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Face To Face With The Angels
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Howzat! With Jeff Jenkins
Who throws the winning dice/Who lies beneath the ice/After the rain
It’s one of the best presents Australian rock could get as it celebrates its 50th birthday – Doc Neeson back with The Angels. And it shows that if all the members of a band are still alive, a re-formation is possible. Doc was taking the rest of the band to court late last year, to stop them from using the name The Angels. But now Doc is back, and The Angels have hit the road again.
The lineup is Doc, John and Rick Brewster, Chris Bailey on bass, and Buzz Bidstrup on drums. It’s the first time they have all played together since 1981.
The tour celebrates the 30th anniversary of the band’s second album, Face To Face, which came in at number 42 on The Age’s list of the 50 greatest Australian albums of all time.
Albert Productions have released a special anniversary edition of the album, featuring five tracks recorded live at La Trobe Uni in 1979 (a DVD of this gig is coming soon).
Face To Face was the first great album that Mark Opitz produced (under the tutelage of Vanda and Young). It was released around the time The Angels supported David Bowie, a tour that was celebrated in the Richard Lowenstein movie Dogs In Space. The band had earlier supported Meat Loaf on his Bat Out Of Hell tour.
Face To Face features seven undeniable Angels classics – After The Rain, Love Takes Care, Take A Long Line, Marseilles, Be With You, I Ain’t The One and Comin Down.
Doc gave Howzat! an insight into 'Take A Long Line,' which was the band’s first Top 40 hit and the start of the band’s classic catchphrase, “This is it, folks, over the top”.
“'Take A Long Line' was pretty interesting for me as a lyric writer,” Doc explains. “It was early days for us, we were trying to develop a style. Rick had an idea for the guitar and he also had the line ‘take a long line’, which he got from an old blues song. We were all Bob Dylan fans and there’s his song 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' – ‘Johnny’s in the basement, mixing up the medicine … take a long line!’ We were just drawing on influences all over the place. But it was a success for us because we found a way to be individual.”
More Albert’s re-releases are on the way, including albums from Rose Tattoo, The Easybeats and John Paul Young. But it will be hard to top Face To Face.
The Angels should have conquered the world, like their labelmates AC/DC. Inexplicably, they didn’t. But it’s great to have ’em back.
TOUR DATES:
July 9 - Hallam Hotel, VIC
July 10 - Ferntree Gully Hotel, VIC
July 11 - Doncaster Shoppingtown Hotel, VIC
July 13 - Chelsea Hotel, VIC
July 18 - The Gov, Adelaide
July 19 - The Gov, Adelaide
July 24 - Caloundra Hotel, QLD
July 25 - Southport RSL, QLD
July 26 - North Leagues & Services Cklub, Brisbane
July 31 - Wyong Leagues Club, NSW
August 1 - Waves, Wollongong
August 2 - Panthers, Newcastle