Images may be subject to copyright
On this day, 27 January 1977, rock band Be Dop Deluxe played Cardiff’s Capitol Theatre on their Live In The Air Age Tour, supported by Steve Gibbons Band.
Be-Bop Deluxe was founded in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, by singer, guitarist and principal songwriter Bill Nelson in 1972.
The provided the recordings for their soon to be released Live! In The Air Age album featuring songs recording during the tour.
The band had a few months before released their fourth studio album Modern Music, which was to be the band’s highest studio album chart placing, peaking at No 12 in the UK charts.
Stylistically, the songs took elements from progressive rock, glam rock (the band had flirted with make-up in the early days) and hard guitar rock. "Ships in the Night", taken from the band's third album Sunburst Finish, was their most successful single in both the UK and the US. The single features an alto saxophone solo by Ian Nelson.
The album was notably the first to be produced by EMI employee John Leckie, who had hitherto worked for the company as a recording engineer, in which capacity he had served on Axe Victim, which he also in effect produced. It was clearly a happy relationship: Leckie would go on to produce all the subsequent Be-Bop Deluxe and Bill Nelson's Red Noise albums for Harvest, including the proposed Red Noise album Quit Dreaming And Get On The Beam that Harvest refused to release. Nelson shared producing credits with Leckie from Drastic Plastic onward.
The first three Be-Bop Deluxe albums are all, in one way or another, named after guitars. "Axe" is slang for a guitar, "Futurama" is a particular make of guitar, while "Sunburst Finish" refers to a style of finishing for the instrument.
The title track of the fourth album, Modern Music, was a ten-minute suite of songs inspired by the experience of the band's touring the US.
Setlist
Life in the Air Age
Fair Exchange
Piece of Mine
Sister Seagull
Mill Street Junction
Ships in the Night
Swan Song
Maid in Heaven
Shine
Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape
Twilight Capers
The Modern Music Suite
Forbidden Lovers
Down on Terminal Street
Encore:
Blazing Apostles
