A Band Called ‘O’ / The Dodgers: Monday 2nd August 1976, The Penthouse, Scarborough

The Dodgers

The ‘Coasting’ tour (first night)

John Wilson (guitars, vocals) / Bob Jackson (guitars, keyboards, vocals) / Tom Evans (bass, vocals) / Paul Hooper (drums & percussion)

Apparently, I saw The Dodgers (or simply Dodgers), a rock/power-pop band, twice but I have no recollection of seeing them at all. They supported A Band Called O on their ‘Coasting’ tour at almost every gig of the tour, the only exception being at Birmingham Barbarella’s on July 24th. My friend Steve Toal has confirmed that they did indeed play The Penthouse; he recorded just about every band that he ever saw in his diary, and I have to rely on that since I chucked out my ‘Bands Book’ years ago.

Roger the Dodger in The Beano

The Dodgers were almost exclusively a Coventry band taking their name from The Beano character Roger The Dodger. Jackson had played in Badfinger, replacing and then also playing alongside Peter Ham until the latter’s suicide in 1975. Evans came from Badfinger to join with Jackson in forming the new band along with Wilson and, later, Hooper (Jackson would later be sacked in 1977, apparently due to behavioural issues!!)

The Dodgers

Their first single, ‘Just Wanna Love You’ was released in March 1976, followed soon after in April by ‘Don’t Let Me Be Wrong’ and then a couple of others after I had seen them. They had recorded a BBC Peel Session on 11th May, 1976 (broadcast 26th May, 1976) featuring the songs ‘Don’t Let Me Be Wrong’, ‘Just Wanna Love You’, ‘Get To You’ and ‘Help Me Out’. Even better, only a fortnight after I saw them (August 16, 1976) they recorded a BBC Radio One In Concert, featuring ‘Another Time, Another Place’, ’24 Reasons’, ‘Matter Of Pride’, ‘Just Wanna Love You’, ‘Down’, ‘Don’t Know What You’re Doing’, and ‘Where Were You’ so if you wanted to, you could chuck all of those tracks together and come up with something resembling a setlist for the two nights that I saw them.

The band went on to release a few more singles and appear on a couple of teen-oriented TV shows, starting with Arrows on 30th November 1976 where they sang ‘Just Wanna Love You’, then Supersonic singing ‘Down’ (22nd January 1977). In May 1978 they released their one and only album ‘Love On The Rebound’ and subsequently appeared on Get It Together on 26th September 1978 performing ‘Don’t Let Me Be Wrong (version 2)’. A planned second album was recorded late in the year but was never released as the band fell apart.

Setlist: unknown, but see above.

You can read the detailed history of the band HERE.

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A Band Called ‘O’

The ‘Coasting’ tour (First Night)

Pix (guitar, vocals) / Craig Anders (guitars, vocals) / Mark Anders (bass) / Derek Ballard (drums) / Jeff Bannister (keyboards, vocals)

As far as I can tell, The Penthouse was the only venue to be accorded the honour of hosting two gigs, possibly because it was a very popular venue and they knew that they could pack it out twice. As expected, I went to both gigs and loved them.

Before the band played we were treated to 23 minutes of the film ‘Crystal Voyager which had scenes of surf, crashing waves and an intrepid surfer set to Pink Floyd’s “Echoes” from their album “Meddle“. I have a feeling that there were also cartoons, although neither the poster nor the gig review confirm that.

The tour poster/advert – from The New Musical Express – also shows that they would have played several pieces to promote their new album, “Within Reach”. By the time that the album was released they had changed their name to The ‘O’ Band but they would always be A Band Called ‘O‘ to us.

Interestingly, the track ‘Coasting‘ from which the tour got its name wasn’t included on the ‘Within Reach’ album; instead it was a B-side for a single which was different depending upon whereabouts in Europe you lived – if you were in Germany it was on the reverse of a pared down version of ‘A Smile Is Diamond‘ but the rest of the world got it on the back of a re-mixed version of ‘Don’tcha Wanna‘ as can be seen on the promotional letter below.

A Band Called ‘O’ never let us down and we went home from this gig extremely happy and looking forward to more of the same the following night.

Setlist: (incomplete and in no particular order) Lucia Loser; Still Burning; A Smile Is Diamond; Fine White Wine; Sleeping; Dont’cha Wanna; Captain Cellophane/Sidewalk Ship; Red Light Mama Red Hot (and probably Coasting)

Edit: I’ve just discovered a Penthouse poster for this month which covers this gig – and The Dodgers were there, but I don’t remember them at all.