Have you ever gone to a gig, either accidentally or on purpose, that you wouldn't normally go to and found it to be really good? Back in '79 it was common for us to stand outside Newcastle City Hall to listen to the soundcheck if we didn't have tickets, sometimes we'd listen to the whole show.
One sunny afternoon, me and a friend were walking past the place and heard this wailing lead guitar, Hendrix-style. Naturally we thought, this is our kind of gig. Bands played there most nights and it was difficult to keep up, which is how I kept missing Rory Gallagher.
So we didn't know who it was, but with superb lead guitar like this, they couldn't be bad, could they. So we walked around to the box office to enquire about tickets. They'd probably be all gone we assumed. But no.
The hall had only sold about half the tickets and plenty were still available. I remember feeling a bit stupid when I asked who was playing? Remember, there really wasn't a band big enough to play the city hall that I hadn't heard of, especially ones with brilliant lead guitar.
'It's Hot Chocolate' she told me, rather bemused. Now, this was about 18 months after 'Everyone's A Winner' and all those disco hits which weren't really our thing. However they did have some excellent deep cuts from early in their career. Their first single was a reggae version of Give Peace A Chance on Apple. The guitar player was Harvey Hinsley and I think he borrowed a lot of Ernie Isley's licks and tone from the 3+3 record, playing with maximum fuzz and sustain.
So we chanced a pound and got tickets. The audience were all the sorts of people we traditionally avoided. Smartly dressed couples on a night out and there we were looking like extras from the Hair Bear Bunch. We thought we'd regret going when they kicked off with one of the disco hits but then midway, they played a medley of old soul covers but with a hard rock edge, including some Isley Brothers and let Harvey do his thing. Quite what the nice people thought of it, I can't imagine but we were on our feet cheering.
I wish the whole gig was like that but it was only for about 20-minutes before normality was restored. It wasn't a bad gig at all and Harvey was given another go for the encore. Not bad for a pound.
