‘Passion, power, and ovens that rescue songs’: How legendary Hull band Red Guitars delivered their sensational comeback tour
‘RAZOR-SHARP’: Lou Duffy-Howard, left, and John Rowley. Picture by Richard Duffy-Howard
EXCLUSIVE
By Phil Ascough
After a triumphal reunion tour it’s time to face up to the burning question: what’s next for the Red Guitars?
Well, just like the band when they teased audiences by opening with a taste of ultimate crowd-pleaser Good Technology before shifting to Marimba Jive, we’re not throwing in the best stuff from the start.
Read on, and maybe there’ll be something special towards the end. A sting in the tail if you like, with a few other lyrical references along the way. If they don’t click get yourself a copy of Red Guitars Good Technology (1982–1984). They’re all on there.
There’s no doubt the appetite for more is enormous. Russ Litten reported on the sensational hometown show at the Adelphi and there’s nothing I can add to that, except to say that Russ was bang on when he said it felt like more than nostalgia.
LET IT RING: Hallam Lewis, left, and Jos Allen. Picture by Richard Duffy-Howard
The songs are still there, and we certainly don’t need to feel nostalgic for the inspiration for the lyrics because the inequalities and injustices chronicled by singer and lyricist Jeremy Kidd are rife, more than ever.
Fact, with its call to “take the profit out of war”, Marimba Jive’s anti-racism message, Steeltown about political inertia in the face of industrial decline and mounting job losses. We’ll come back to that.
Jeremy acknowledges the timelessness: “I suppose they are universal themes, how you can talk about the general through the specific. Even though Steeltown is about a specific time and place the same things happen in slightly different shapes and forms. It’s kind of interesting when that all comes round again.”
After the northern leg of the tour the action moved south with a home date for Jeremy in Brighton, a finale in Birmingham and, sandwiched in between, a date at the legendary 100 Club in Oxford Street, London.
It felt like a Hull City trip to Wembley, scouring the streets of the capital in search of decent food and drink, easily identifiable to those in the know by the appropriate attire for the occasion, in this case not the black and amber but a Red Guitars T-shirt.
JIVE: From left, Hallam Lewis, Jos Allen, and Jeremy Kidd. Picture by Richard Duffy-Howard
Jeremy again: “Merchandise was absolutely fantastic. We ran out of T-shirts after the first four gigs and I had to phone the company to see if we could get more for the last three shows.”
It’s fair to describe the Rolling Stones as stablemates of the Red Guitars, with AEG Presents running both tours, but you can be sure Mick Jagger won’t be chasing up the suppliers to get more T-shirts delivered to Hyde Park if they sell out at Anfield.
The Red Guitars tour has been a team effort with the original five members of the band augmented by another guitarist, Jos Allen, and with Rich Duffy-Howard recognised for his vital role as driver, logistics supremo, the man who shifted all those T-shirts, and official photographer. We’ve got photographs of all the gigs.
And then there’s Doug Swallow, son of one of lead guitarist Hallam Lewis’s former flatmates, who was brought in to create a video documentary, and also stepped up to play in some samples from the original recordings.
In preparing their show the band came across the original two-inch tapes of the Slow to Fade album and some of their singles, all circa 1983 and 84. In a process which sounds more like a scene from Masterchef than Old Grey Whistle Test, the tapes were baked slowly by Keith Herd at Fairview Studios and were then able to be played once only, digitised and ready for use.
‘FANTASTIC’: Matt Higgins. Picture by Richard Duffy-Howard
Doug, hidden away at the back of the stage, pressed the buttons to insert some of the additional percussion and electronic elements into the live set. We’ve got ovens that can rescue songs. We’ve got machines that sound like orchestras. We can, indeed, reproduce a work of art.
But the main concern of the band members was whether they, as musicians and people, were in similarly fragile condition to those tapes! Hallam and bass player Lou Duffy-Howard were still playing regularly, but arthritis has limited rhythm guitarist John Rowley’s work as a highly-regarded performer and producer, and Jeremy’s career took him into the realm of IT, designing websites and teaching others.
Matt Higgins hadn’t played for years but, by fortunate if bizarre coincidence, he’d recently been made redundant so invested in a drum kit. When Steeltown was closing down and all the mills were rusting, everybody got a new car with the redundancy money they paid. Now it’ll get you a drum kit. Maybe the band will do a new song about levelling down.
