The Edgar Broughton Band - the rebels return...

7:10pm Wednesday 21st November 2007

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Leafing through my old concert tickets I landed on one for the Edgar Broughton Band at the Hardrock, at Stretford, near Manchester.

It was from early 1970s, the first golden age of rock (the second is pretty much now as many bands from that period are reforming) when acts such as Genesis, David Bowie and Led Zeppelin also played the former bowling alley (I think it was anyway) as an alternative venue to the magical Free Trade Hall.

Boy, in those days' guitarist and singer Edgar - or Rob as he's really called - and the band were radical.

They were rebellious, anarchic and serious about the social and political injustices of the day.

In an age when social injustices and unpopular military adventures by superpowers first began to be questioned, the Edgar Broughton Band were at the forefront of a musical and social revolution that swept across Europe in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The band also featured Edgar's brother Steve on drums and Arthur Grant on bass.

They started their career as a blues group under the name of the Edgar Broughton Blues Band, playing to a dedicated but limited following in the region around their hometown of Warwick.

However, when the band began to lean towards the emerging psychedlic movement, dropping the blues from their name as well as their music.

In 1968 the Broughtons moved to London on the trail of a record contract, which they eventually landed with EMI's prog-rock Harvest Records, which was also Deep Purple's label, before DP set-up Purple Records.

Their first single Evil / Death of an Electric Citizen, was released in 1969, followed by the band's debut album Wasa Wasa and if I'm not mistaken the Broughton's were championed - like may others - by broadcasting music legend John Peel.

I also saw the band at a festival at Buxton during the seventies, and remember hearing the shamnic growl from Edgar of Out Demons Out boom out across the gathered festival goers.

They also released Apache Dropout as a single, which sort of combined the Shadows instrumental with Captain Beefheart's Drop Out Boogie - and it made the charts.

I did hear that they played outside the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970 as a protest against ticket prices and Steve played drums on Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells, which was years ahead of itself.

The band started as a three-piece but by 1971 had asked previous member Victor Unitt, who had been playing with the Pretty Things, to rejoin the band.

With the new lineup, they released possibly their finest work: their eponymous - and most commercial - third album, best known by fans as the meat' album, which contained the classic Evening Over Rooftops.

Mike Oldfield also featured, on Thinking Of You and the album has been mooted as the highest point in the Broughtons' career because of its sense of wholeness and completeness.

The album was followed by the released of the double A-side Hotel Room and Call Me A Liar, which BBC disc jockey Tony Blackburn had as his record of the week!

Apparently, Edgar Broughton recalled Tony saying that "he hated everything that we stood for, but that the single was the best thing he had heard that year."

The single failed to chart but the album sold well throughout Europe, especially in Germany, where some British bands enjoyed more success than on home ground.

The Broughtons never quite made the big time in the way that their contemporaries such as Pink Floyd and Hawkwind did, but they certainly made their mark on classic English rock.

In fact, my mate Jeff, who was the drummer in one of the rock band's I was in during the 1970s and I'm sure is Edgar's number 1 fan, used to play Out Demons Out to warm up when we were rehearsing.

And thinking about, we also did a version of Edgar's Poppy.

The EBB split in the 1970s with the occasional reunion.

However, spurred on by the reissues of their classic Harvest label albums in 2004, the boys decided to reform with the original line up and their recent shows have received rave reviews.

On Saturday, December 8, the Edgar Broughton Band will be playing the Brewery Arts Centre, another feather in the cap of the Kendal venue's music officer Mike Chadwick, who, in my opinion, has programmed one of the best autumn seasons for music the Brewery has ever staged.

As Edgar informs me: "The time just seems right for us to get together to perform once more.

"We were always a socially aware band and in a way the times in which we live parallel those of the late 1960s. "Our music found a voice then and I feel strongly that our music has probably more relevance now than it has done for years.

"It's time to go out there and do it once more."

The original power trio of Edgar (Rob), Steve and bassist Arthur Grant have been augmented by Rob's son Luke on keyboards and Dave Cox on second guitar.

For the record, my favourite EBB track was 1972s Gone Blue.