The ‘Aerie Faerie Nonsense’ tour
Robert John Godfrey (keyboards, vocals) / Francis Lickerish (guitar) / Stephen Stewart (guitar) / Willie Gilmour (keyboards) / Terry Pack (bass) / Dave Storey (drums & percussion)
Now then… After much soul-searching and no little amount of head-scratching, I have come to the conclusion that I did attend this gig. At the time I was heading towards the end of my second year at college, and this date – a week before Good Friday – would have fallen within our Easter holiday, allowing me the opportunity to return home on the train. Mrs. P recalls going to the Penthouse with me, meaning that it had to be post-September 1976, and she is adamant that it was to see The Enid, in which case this is the only date that seems right because the band’s gig in early July 1977 had definitely seen us unavoidably detained elsewhere. In addition, Mrs. P also thinks that she went to the Penthouse more than once, so I’ll have to get my thinking cap on again to find further possible gigs…
The Enid was a six-piece outfit at this stage and were still touring their second album, ‘Aerie Faerie Nonsense’, which had been released in 1977. There is no official setlist anywhere, although I have found one from four weeks later at Herriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and, as this was clearly the same tour, it’s a safe bet that we probably got very much the same. Punk was most definitely in now, and so the last couple of songs, ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘Pretty Vacant’ make perfect sense.
Without any shadow of a doubt, though, one of the set highlights would have been the wonderful ‘Dambusters March / Land of Hope & Glory‘ perhaps with the blanket of lyrics unfurled on stage – or did that only happen in later years? As ever in the life of The Enid, controversy surrounded that particular piece. Regularly used as an encore, the band intended to release it as a single called ‘Jubilee‘, but this idea hit the rocks when Sir Edward Elgar’s publishers Boosey & Hawkes objected to any usage of ‘Land of Hope & Glory‘, and the projected catalogue number was subsequently rerouted for a single called ‘School’ by Strife. The version which had been intended to be used was the live one recorded by The Manor Mobile at The Marquee Club, London in Autumn 1976 with a line-up of Godfrey, Lickerish, Stewart, Nick Magnus (keyboards), Jeremy Tranter (bass), and Robbie Dobson (drums & percussion). This version later appeared on ‘An Alternative History Volume One’ in 1994 and on the ‘Tears Of The Sun’ compilation in 1999. The single was eventually released in 1979 by Pye Records once Elgar’s music had passed into the public domain. And it’s brilliant!
Having established our attendance, what about the performance? Well, whilst I certainly remember being at the Penthouse with Mrs. P on at least one occasion (and, as I have already hinted, there might have been more), I can’t remember anything about this specific evening. All I can imagine is that we would have sat on the floor, The Enid would have been excellent, and we would all have gone home happy.
Because that’s just the way it was back then. 😊
Probable setlist: God Save the Queen; Mayday Galliard; The Last Judgement; In the Region of the Summer Stars; The Devil; Ondine; Fand; The Skye Boat Song (possibly not in England, though); Encore: Dambusters March / Land of Hope & Glory; Wild Thing; Pretty Vacant
And, here is that gig at Herriot-Watt University, complete and in great condition. It sounds like a radio recording to me – it really is that good! It includes some introductory dialogue from Willie Gilmour and is also a good indication of some of the technical difficulties that the band always seemed/seems to experience, even into the new millennium.
Gigs'n'Stuff 