Bill Nelson and the Lost Satellites - The Academy 3 Manchester 10th October 2004
Part One: 'Bejeweled Dream Of Electric Guitars' A short solo instrumental performance from Bill Nelson featuring live improvised guitars over interactive pre-recorded tracks with his own video creations as backdrop.
Setlist: This Very Moment / Transoceanic / Apollinaire / Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the Road To Enlightenment / For Stuart / Sexy Buddah / Small Red Birds / John Peel composition
Part Two: 'Eight Millimetre Memories...Be Bop Deluxe In The South Of France.'
A thirty minute film by Bill Nelson assembled from archive home-cine footage originally taken by Bill in 1977 during the recording of Be Bop Deluxe's 'Drastic Plastic' album in Juan-Les-Pins. The film utilises several of Bill's instrumental recordings as a soundtrack.
Part Three: ' Jukebox From Another World: Be Bop Deluxe And Beyond...'
Bill Nelson And The Lost Satellites perform selected songs from albums recorded over the last thirty years.
Setlist: The October Man / Night Creatures / God Man Slain / Do You Dream In Colour? / Somewhere Else Is Here / Lovers Are Mortal / Furniture Music / Slumberlite / Adventures In a Yorkshire Landscape / Crying To The Sky / Don’t Touch Me I’m Electric / Big Yellow Moon / Visions Of Endless Hope / Sister Seagull / Contemplation / Life In Your Hands / Maid In Heaven / Panic In The World // Ships In The Night / Wonder Of The Moment
Setlist: This Very Moment / Transoceanic / Apollinaire / Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the Road To Enlightenment / For Stuart / Sexy Buddah / Small Red Birds / John Peel composition
Part Two: 'Eight Millimetre Memories...Be Bop Deluxe In The South Of France.'
A thirty minute film by Bill Nelson assembled from archive home-cine footage originally taken by Bill in 1977 during the recording of Be Bop Deluxe's 'Drastic Plastic' album in Juan-Les-Pins. The film utilises several of Bill's instrumental recordings as a soundtrack.
Part Three: ' Jukebox From Another World: Be Bop Deluxe And Beyond...'
Bill Nelson And The Lost Satellites perform selected songs from albums recorded over the last thirty years.
Setlist: The October Man / Night Creatures / God Man Slain / Do You Dream In Colour? / Somewhere Else Is Here / Lovers Are Mortal / Furniture Music / Slumberlite / Adventures In a Yorkshire Landscape / Crying To The Sky / Don’t Touch Me I’m Electric / Big Yellow Moon / Visions Of Endless Hope / Sister Seagull / Contemplation / Life In Your Hands / Maid In Heaven / Panic In The World // Ships In The Night / Wonder Of The Moment
I am a Be Bop Deluxe fan. Always have been, always will be.
Coming just three days after the Nazareth gig at the Manchester Academy 3, Bill Nelson and the Lost Satellites couldn’t have been more different in some respects, yet so similar in others. Like Nazareth, Be Bop Deluxe is one of those bands I remember seeing on Top of the Pops in the mid ‘70s. A real band, not just some manufactured, pre-packaged, glam-pap-pop for knicker-wetting pre-teen Bay City Roller fans. Be Bop was weird, quirky, iconoclastic. But, you could the smell the talent through the wireless. Let’s take those adjectives and analyse them, just for a second or two.
According to Encarta Dictionary in Word 2003, we get the following meanings:
Weird : odd, supernatural
Well, let’s face it; Be Bop Deluxe was Brian Eno-weird. These guys wore make-up, but not in a Danny La Rue camp kind of way. This was Goth twenty years before Goth was even a twinkle on a black fingernail.
Quirky : odd event, odd mannerism
‘Backstage, we stand naked, all the makeup cleaned away’ was seriously quirky, even in the Mary Whitehouse/Porny Lord pole-up-the-ass 70s. I know. I was there. These blokes made David Bowie look normal.
Iconoclastic : somebody who challenges or overturns traditional beliefs, customs, and values
Bill Nelson was challenging traditional beliefs, customs and values then, continues to do so now, and probably always will.
