The ‘Too Close For Comfort’ tour?
Noel McCalla (vocals) / Loz Netto (guitars) / Graham Collyer (guitars) / Nick Payn (saxophone, flute, harmonica) / Ron Lawrence (bass) / Luigi Salvoni (drums, percussion)
Now then, I’m going to court controversy here because the official Penthouse poster (below) clearly says that SNAFU played (or were due to play!) this night, but Steve Toal’s ever-reliable book (also below) tells us that what we actually got was Moon. I do know that I did indeed see this band at some point, and I know that at a time when I didn’t have any wheels I wouldn’t have made the effort to come back from college 1976-1979 to see them, so this looks like the most likely call. And it certainly wasn’t unheard of for bands to pull out after the official posters had been printed; remember that they were done at least a month in advance of some dates. And then there’s also a small element of putting two and two together – was it this band? Down the years there have been a few bands called Moon, but I’m almost certain that it was this lot because I recall having cut out a picture of the ‘Too Close For Comfort’ album sleeve from a copy of NME and then glueing it into my old ‘Bands Book’ which is absolutely solid evidence as far as I am concerned! So, let’s press on… Discogs describes the band’s sound as “pop rock, rock, funk, soul” so there’s only a very small chance that I would have enjoyed them, as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t make the effort for a second time (they returned in December 1976). The album wouldn’t be released until 1976 which was just around the corner but I’d guess that the band would have been playing material from it. Of course there are no setlists so you’ll just have to draw your own conclusions. The band recorded four sessions for John Peel’s Radio 1 programme but only one is important for me here. Recorded on 15th July 1975 (broadcast on 28th) the band played four songs: Lone Ranger; My Old Friend; Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight; You’ve Got The Love so can we presume that they constituted part of the setlist in November? Probably… Interestingly, only the first song ever made it onto vinyl so the other three make the session look like being a collector’s item for Moon fans. And that’s about all that I can tell you except that Noel McCalla would eventually go on to join Manfred Mann’s Earth Band as singer between 1991 and 2009 (and do a very fine job indeed).
Setlist: unknown
Gigs'n'Stuff 