several other bands in the future but, as Steve Toal has noted in the ‘Penthouse Memories’ book, this band seemed past its best and was on the way down when we saw them.
They would have been promoting their new album, ‘Strange New Flesh’ which was to be released on 19th April. According to Wikipedia, Murray walked out after sales of the album bombed, and Starrs was sacked in July. The band regrouped, bringing in John Mole on bass, and continued to forge ahead with this new line-up, recording two further albums before finally petering out in 1978.
For our gig I suspect that they played songs from the first album together with tunes from the original Colosseum back-catalogue and possibly some of Moore’s solo and Lizzy tunes. To be honest I can’t remember and, of course, there’s no recorded setlist for this gig; the best that I can manage is from a Birmingham gig three weeks previously.
As a footnote, in 2023 I made a chance purchase of their second album, ‘Electric Savage’ and I have to admit that I really do like it. It must be true what they say about time mellowing us…
Possible setlist: Dark Side of the Moog; Walking in the Park; Morning Story; Down to You; Drum Solo; Secret Places; Gemini and Leo (from the gig at Barbarella’s, Birmingham on 16th March)
Moore, Murray, Starrs,
Hiseman and Airey
Gigs'n'Stuff 