Coming just three days after the Nazareth gig at the Manchester Academy 3, Bill Nelson and the Lost Satellites couldn’t have been more different in some respects, yet so similar in others. Like Nazareth, Be Bop Deluxe is one of those bands I remember seeing on Top of the Pops in the mid ‘70s. A real band, not just some manufactured, pre-packaged, glam-pap-pop for knicker-wetting pre-teen Bay City Roller fans. Be Bop was weird, quirky, iconoclastic. But, you could the smell the talent through the wireless. Let’s take those adjectives and analyse them, just for a second or two.
According to Encarta Dictionary in Word 2003, we get the following meanings:
Weird : odd, supernatural
Well, let’s face it; Be Bop Deluxe was Brian Eno-weird. These guys wore make-up, but not in a Danny La Rue camp kind of way. This was Goth twenty years before Goth was even a twinkle on a black fingernail.
Quirky : odd event, odd mannerism
‘Backstage, we stand naked, all the makeup cleaned away’ was seriously quirky, even in the Mary Whitehouse/Porny Lord pole-up-the-ass 70s. I know. I was there. These blokes made David Bowie look normal.
Iconoclastic : somebody who challenges or overturns traditional beliefs, customs, and values
Bill Nelson was challenging traditional beliefs, customs and values then, continues to do so now, and probably always will.
Anyone who is of a certain age remembers certain TOTP events. Maybe it was Greg Lake’s velvet suit, Roxy Music performing Virginia Plain, Deep Purple doing Black Night, Ozzy’s spaghetti suit, Ian Hunter’s mirrored guitar. Everyone certainly remembers two events though. One was the Jocky Wilson fiasco. The other, whether you liked Be Bop Deluxe or not, was Ships in the Night. It was just so out of place on the program, so different, so damn good. After seeing that, I was hooked. The blend of Bill’s awesome guitar work, the Dan Dare/Flash Gordon/Metropolis/Robot sci-fi imagery and the fact that it did not sound like anything else, was so enticing and enthralling.
Sadly, I never got to see them live. The timing was just not right and Bill Nelson disbanded Be Bop Deluxe before I really got into serious gig-going.
After the excellent Red Noise album, Bill Nelson disappeared from my radar screen for much of the next two decades, blipping only occasionally, as my interest waned in the poodle-haired, lycra-clad, Fairlight-dominated, thatlittleantichristphilcollinsified, lameass, anaemic shonky excuse-for-a-music-scene, that infected the ‘80s. and ‘90s. For me, there was no music scene, between 1983 and 1997. As far as I was concerned, the late ‘70s segued quite nicely into the late ‘90s.
Consequently, I spent a good many years listening to my long-playing, microgroove Be Bop Deluxe record albums. And thank God, I did! I believe it stopped me becoming a serial killer. But, let’s not get into that right now.
Each of the BBD albums is excellent. That is not open to debate. I love them all. It’s just that some are out of this world, or any other; I’m talking here about the period that encompassed Sunburst Finish, Modern Music and Live! In the Air Age. Those are the three recordings that document a band at the very peak of its powers; technologically, musically and lyrically.
Sadly, I never got to see them live. The timing was just not right and Bill Nelson disbanded Be Bop Deluxe before I really got into serious gig-going.
After the excellent Red Noise album, Bill Nelson disappeared from my radar screen for much of the next two decades, blipping only occasionally, as my interest waned in the poodle-haired, lycra-clad, Fairlight-dominated, thatlittleantichristphilcollinsified, lameass, anaemic shonky excuse-for-a-music-scene, that infected the ‘80s. and ‘90s. For me, there was no music scene, between 1983 and 1997. As far as I was concerned, the late ‘70s segued quite nicely into the late ‘90s.
Consequently, I spent a good many years listening to my long-playing, microgroove Be Bop Deluxe record albums. And thank God, I did! I believe it stopped me becoming a serial killer. But, let’s not get into that right now.
