LYNYRD SKYNYRD & GOLDEN EARRING – Rainbow Theate, London, November 1974

        Here's another 50 Years Ago This Week post.

        Back in London during a three-month break from my tenure as Melody Maker’s US correspondent, this would have been the last concert I saw at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park. My date was a secretary on MM, same of Sue, and we had great seats, next to the aisle about five rows back from the stage. I’d seen Skynyrd in New York’s Central Park earlier in the year and knew they were hot shit, and this was their first ever UK appearance. I suspect Golden Earring didn’t know much about them or they wouldn’t have agreed to have them as support and, in the event, it was a bit of a coup perpetrated their manager, my friend Peter Rudge, whom I would go on to work for after I left MM. Golden Earring were on Track Records, The Who’s label, and Pete looked after The Who’s US affairs at the time, hence the connection.

Here’s the Caught In The Act I wrote for the MM issue dated November 30, 1975. 

Rarely has a supporting act received such an ovation as that afforded to Lynyrd Skynyrd at their concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre with Golden Earring on Saturday evening. 

And it was richly deserved. The seven strong Skynyrd band, on their debut tour of the UK, brought with them a brand of southern rock and roll that has been sweeping the southern states of the USA for the past two years in the wake of the Allman Brothers.

Such was the response that Skynyrd have added a second Rainbow appearance to their British itinerary. This time they’re topping the bill. 

Lynyrd Skynyrd utilise three lead guitars, each instrumentalist taking turns to come forward and whip up excitement with music that seems to flow like a river in flood. Each player seems to play as if in competition with his two rivals, each one determined to extract even more from his axe than his immediate predecessor. Responsible for this ever increasing surge of inventiveness are Allen Collins, Gary Rossington and Ed King.

Their material seems tighter and more arranged than other Southern outfits, and each number incorporates an instant hook that simply gallops along. Singer Ronnie Van Zant plays a relatively minor role – he dedicated the band’s closing number ‘Freebird’ to Duane Allman and Berry Oakley, the two Allman Brothers who died in motorcycle accidents – but pianist Billy Powell made his presence more than felt with some fine rattling keyboard work.

Golden Earring are taking a gamble on this coupling – the reason is that both bands are on the road together is that upcoming rock mogul Pete Rudge, now resident in the US, has an interest in them – but it must be stated that they successfully appeased an audience that would certainly not have complained had Skynyrd played for another hour. There were isolated shouts for Skynyrd as Earring took the stage, but half an hour later they had ridden the storm and claimed an equal response. 

They’re much improved since the last time I saw them, and guitarist George Kooymans, dressed for the occasion in a sparkling white suit, obviously has his eye on becoming a guitar hero for the seventies and rightly so: his fluid technique, speed and general good taste in the lines he played impressed me a lot.

Earring eventually had everyone out of their seats, just as Skynyrd had done earlier, as ‘Radar Love’ echoed around the Rainbow rafters. It was, after all, two good bands for the price of one, and there can be few who returned home from Finsbury Park dissatisfied with the value they received.

In 1977, working at Pete Rudge’s Sir Productions in New York, I would do promo work for Skynyrd and I still have my ‘management’ laminate from that time, as seen above. Elsewhere under Skynyrd on Just Backdated I write about my involvement with the group and the night of the plane crash that devastated them in October of that year.