![]() "We'd all sit on the counter, make some tea, smoke a joint and write the lyrics. Someone would say 'cup of tea?' We'd roll a joint and disappear to the kitchen there in the village hall. And then Steve would add that, do do do… and we'd arrange it, spend all day doing that. I'd start playing something and everyone would join in and we'd see where it went. "So, for instance, Stone Cold Fever, I bought the opening riff in, which is the verse as well. I caught up later, don't worry! But we'd pause, someone would bring in a lick, we would jam. We used to rehearse a lot down near Steve's cottage in Essex, Magdalene Labour Village Hall, ha! We had a kitchen, we made our tea, rolled a joint - I was not an imbiber at that point. "I don't think I could ever be in a band if we just had to go out there and play the record note for note, I'd give up, I'd become a banker."Īs a band, how did you work that out? Were you big on rehearsals, or did you get a rough idea then get on stage and see what happened? The ad libs and the soloing and everything, and Steve's ad libbed vocals, it's all very different every night. Yes, the framework of the songs was the same, but in between go and stop, it's very different. And that's what I think people will get to hear. "But that's what was great about it, it was different every night. "And Jerry was 17! And it sounds like we've been doing it a long time, but we were actually making it up as we were going along. Listening to these tracks now is just phenomenal to me that we did what we did. "The combination was us all pushing and pushing, and live we were something else. "Yeah, you know, the bottom line was I was such a huge fan of Steve, and it was reciprocal of my playing and my approach, which was different to a lot of other guitar players. You have to have that friction, that push and pull. Yeah, it's documented that we had our sort of brotherly ups and downs, but that's what makes for a great band." "And obviously there's not enough words to say how big of a fan, and what a thrill it was, to be in a band with Steve. He went for it every night, just a phenomenal player and the amount of soul and passion that he put into his playing and singing. "Jerry was bombastic on drums, Greg, my dearest friend and we've lost him obviously, but he was an animal on bass, and I loved that. We were definitely a lot more ferocious live because of the energy that the entire population of us had. "I often explain it to people that if you listen to a Who record, and then go see the Who live, it's like two different bands. "In the studio sessions, it was a great band with great material, and we played great together and we made great records, but as soon as we stepped on to the stage it was like the gloves came off. "Well we were very much on the cutting edge of ourselves ! We were pushing the envelope of our own band, of our own possibilities. That's often the beauty of live albums, you get that spontaneous feel. But that's what it's all about! If you don't go for something and fail, then, you know, it's safe." "It was! There's some green notes here and there, as there always are in life. ![]() ![]() It must be nice to go back and surprise yourself. But to actually hear some of this stuff 40 years later, we were pretty good!" "It wasn't that what we chose wasn't the best, it possibly was depending on what criteria you were using to choose it. Going back and listening to it, we were wrong! "But what I do know is that when Jerry and I started listening to all the other shows, I think at the time we said 'Oh, that's no good, that's the best one' - I'm not even sure we listened to all of it. I think a lot of it comes from one night - I can't remember, actually! "So we made the decision, bought in the Fed Co truck and Eddie Kramer to engineer, and off we went for the four shows, then went ahead for the original album and chose what we felt were the best performances of the four shows. We weren't going to have a lot of choice of what was on the album, we were basically going to have to use everything. We weren't headlining so we only had a 50-minute spot. "We played the Fillmore more times than I care to remember before this, and we had a really good following in New York because of that. ![]()
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