Jeremy put his web design skills to use by maintaining the band’s website and that’s how Steve Homer, CEO of AEG Presents, tracked them down. He offered to set up the tour, Jeremy ran it past his bandmates and they started to pull together some ideas, using good technology to connect across half a dozen different locations, including Hallam’s home in Cape Town.
After the Adelphi gig, John told how the doubts were banished by the passion and professionalism which the tour demonstrated is as intense as ever. We’ve all seen bigger bands than the Red Guitars wing it with comeback gigs and roll out half-hearted sets for full-price tickets. What stood out from the Slow to Fade tour was the dedication and desire to be the best they could be.
SELL-OUT: Red Guitars at the 100 Club in London. Picture by Nigel Richardson
There was a poignancy behind it as well – in common with so many of us, the band members have experience personal loss in recent years.
Jeremy revealed: “All of us have had some sad news over the period that we have been together so we were aware we needed to get a move on!”
After those global Zoom sessions the band welcomed a physical Hallam to O’Riley’s to apply the polish with live rehearsals, and then they hit the road. As word spread ticket sales mounted. The Adelphi and the 100 Club sold out and the other five venues weren’t far short.
Hull was tight, in terms of playing and space, on stage and in the crowd. The sound was razor sharp, crystal clear, and the result of painstaking work by the band.
I congratulated Paul Jackson on racking up another great Adelphi night and suggested they’d delivered a few.
Typical Jacko, he harrumphed: “We’ve had thousands!”
NOT MISSING THIS ONE: Red Guitars fans in London, from left, front, Nigel Richardson, Janet Richardson, Nigel Bower; rear, from left, Matthew Ascough and Phil Ascough. Picture by Nigel Richardson
The 100 Club is an awkward shape, a long room with the stage along one of the side walls and columns obscuring the view in parts. But it’s a spacious platform and gave the band a freedom which they relished, turning up the vibrancy and the volume and igniting an ecstatic crowd.
Jeremy observed: “Lou has been playing consistently over the years and there was no doubt about her ability to step up to the mark. Matt had not been playing music at all but he was fantastic, probably more solid than he was in the 80s. His memory for the songs was phenomenal. As the tour went on Hallam just got better and better. John put together some good tech for us and we had in-ear monitors which were a Godsend.”
Lou offered a touch of genuine nostalgia: “We had a minibus for the band and a van with all the gear in. We went back to the days of hotel bars and service station breakfasts, sitting in the van up and down the motorway!”
The support bands also shone. For the northern gigs Terra Fin, featuring Lou’s son Corey with guest appearances by one of her other sons Dexter. In the south it was Fragile Creatures, fronted by Jeremy’s son Adam. It’s clear the future is in safe hands.
And with the gear packed and ready to shift into the van, the last word goes to Rich: “Red Guitars… LOAD OUT!”
‘VIBRANCY AND VOLUME’: From left, Jeremy Kidd, Lou Duffy-Howard, and John Rowley. Picture by Richard Duffy-Howard
Which leaves just one more thing… Steve Homer told us a few weeks ago that plenty more venues are interested in booking the band. Lou and Jeremy revealed they’ve got more material, some old and some brand new work in progress for live shows, and maybe even new releases.
Lou said: “We have a new album’s worth of material at different stages of being worked up. That’s something we are all particularly interested in doing. We have more than we played but we just couldn’t fit it into the set.”
Jeremy added: “Hopefully we will be talking to Steve about the possibility of doing some stuff. There was one song that we rehearsed but we didn’t put in the set – it actually pre-dates Slow to Fade.
“We thought it sounded pretty good. Other songs are more recent and I have some that I was in the process of writing when I left the band – they are still knocking around and they are worth doing but we don’t want to just churn out any old tosh.
“We have a deal with a publishing company who say we should put out something at the end of 2023 as the anniversary of Good Technology, so maybe that will happen. We are going to try and get a regular rehearsal schedule going in the next few months, albeit on Zoom.
“From the audience reaction we couldn’t really have asked for more. It was the same everywhere and we had great support from AEG with reps at every gig.
“The ticket sales doubled in the last week so news was getting out and all the venues were amazing, people singing along to the songs and real enthusiasm to see the band. There were people who came to three or four gigs, which was amazing. Someone came from Dubai! It’s turned out to be fantastic.”
Right now they’re all busy with other things but clearly there’s plenty to consider so hopefully they’ll find lots of leisure time to sit and work it out.
Meanwhile to see band comments, photographs and fan feedback have a look at Red Guitars.