Roy Harper – Albert Hall 1973 – Extract from Nick Harper: The Wilderness Years Paperback/Hardback/Kindle

Posted on by Opher

Royal Albert Hall 1973

At Roy Harper’s Royal Albert Hall concert I was lucky enough to get a seat near the action. Roy was at the peak of his powers and had packed the place out. It was an incredibly strong set with Roy having just brought out ‘Lifemask’. Who would have thought that the best moment of the show would come from an unexpected source?

Nick, looking nervous and wide-eyed, shuffled on to the stage. Roy beckoned him over and sat him on his lap. Nick looked round at the vast crowd and Roy was grinning and laughing with delight at showing him off. Together they sang a duet of Crosby, Stills and Nash’s ‘Our House’. It was so touchingly delightful it was a show-stealer and set the crowd roaring.

‘Royal Albert Hall 73 – I remember being very nervous. I suppose Roy kind of pushed me to do it. Although I was very nervous I thought I should and I did.’

‘It was me shouting Mr Nixon and Mr Heath when he plays Kangaroo Blues but that might have been at the Rainbow. The concerts get all mixed up.’

‘I walked on and sat on my dad’s lap and singing ‘Our House’ probably just a verse. I don’t remember leaving the stage or anything about it because I was really scared. There were all these hundreds of people looking at me. It was such a massive thing to have done that I’ve kept the moment in my memory. By then I’d been living in Wiltshire for three or four years so I guess I’d been developing that worship from afar. It was a good excuse for me to be with him. It was an iconic stage and a brilliant thing to have done. I’m grateful for him letting me do it.

‘I sang there with my daughter Lily 35 years later which was a nice moment. There were tears in the front row and we sang the same song that me and Dad had sung and she sang it beautifully. We stood on the very same spot. It is one of the highlights of my life.’

‘That song ‘Our House’ is an affirmation of a relationship.’

‘It’s each to his own, but I think that for me a solid foundation is a position of strength to go out in the world. Not everybody needs that, not everybody wants that, but I certainly do. All the joy in the world is twice as good when you share it with someone else. I don’t like doing things on my own as much. Everyone likes space and privacy with time to reflect. But sharing a view, sharing a journey is always better.’

‘I knew I was looking for someone at the age of ten. I was ready. I was looking for someone then. I could have taken that alternative and almost did for a year. Then realised that it wasn’t really me and snuffed out the rock ‘n’ roll gad-about and tried to live up to the ideals I sing about.’

Nick Harper: The Wilderness Years: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781678850661: Books

Hitching across the Pennines to A Roy Harper gig – Dying to see Roy Harper

Posted on by Opher

Hitching across the Pennines to A Roy Harper gig – Dying to see Roy Harper

When I started teaching the pay was very bad and we couldn’t afford a car. That severely limited my ability to get to Roy Harper gigs but it did not deter me. I could get there if it was on a Saturday and I had time to hitch.

I noted Roy was on in Liverpool. That was the other side of the country but there was an interconnecting motorway. It was only a matter of four or five hours.

As it was January I dressed warm. I had experience of hitching and it wasn’t always easy. You had to be prepared for eventualities.

Getting there was easy. I arrived early and had a great talk with James Edgar about album cover designs. I sat in on the sound check and caught up with Roy.

The gig was brilliant as usual and I hung around a little. It was always awkward after gigs when everyone wanted a bit of him. You rarely had time to have a good chat.

I headed off into the night which is where it went wrong.

When you are hitching you are at the mercy of your driver. You can get pleasant friendly ones, cold, quiet types, or really unpleasant bastards. You wonder why some of them pick anyone up at all. Your job is to entertain them and make picking you up worthwhile. This guy was a lorry driver and he was a complete bastard. He’d picked me up in order to make my life miserable. He was openly belligerent and unpleasant and obviously detested long-haired hitch-hikers.

We headed out of Liverpool and on to the motorway with me regretting having climbed into the cab in the first place. He was so unpleasant that I was weighing up my options should he attack me.

Outside the weather took a turn for the worse and as we climbed up into the Pennines it began to snow heavily.

At the highest point he suddenly pulled over on to the hard shoulder and ordered me out.

I was glad to leave and watched him pull away. It was now gone one in the morning and I was standing at the side of a motorway on top of a mountain range in a blizzard.

There were few vehicles using the motorway. That was partly to do with the late hour and partly the atrocious weather conditions. The cars and lorries that were going through were travelling at speed and either could not see me because of the snow or were going too fast to stop. That was not surprising as they would not be expecting someone to be on the hard shoulder of a motorway. I started walking. The wind was blasting snow into my face and I was already freezing.

It was slow progress. I could not make much headway and there were not any services on this motorway for a long way.

I was beginning to think that I had best get out of the wind and build some kind of shelter. I was numb and in danger of freezing to death. I was also at risk of getting knocked down.

At that moment a police car cruised past and stopped. They took me along to the services and dropped me off. I thanked them most profusely. They said I would have frozen to death out there. I think they were right. They had probably saved my life. I could not stop shivering and my hands and feet were completely numb. It took all day for me to warm up. That lorry driver could have killed me.

Roy Harper gigs are good but not worth dying for.