Each of the BBD albums is excellent. That is not open to debate. I love them all. It’s just that some are out of this world, or any other; I’m talking here about the period that encompassed Sunburst Finish, Modern Music and Live! In the Air Age. Those are the three recordings that document a band at the very peak of its powers; technologically, musically and lyrically.
Bill deep-sixed Be Bop because he was not happy with the concept of being a guitar hero. He still isn’t. He has spent much of the last twenty-five years trying to lay to rest the ghost of Be Bop Deluxe. No matter how much he tries to do this, it still stalks and haunts him, and probably always will. In fact, the more he tries to disassociate himself from his past, the more it seems to impose itself on his present.
I fully admit, the opportunity to see Bill Nelson play Be Bop Deluxe songs was what persuaded me to go to see the Lost Satellites. On that score, I was not disappointed. The choice of BBD songs was eclectic, ingenious and inspired. With one exception – Ships in the Night, without which there would most likely have been a riot, albeit a very polite and restrained one, given the average age and temperament of the audience - the choices were mostly unpredictable, yet wonderful to hear. The band performed them flawlessly, with panache and style, and they sounded as fresh in 2004 as they did almost thirty years ago.
Still, it was Nelson’s guitar playing that stood out on the night. He may not want to be a guitar hero, but he, unarguably, is. When I watch someone on a stage playing a guitar, and I stand their open-mouthed, unable to reconcile what I see with what I hear, that is something special. Sorry, Bill. It’s the truth. Your guitar work is astonishingly accomplished, uncompromising, and you don’t sound like anyone else. Whichever way you slice it, that marks an individual as a guitar hero in my book.
The big shock of the night was that I thoroughly enjoyed the solo set. Ashamedly, in my ignorance, I had expected to be a bit bored with the self-indulgence of it all; just marking time until they could get on with the Be Bop stuff. I wasn’t bored. Far from it. I was entranced and overwhelmed by the musicality and quality of the songs. It wasn’t what I had expected and, when it came to an end, I wanted more. It was sufficient to convince me to purchase a copy of the Satellite Songs CD, at any rate, and begin my long-overdue review of the period of Bill’s evolution that I have, until now, missed out on.
The film, which followed Bill’s solo set, was most enjoyable. Edited together from 8mm footage Bill shot in the South of France during the recording of Drastic Plastic, complemented with a sound track of original guitar work, was a portal to the past. Lovingly assembled, it shows that Bill is prouder of his past than he would have us believe. Anyone who can invest so much of his time and effort, and pour so much of himself into creating such a masterpiece, is not trying to bury his past; he is trying to put it in context.
I fully admit, the opportunity to see Bill Nelson play Be Bop Deluxe songs was what persuaded me to go to see the Lost Satellites. On that score, I was not disappointed. The choice of BBD songs was eclectic, ingenious and inspired. With one exception – Ships in the Night, without which there would most likely have been a riot, albeit a very polite and restrained one, given the average age and temperament of the audience - the choices were mostly unpredictable, yet wonderful to hear. The band performed them flawlessly, with panache and style, and they sounded as fresh in 2004 as they did almost thirty years ago.
Still, it was Nelson’s guitar playing that stood out on the night. He may not want to be a guitar hero, but he, unarguably, is. When I watch someone on a stage playing a guitar, and I stand their open-mouthed, unable to reconcile what I see with what I hear, that is something special. Sorry, Bill. It’s the truth. Your guitar work is astonishingly accomplished, uncompromising, and you don’t sound like anyone else. Whichever way you slice it, that marks an individual as a guitar hero in my book.
The big shock of the night was that I thoroughly enjoyed the solo set. Ashamedly, in my ignorance, I had expected to be a bit bored with the self-indulgence of it all; just marking time until they could get on with the Be Bop stuff. I wasn’t bored. Far from it. I was entranced and overwhelmed by the musicality and quality of the songs. It wasn’t what I had expected and, when it came to an end, I wanted more. It was sufficient to convince me to purchase a copy of the Satellite Songs CD, at any rate, and begin my long-overdue review of the period of Bill’s evolution that I have, until now, missed out on.
