Crystal Palace Garden Party – 10th September 1977. Admission £4.80
Santana – Elvis Costello & the Attractions – Southside Johnny & the Ashbury Dukes – Crawler
I was seventeen years old and watching Santana on their prime as the sun was setting at the Crystal Palace Bowl and a lady near us took her top off and started dancing, at that moment I thought live can’t better than this. The music of Sanatana had a big influence on my musical journey with their Latin Rock vibe eith lots of percussion was my first experience of what is called World Music these days although still within the boundaries of Rock to make it palatable at that time.
There was a small group of us who attended and what got their in time to catch Crawler who formed from the ashes of Back Street Crawler aster Paul Kossoff sadly passed away. I was a big fan of Free but never got to see them live and was really sad to see Paul Kossoff interviewed of the Old Grey Whistle Test when he was high on drugs before he died. I brought the first two Crawler albums and was obviously one of the few people there to see them perform live.
I got to Southside Johnny and the Ashbury Dukes a few times at Festivals of that time, closely linked to Bruce Springsteen who was emerging at that time they represented a sound that was coming out of America at that time when Punk was taking over in the UK.
This was the first big gig for Elvis Costello and the Attractions but sadly the sound wasn’t great and it was really difficult for the band to connect with the audience. The album they were promoting was My Aim Is True on Stiff Records and the band went on to huge success.
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