Alan Fairley: August 2024

During the early part of the 1970s there was a popular saying within the music industry-
‘If you want to be successful, open the show for Mott the Hoople.’

This philosophy was largely based on the experiences of two hitherto unheralded British bands who had latched onto the coattails of Mott’s ever increasing popularity around that time and who supported them on their UK and USA tours.

The first was Nazareth, a group of four working class lads from Dunfermline who had just released their first album after a few years gigging around the sweatfest dance halls of Fife and Edinburgh.

Incidentally there was nothing biblical about their choice of name – they took their title from the magical opening line of Robbie Robertson’s anthemic song ‘The Weight’ ie ‘I pulled into Nazareth, I was feeling ‘bout half past dead.’
(For clarity, the town referred to in the song is, in fact, Nazareth, Pennsylvania as opposed to Jesus’ home turf.)

Nazareth’s 1972 tour with Mott catapulted the band into stardom, and epic singles such as Broken Down Angel and Bad Bad Boy ensured their future status as a headline act.

The Glasgow Kelvin Hall gig on that tour was memorable for the warm reception the band received from the Glasgow crowd although their gravelly voiced vocalist Dan McCafferty rather misguidedly invited some fans on to the stage towards the end, resulting in a mass invasion which resulted in thousands of pounds worth of damage to their equipment.

If Nazareth’s quantum leap to fame was meteoric, then that of the band who supported Mott a year or so later was nothing less than stratospheric.

Up until then, Queen’s only live performance in Scotland had taken place at Glasgow University’s Student Union and, for the 3000 or so Mott fans who assembled at the newly refurbished Apollo Theatre (nee Greens Playhouse) in November 1973 it was very much a case of casting a critical Glaswegian eye over these London upstarts.

The crowd was won over before long as Freddie Mercury bounced around the giant stage in a white jumpsuit, his piercing vocals supplemented by Brian May’s guitar virtuosity, all held together by a rock solid back line of bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor.

The release of Queen’s first hit single Seven Seas of Rye followed shortly and you don’t need me to tell you how successful they went on to become before Mercury’s untimely death 18 years later.

Other bands to benefit from supporting Mott were Aerosmith and REO Speedwagon who opened the show for Mott’s US Tours long before enjoying significant commercial success.

All of which turns us to the role of the support band in general.
Some, as already detailed, go on to enjoy great success. Some fade into obscurity. Others fall in between these two particular stools and end up making a decent, if unspectacular, living, touring around low key venues in beat up transit vans.

As Ian Hunter famously said –
‘Rock and Roll’s a loser’s game, it mesmerises and I can’t explain….’

i’ve attended countless gigs in my 50-odd years as a concert goer and I’ve seen numerous support bands in my time.

I won’t attempt to document them all, but instead will reflect on some of the best and the worst of those who filled that often thankless slot on the bill during that period.

Nazareth and Queen obviously come out as the two most memorable but an honourable mention goes to Lynyrd Skynyrd who had the unenviable task of opening for Deep Purple at Glasgow’s SECC in 1998.
Not many, if any, bands are capable of blowing Deep Purple off the stage but Skynyrd came pretty close that night with a blistering set which had the crowd wondering how the Purps could follow that.

Needless to say, any doubts in that regard were dispelled the minute Ian Paice’s pounding drumbeat on the intro to Highway Star heralded the band’s arrival.

At the other end of the scale were an obscure band called Upp who supported Beck, Bogert & Appice at the Apollo, a Louisiana accordionist by the name of Buckwheat Zydeco who opened for Eric Clapton at the Edinburgh Playhouse, while the all time Nadir came along in the shape of Maxim, four guys in matching pink velvet suits, resembling Belarus’ entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, who tried but failed to warm up the Greens Playhouse crowd before the arrival of the legendary Chuck Berry.

He was worth waiting for.