The film, which followed Bill’s solo set, was most enjoyable. Edited together from 8mm footage Bill shot in the South of France during the recording of Drastic Plastic, complemented with a sound track of original guitar work, was a portal to the past. Lovingly assembled, it shows that Bill is prouder of his past than he would have us believe. Anyone who can invest so much of his time and effort, and pour so much of himself into creating such a masterpiece, is not trying to bury his past; he is trying to put it in context.
The third set of the night, the full band, the Be Bop Deluxe tunes and the whole nine yards, was all that it could have been, and then some. But, surprisingly, although it was great to hear the old songs, the show would still have been just as enjoyable without them. I never expected to be writing that sentence, but it happens to be the case. The post-Be Bop material is just as strong, holds its own, and is as much a credit to the man’s career as anything that came before 1980.
The Bill Nelson and The Lost Satellites show was one of the most imaginative formats I have ever seen. The value for the money was matchless; three hours of entertainment for £10 is unheard of in this day and age, when your average concert ticket works out at about £15/hour. Then again, Bill has never been the conventional type and long may it remain so. Yes, I shall purchase the Be Bop Deluxe remasters, of course, but my shopping list now also includes some of Bill’s solo material too.
I am a Be Bop Deluxe fan. Always have been, always will be.
Now, I’m also a Bill Nelson fan.
Mark L. Potts
The God of Thunder
12th October 2004
The Bill Nelson and The Lost Satellites show was one of the most imaginative formats I have ever seen. The value for the money was matchless; three hours of entertainment for £10 is unheard of in this day and age, when your average concert ticket works out at about £15/hour. Then again, Bill has never been the conventional type and long may it remain so. Yes, I shall purchase the Be Bop Deluxe remasters, of course, but my shopping list now also includes some of Bill’s solo material too.
I am a Be Bop Deluxe fan. Always have been, always will be.
Now, I’m also a Bill Nelson fan.
Mark L. Potts
The God of Thunder
12th October 2004
About the photos...
This was the last set of photos I took with my Fuji 2800Z.
The camera has served me well over the last couple of years and has taken around 5000 pictures, most of which can be found on this website.
The main reason for upgrading the camera was simple: my new Fuji S7000 can shoot at ISO400, 6MP without a flash.
Admittedly, it will take me a while to get used to it and figure how it works but, I am sure it will get as much use, if not more than my trusty 2800. After two years of taking pics with the 2800, I had got it completely sussed and I like a lot of these pictures of Bill Nelson. The first gig I took the S7000 to, Nils Lofgren, the pictures are, by comparison, quite shoddy. Nevertheless, that is my fault, not the camera's!!!
Considering the limitations of the 2800, I have had a lot of success with it and looking back over some of the gigs I am quite proud of some of those shots. Indeed, I have received many compliments on my photography and many requests to use my pictures on band websites and in magazines. It's a good job I don't do this for the money though, because I'd be broke by now... oh, wait a minute, I am broke... Bugger! So, donations, etc... large or small... to my PayPal account.
I thank you. And goodnight Mrs Calabash, wherever you are.
The camera has served me well over the last couple of years and has taken around 5000 pictures, most of which can be found on this website.
The main reason for upgrading the camera was simple: my new Fuji S7000 can shoot at ISO400, 6MP without a flash.
Admittedly, it will take me a while to get used to it and figure how it works but, I am sure it will get as much use, if not more than my trusty 2800. After two years of taking pics with the 2800, I had got it completely sussed and I like a lot of these pictures of Bill Nelson. The first gig I took the S7000 to, Nils Lofgren, the pictures are, by comparison, quite shoddy. Nevertheless, that is my fault, not the camera's!!!
Considering the limitations of the 2800, I have had a lot of success with it and looking back over some of the gigs I am quite proud of some of those shots. Indeed, I have received many compliments on my photography and many requests to use my pictures on band websites and in magazines. It's a good job I don't do this for the money though, because I'd be broke by now... oh, wait a minute, I am broke... Bugger! So, donations, etc... large or small... to my PayPal account.
I thank you. And goodnight Mrs Calabash, wherever you are.