June 17th 1988 – Leicester De Montfort Hall
Aztec Camera would be a frustrating enigma all my musical life! That sentence says nothing about my love of Roddy Frame’s music (the lead protagonist…in fact The band!)
There was something really special about Roddy’s talent and yet no one seemed to get him (that’s how I saw it back in the 1980s). The really strange thing surrounding that statement too, is that everyone seemed to get him! Not making sense? Let me try a bit harder……
In 1983, I first came across Aztec Camera on the re-release of “Walk Out to Winter”, it was a really fun and melodic guitar track and on reading more, I found Roddy Frame was the band leader and quality guitar player, both acoustic and electronic. This was followed by “Oblivious” which is probably their best known track…..although, maybe a later track “Somewhere in my Heart” would take over this mantle.
This was followed up with the superb album, “High Land Hard Rain” and storming title track which showed pop rock guitar music at its very best….and I wanted a Roddy quiff!
Two beautiful albums would follow in “Knife” (1984) and “Love” (1987) and quality single after quality single…..and yet Roddy never seemed to make it, but always made it…still confused?! I’ll continue.
He was everywhere, Smash Hits (a bit teenie, good looking pop music), Melody Maker (more musician focused), NME (the more alternative music scene, hip and cool) and Sounds (A bit more high browed in the music world, tended to focus on real musicians and quite serious about music)…and yet he never really “made it” .
I sort of liked that as he had a cult following, but it must be so frustrating if you are trying to make it big in your chosen subject…I’d love to meet him and see if he did it the way he wanted to…….
Not much to say about the gig, except, in a way, I didn’t enjoy it…….now that sound strange, as I loved it and the music, but the Demontfort Hall, for me, just didn’t suit his style……and maybe therein lies the problem he has. Roddy just doesn’t conform to the standard trajectory of rock bands.
He has an audience, he grew an audience, but then he seemed to hit a point where the audience stayed loyal, but he didn’t attract more. Such a shame for such a talent, but their loss!!!
Roddy did a superb cover version of Van Halen’s Jump (below, I’ll put links to other Aztec Camera tracks in later gig posts)
Roddy is a superb all rounder and deserves all the success and more. I will see him many times after this…….
Set List
- All I Need Is Everything
- Pillar to Post
- Lost Outside the Tunnel
- How Men Are
- Working in a Goldmine
- Mattress of Wire
- The Birth of the True
- Down the Dip
- Jump (Van Halen cover)
- Killermont Street
- The Boy Wonders
- Still on Fire
- Deep and Wide and Tall
- Oblivious
- So I Close My Eyes and Make a Wish
- Everybody Is a No.1
- Encore: Walk Out to Winter
- Somewhere in My Heart
- Song for a Friend
Ah, happy days. I remember attending this gig with my then GF. If memory serves, Gail Ann Dorsey played support on that tour ,promoting her album Corporate World.
GAD would later appear playing bass and performing vox (e.g. Under Pressure) for one Mr D,Bowie.