Pandorah wrote:
well I took the pic ! attached it where it says choose file ! I could see a thumb nail of it in the little box @ the bottom ! but it's not here !
awh ! I give up !
( well for now anyway ! ) I need to lie down in a dark room

oh ! I just had a horrible thought !

I remember trying to put a picture on hear from my iPhone !
of the Jack Bruce gig back in 1999 !

please don't tell me I threw a spanner in the works !
the site crashed and burned shortly afterwards !
and I had to go and lay down in a dark room!
it wasn't me !
was it ?

I've been trying to remember for years when the Heineken festivals at Sheffield and Preston were, now I have an answer.

Can anyone remember Steve playing at Radio 2 'Live in Leeds' at the Corn Exchange ?
It must have been 2001, a live Richard Allanson show when 'A Friend For Life' was coming out as a single. Sat through bloody Chris De Burgh waiting for Steve to appear.
Errol Brown was there, too.

Hi Hobo,

I believe there were several such Heineken festivals in '91. Swansea which was listed by Graham and other fans, Sheffield, Preston and Blackpool. I haven't got dates for those last three yet.

These are fantastic lists to read through. I didn't see Steve until 1980 so anything before then is pre 'big bang' for me if you like.

I have been looking through some old copies of Melody Maker from the mid-70s down at the British Library.

Another world - adverts for calico smocks, Swingle II gigs and two/three page investigations into such burning issues as 'Will the discotheque kill live music?'. There was even one guy (someone called Maher?) who promised that we would have forgotten Dave Bowie by the end of 1975.

There are Harley pieces too. He was out in the US when Make Me Smile hit No. 1, but I still couldn't find an article that lists the dates/venues for that tour.

According the gig lists here Cockney Rebel Mk1 were 'sacked' at the Swansea gig on the 29th of June '74?

Coincidentally there is a piece in MM which mentions the band having to cancel the previous night's gig in Penzance as well. The van broke down on the way to the gig and when they did get there the venue did not meet the band's pre-stated venue requirements and so they couldn't perform.

A pretty rocky time on the road then!

(As an aside) Tickets cost 80p for the Penzance gig(about £6.50 in today's money I think) so the promoter refunded the audience 50p each and they got to watch the support band (Be-Bop Deluxe!!!) for the remaining 30p.

According to the tenuous statistics I have to date there are some tantalizing titbits coming out.

Steve has done just over a 1,000 gigs, with 20% of them taking place between '73-'76 and 70% or more since '89. (Many of the European dates are missing, esp. early '70s, so the figures need more work/research.

(2007 live dates on the website looks quite 'light' compared with other recent years - for example the two gigs supporting the Rolling Stones aren't on there - was it a quiet year for touring?)

If you start to strip away support slots, festival appearances, raffles united gigs etc; you may find that Steve may be near to his 1,000th headlining appearance.... or it may have recently past by.

So, there maybe a headlining performance landmark to look forward too.... or maybe that night in Bilston, Holmfirth or Wavendon a while back was it? But if I strip out festivals etc; I come out below 1,000 headlining gigs to date (950-ish and missing European gig dates).

Either way, we can say that Steve has done over 1,000 shows. Maybe that can be celebrated at a nominated gig in the future?

But it would be great to find out if the 1,000th headlining gig is still to come!

Great post as always GedKen!
For Hobo....yes Leeds at The Corn Exchange was live on BBC Radio 2.When as well as playing Friend For Life the band also played Make Me Smile.Think it was at the end of a large UK tour? In fact for a time Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel were becoming the BBC Radio 2 house band appearing at other live events also and always going down a storm!!
For GedKen...I remember those Heineken festivals and they were FREE!! There was always a great line up of bands.Your right from memory Swansea was one of them.I was at Preston in May 1992 and I think The Sheffield Heineken was just a little while after.The Preston show for me is probably my fav Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel concert show ever.I remember it was a sunny warm evening ( whatever happened to those days) in a great setting and Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel were top of the bill and they really got the thousands in the audience going with a brilliant performance.I was also with a dear friend Peter ( R.I.P. Mate)and perhaps the biggest Cockney Rebel fan I've ever met who was always great company when we met up at concerts.I remember Victim Of Love especially with great affection,Steve used to get an audience member up on stage with him during that song,whilst Robbie's guitar playing was truly brilliant..ah great days!!

Re 1000 gigs..what a great idea if that could be celebrated one day.It truly is an outstanding acheivement, I think you might just have hit on something there?

Erm, darn, I can't get my excel 'paste' to format on here... back to the drawing board tomorrow. Time for a pint!

However I will say that, thanks to the hard work of Graham Ed, Ray Smith and Dave Jones we've got a total of 1,134 gigs to date, with many of the European dates still to be established. So, still a work-in-progress....