Almost 40 Years Ago

Way back in 1976 I started my first job as an apprentice TV engineer is a shop in Portland Street in Swansea. About a year or so later I was Watching a music show called The Old Grey Whistle Test and heard a band called Camel perform a few tracks from an album called The Snow Goose.

The downstairs part of our shop was given over to a record shop called The Sound Advice Rock Shop. I my opinion this is probably the best name ever for a record store. We didn't have the Snow Goose in stock, so I spent nearly half of my weekly wage on a cassette of their next album called Moonmadness, unlike The Snow Goose this had vocals on it and I was blown away. I have followed the band to this day but never managed to get to seem them until 2000 when they performed at The Lomax in Liverpool, I queued and eventually got into the area they were performing and was right at the back far away from the main stage. I heard a noise behind me, there was a smaller stage and to my delight they appeared on this one, I was at the front, there was an acoustic set during the performance and it was a brilliant night.

 I was lucky enough to get to meet them afterwards outside and then for various circumstances didn't get a chance to see them again until The Snow Goose tour at the Batbican in London.

It was nice to hear a refreshed version of one of my favourite albums and afterwards there was a long drive back home to Swansea.






Sadly Guy LeBlanc on the left in the above picture and on the right in the bottom one left us, a victim of that evil disease cancer.

I got to seem them again in 2015 when the appeared at the Wulfrun Hallin Wolverhampton and managed to have a chat with Andy and Colin after the show.

 


On Monday, about 40 years from when I bought that Moonmadness cassette, We'll be off to the Royal Albert Hall to see them perform the whole of the album and other tracks. 

They have a new keyboard player, his name is Pete Jones, incredibly talented keyboard player with a really good voice, Denis Clements is on drums, Colin Bass on Bass guitar and Andy Latimer on guitar, flute and the man behind the band.

Let's hope another album comes our way soon.

To get you started, here's a track called Mother Road from the album Dust and Dreams performed by the current line up

And here's Song Within A Song from Moonmadness