OCEAN: An early recording from the Barrow Nautical Club on 24th July 1971
Steve Evans
(guitar/keyboard and lead vocals)
Eric Hodgson
(drums and backing vocals)
Alex Wilkinson
(lead guitar and backing vocals)
Kev Farish
(bass guitar and backing vocals)
This recording, though not named on the original cassette tape, is thought to be the first set from the Barrow Nautical Club on 24 July 1971. The clues are in "Proud Mary" where Steve improvises some lyrics to include "Windermere" (where the band played the night before), "Barrow", and "Walney Pier". It's also the only known recording of "Long Way From LA" (Kev was really into Canned Heat at the time) and is worth preserving just for that. The recording quality is quite rough and this gig was in the early days of the band where everything now seems to be quite manic. However, Steve's vocals do seem to be pretty good and Kev takes lead vocals on "Long Way From LA" and "Hot Love". A curious thread throughout the recording is that a member of the audience keeps shouting "Magic Roundabout" after almost every song! Don't know if this is because the Farfisa organ sounds a bit like the one on the theme tune to that programme or what? However there's a link (?) with this to the name of the next band - Zebedee - which was a character in that programme. Spooky!
