In 1978 English band The Motors reached Number 4 on the UK charts with their single “Airport”.
This was another song I got to know through it being played by the resident band at the Majestic Hotel in Palmerston North, New Zealand, when I was a student.
The Motors reached Number 13 in the UK with “Forget About You”.
This is the album version of “Airport”:
I also found this live version of “Airport” from 1978:
Here’s “Forget About You” live:
Both of these tracks are from the album “Approved By The Motors”, as I have just confirmed by looking at my record collection.
And for something a little different, from the previous year, here’s “Dancing The Night Away” (later also covered by Cheap Trick):
In 1974 while visiting my older brother in Invercargill at the very bottom of New Zealand’s South Island, I bought the Ringo Starr album “Ringo”, featuring the single “Photograph”, which went to No. 1 in America.
Another song from the album, also a Number 1 hit in the USA, was “You’re Sixteen”.
I also rather like “Six O’Clock”, penned by Paul McCartney.
Here is the album version of “Photograph”, which was co-written by another former member of The Beatles, George Harrison, and produced by Richard Perry:
I’m not sure when this live version of “Photograph” was performed, it is Ringo Starr & His All-Star Band, featuring John Entwistle of The Who on bass, Billy Preston on keyboards and Ringo’s son Zak Starkey on drums (at least I think it is, I had to change the video, this one is 1995 apparently):
As both John Entwistle and Billy Preston are no longer alive, it must have been a while ago.
And here is “Six O’Clock”, not a hit, but I like it:
I have found an interesting connection with Ringo Starr: a fellow (earlier) graduate of Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand, the late Dave Jordan, wrote one of the songs on his 1976 album “Rotogravure”.
In April 1979 I attended a live concert of reggae musicians Bob Marley and The Wailers that was part of the Babylon By Bus Tour, featuring songs like “Positive Vibration”, “I Shot The Sheriff”, “No Woman, No Cry”, “Lively Up Yourself”, “Is This Love?”, “Get Up, Stand Up” and “Exodus”.
It was an afternoon concert at Easter, at the Western Springs Stadium in Auckland, New Zealand.
I was actually in Auckland with a van full of other students from Massey University in Palmerston North, selling “capping magazines” – a collection of largely rude jokes with a list of that year’s graduates in the centre.
The entrance area to Western Springs was an ideal place to offer the magazines – at 50 NZ cents each – to passersby on their way to the concert.
When the time was right, we stopped selling, went in and enjoyed the concert, then carried on again afterwards as the crowds slowly headed off to cars and buses.
This was the same venue where exactly two years earlier I had experienced the Alice Cooper “Welcome To My Nightmare” concert, and in December 1978 David Bowie (“Station To Station”), so it was interesting to see it in the daytime.
The setlist of the Babylon By Bus Tour reflected the album of the same name, which the tour through Asia and Oceania (New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii) was promoting.
These are the more well known songs from the album and tour (well, more well known to me at least…).
“Positive Vibration” (sometimes called “Rastaman Vibration”:
“Rastaman Vibration”:
“I Shot The Sheriff”:
“No Woman, No Cry”:
“Lively Up Yourself”:
“Is This Love?”:
“Get Up, Stand Up”:
“Exodus”:
More than anyone else Bob Marley is identified with reggae music, and I guess I was privileged to see him in 1979 – just over two years later he died. The legacy remains.
The Scavengers were one of the first New Zealand punk bands in the late Seventies (along with The Suburban Reptiles), most well known locally for their songs “Mysterex” and “True Love”.
The band was actually formed pre-punk in the mid Seventies by graphic design students at the Auckland Technical Institute and renamed The Scavengers in 1977 when the punk movement started.
They contributed the two tracks mentioned to a compilation album called “AK79”.
At first the only video of “True Love” played by The Scavengers I could find was from an “AK79 Show” in 2008 where the sound quality was so bad I didn’t want to inflict it on you. Meanwhile I just found another, shorter one that is bearable (just!) and gives an idea of the original energy.
In 1979 The Scavengers moved to Melbourne, Australia and again renamed themselves The Marching Girls in 1980.
I was thinking The Scavengers were the punk trio I engaged for a free rock festival at the Massey University Student Orientation in Palmerston North in March 1980, but unless they came back to New Zealand before renaming themselves, I guess it wasn’t them. Have to do some digging to find the answer to that one.
Anyway, here is “Mysterex” from 1978:
In this clip band member at the time Brendan Perry (who now does VERY different things) describes the background to “Mysterex”:
As mentioned, here is “True Love” at “AK79 Revisited” in 2008 (the other video of the same performance says The Scavengers…):
Actually, I will give you the option of watching the other video if you like, which includes two girls jumping on the stage and has better video quality (but don’t say I didn’t warn you about the sound!):
And here is The Scavengers song “True Love” played by the band’s reincarnation Marching Girls some years later, when it was used in the soundtrack of a film called “Dogs In Space”:
Tamed down a bit by this time… think I prefer the Scavengers version.
At the very end of the Seventies, late 1979, I remember Englishman Gary Numan singing “Cars”, from his album “The Pleasure Principle”.
In fact, whenever I hear it or think of Gary Numan or “Cars”, it reminds me of being in not a car but a Transit van, at 4 o’clock in the morning.
We had just finished clearing up after a dance during the student orientation I was running at Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Together with the people helping, we had stopped off at a service station, the only place still open, to get something to eat, and I vividly remember “Cars” playing on the radio as we got out of the van.
That was actually at the start of 1980, so obviously the song still got airplay in New Zealand for a while (it was apparently released in August 1979).
Here’s Gary Numan in the promotional video of “Cars”:
I don’t really remember anything else by Gary Numan, but this one has stuck in my mind.
