Fire Windlesham Theatre

Fire
Windlesham Theatre, 30th Nov & 1st Dec 2007

sueholton.co.uk

Due to attending the Dave Cousins and Vince Martyn gig in Deal the previous night, Mike and I were only present on the 1st Dec performance of the Magic Shoemaker, when I had volunteered my services as camera crew. The film footage I'm delighted to say, has turned out great, and will hopefully be edited into a DVD at some point soon. Mike took on duties as stills cameraman, coping with the dry ice machine, strobe lights and dim lighting meant the results were not always great, but certainly give a flavour of the event. The whole performance was extremely well received, and the following review was written by Pete Bradley, who says it all.

"We set the dashboard to 1970 and hit 55mph just as the bolt of lightning hit the clock tower to travel back to the future not just once but twice this weekend.

Yes this was history. History because this was the first time that Fire had played together in 37 years. History because The Magic Shoemaker had never been performed live before. History because it was, well, historical.

But this was no dusty museum exhibit. This was the Future we were witnessing. These two concerts by these stunningly talented musicians cannot possibly be the last that they will ever play. Dave said that there was all sorts of media interest from around the world, including Japan. so there could well be many more concerts to come.

The number of concept albums produced, particularly in the 60s and 70s, is legion, and if you count Sgt Pepper whose sole concept seemed to be to make the Beatles lots of money, the number of concept albums is legion and one. There are also thousands of albums of musicals and film scores, but there are very few rock operas. Tommy, Quadrophenia, and The Wall are the only ones that spring to mind, and possibly The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, though I've never had a clue what that ones about. Oh, and of course, The Magic Shoemaker.

A rock opera, as well as telling a story has to be theatrical, and when on record, the theatre all takes place in your head, so when you see it live, there is a risk that the reality will disappoint. Dave Lambert had been very careful to ensure that this wasn't the case. He had choreographed the lighting to give a sixties feel, and even included stroboscopic lights, which nowadays in this era of health and safety is a rarity, and the whole performance, including his costumes enhanced the music rather than detracted. The lighting was a little dim, which made photography harder, but, along with the dry ice, it all added to the atmosphere. But the theatre didn't stop there. The programmes and even the tickets were works of art, even priced in pounds, shillings and pence.

The stage was set with two harelquined mannequins, (try saying that when you've had a few), on stage right, with an image of a castle on a hill projected at the rear.

The narrator, Ray Hammond, Fire's original manager, stood on stage left, in the only well lit part of the stage, with Bob Voice on drums at the rear, Dick Dufall on bass and backing vocals to the left, and Dave Lambert on the right.

To emphasise that this was a performance, and not just a rock concert, they started in very dim light with a pre-recorded tape of the band playing through themes from the show, during which the musicians took their place on the stage.

The lights came up on Ray, who introduced the show by saying that this wasn't just one fairy story, but two. There was the story of The Magic Shoemaker and also the story of Fire.

Dave had adapted the story line, to involve a Romeo and Juliet like romance as the reason behind the war that the Shoemaker prevents. This allowed him to weave other Fire material in to the show, including not only Treacle Toffee World and Father's Name is Dad, but also the stunning original version of It's Just Love, as recently released on Taste.

We all know how good a guitarist Dave is. We had been really excited at the prospect of seeing Dave playing keyboards, and he didn't disappoint. Watch out John Hawken. Not only that, but Dave demonstrated that he is a pretty mean harmonica player as well.

Paul Brett, although not an original member of Friday's Chyld had played on the Magic Shoemaker, and had intended to play on these two concerts. He had had to drop out at the last minute for family reasons, and the rest of the band had only had two rehearsals without him. You could not tell. Both performances were immaculate, and you would have thought that they had been playing together for years. The only the obvious change was that as Paul had been going to play DC's banjo part in Children Of Imagination, they finished with a reprise of Father's Name is Dad.

Neil Byford, as well, put in an amazing performance in the background, swapping and tuning Dave's guitars between songs.

There was less of an audience on Friday, so there was space for tables and chairs, but Saturday night was sold out, and the auditorium was filled with rows and rows of a very appreciative audience. In fact the Saturday night audience were fabulous. There were many young faces which was lovely, as it meant it wasn't just us old hippies there. The audience ooh-ed and aah-ed at the narration, which made Dave chuckle, particularly at the gasp of shock that met the news that the Princess was pregnant. Good audience participation in Happy Man Am I, and a spontaneous standing ovation at the end.

My favourite track? Difficult as everything was so good, but I think I'd have to plump for "I'd Like to Help You If I Can". Dick laid down a stunning Blues bass riff, and Dave topped it off with some virtuoso guitar. Loved it.

Dave is keen for as much publicity as possible for this show, and there will definitely be a CD released. Dick, Ali, Sue and Les all worked tirelessly to film the show, and hopefully Les will be able to mix this together to produce a DVD. I filmed much of it on my camera which will be of a lower resolution than their more professional equipment, so may not be of use to mix with the rest, but may well be good enough to appear on Fire's MySpace or Youtube. I gave a copy of my Friday recordings to Dave the next day so that he can exercise his editorial rights on it before any of it gets publicised. If you weren't there, don't worry. Some of the video will be released at some time."

Thanks Pete!

Click on each thumbnail image to view a larger version.
Click on the arrows to scroll through all the images.
An outlined arrow v shows there are no more photos to scroll through in that direction.
A solid arrow u shows that you can continue scrolling in that direction to view more photos.

Click here to go back to top of page