Back in 1967 I had a friend called Mike who went to York University. He had long black hair and was trying to grow it as long as he could. He did not comb or brush it in case it broke the ends off. All he did was run his fingers through it.
I was still doing A Levels and Mike was in his first year at uni. We met at Lyons bakery. We did the night shift on Friday night. It was the 6.00 pm to 6.00 am shift getting the bread out for the weekend.
Mike introduced me to American West Coast Acid Rock. He idolised the Doors, Country Joe and the Fish and Captain Beefheart. I loved them all. That Captain Beefheart first album never left my turntable. Abba Zaba, Electricity and Yellow Brick Road were spellbinding. This was 21st century Blues!! It was Howlin’ Wolf on Lysergic overload.
Then, just before my 19th birthday, Captain Beefheart was due to play at Middle Earth. It was too good to be true!! I had to see them!!
The trouble was that I lived out at Walton on Thames and I knew that if I went into London I wasn’t going to get back home until three in the morning. But what the hell – it was only school the next day!
Except that ‘only school’ was the middle of my A Level exams. I had a place at Uni in London and I needed to get the grades. I had aspirations to be a doctor. Still, they liked me. They’d offered low grades. I knew I could get them. But I hadn’t done a shred of revision.
Not to worry – the Biology exam was a week away. One night was not going to make a lot of difference. Besides – it was a once in a lifetime gig – Captain Beefheart. The best band in the known universe! I did not have a choice. You would have to be mad to pass that up!
I went to the gig. Unfortunately Rockette Morton was ill and they postponed. They put on Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation instead. I quite liked Aynsley but he wasn’t my favourite Blues Band – and even Fleetwood Mac would fall short of Beefheart!! It was a huge disappointment.
However, all was not lost.
The good news was that they were going to do the gig the following week. The even better news was that it was going to be a double header with John Mayall and he was a firm favourite of mine.
The bad news was that it was the night before my essential Biology exam; the exam that was to determine my whole future; the exam that would determine my career; the exam that would determine my future earning power, where I lived and my standard of life. Everything hung on getting that grade.
I weighed it up. If I went I would not get back until at least 3.00 am and my exam started at nine. It was hardly good preparation. There would be no freshness of mind, last minute revision or period of reflection. I would arrive harassed, tired and ill-prepared.
On the other side of the coin – It was a one-off opportunity to see the incredible Captain Beefheart!!! (With the relatively minor addition of seeing John Mayall with Mick Taylor – I’d seen him with Clapton and Green and I’d heard that Mick was roasting – but I could see them at any time!).
It was no contest.
The concert rates as one of the best I have ever seen. That band was weird. I can still visualise Don with his big stove-pipe hat, weird sunglasses, goatee beard, scarves and long jacket. The band were similarly attired. Nobody dressed like that. It was as if Martians had landed. They were the weirdest outfit on the planet. Outrageous. It sent my heart pounding. Then the music – WOW!!! Acid drenched blues from the desert of the imagination!! Nothing came close. The guitars played off each other, the bass was unbelievable, drums scorching. The rhythm was like Bo Diddley on amphetamine through a mincer. Then the voice boomed over the top. Electricity was blasting through your brain and scorching your neurones. I rode that tarrotplane through the Abbas, Zabbas and Candy Korn. They were all yellow, blue, red and green. The Lightshow crashed your senses. This was Howlin’ Wolf in the asteroids!
It was the most astounding body experience I had ever experienced – the gig of a life-time (Only exceeded by their 1973 Rainbow performance and possibly Jimi Hendrix). I was outta my head!!!
I couldn’t even remember the Mayall performance. I didn’t come down for a week.
I got home at 3.30. I was buzzing.
I got up and went in for my exam but I don’t think my mind was quite into it. I was still up there round Saturn and Jupiter.
Needless to say I failed my Biology by one grade and missed out on my uni place. I worked out later that the loss of that one grade could have cost me between £5,000,000 and £7,000,000. But it was one hell of a gig!!! Worth every last penny!!
Besides, I got in at a poly to study Biology and got to live in London during the sixties Underground, where I completed my education!! But that’s another story.
PS – I chose the poly I ended up at because there was a poster inside the door for a Roy Harper gig that Saturday. I went to that college and that gig was the first gig I went to in the place! What an initiation. I knew it boded well!!