They will always have a special place in my heart because when I visited the UK aged 16, their single 'I Might Be Lying' was the first vaguely 'punk rock' record I bought. I remember how nervous I was giving it a first spin, since I was a confirmed Genesis/Yes/Jethro Tull fan. I could accept having wasted my money on a battered 45 from a boot fair, but having to throw out all my favourite albums if I liked it?
You can probably tell what happened...
Two years later, in 1979 I moved to Britain and saw the Eddie and the Hot Rods/Members tour, it was the first live show I saw here. That was 40 years ago almost to the month. There were photos celebrating that tour in the foyer of the Academy on the night.
The show was at the O2 Academy in Islington, appropriately enough since the venue was one of the locations for the many attempts to revive The Marquee club in London earlier this century. The Marquee played a key role in the early success of the band, as explained by Barrie Masters during the show - in 1976 the Rods were in a friendly rivalry with AC/DC to break each other’s capacity attendance records at the venue.
As well as the last line-up which toured under the name of Eddie and the Hot Rods, the show featured many special guests who were associated with the band, or just musical friends the Rods made in the band's decades of touring. For fans the show featured a dream-come-true reunion of the surviving members of the classic line-up which made the second and third albums: Barrie Masters, Paul Gray, Steve Nicol, and Graeme Douglas.
Sadly the last time they were all together on stage was in tribute to founding member Dave Higgs passed away in 2013. There were several declarations from the stage of his importance to the band - much of the band's early material was written by him. Richard Holgarth from a later Hot Rods line-up stepped in on guitar to accompany Graeme Douglas for those twin guitar workouts.
The extended show featured a filmed presentation by Barrie Masters made in honour of the event, and was paused after a song was discussed while the band played that or a related song. The screen then showed an album sleeve or single cover related to the live performance. This worked really well, and after a while the film teased audience expectations, such as when the first (title) track from the Rods' fourth album Fish and Chips was played, but then the band broke into the third song from that album, a cover of the Young Rascals 'You Better Run'.
The 21st century Hot Rods line-up played a handful of tracks from later albums Been There Done That and Better Late Than Never, and opened the show with a storming version of the first track on the band's debut Teenage Depression 'Get Across To You', soon followed by both sides of early single 'I Might Be Lying'/'Ignore Them (Always Crashing In The Same Bar').
The more recent Hot Rods members were augmented by members of fellow British R'n'B legends Nine Below Zero Dennis Greaves and Mark Feltham for some classic covers. Greaves and Feltham occupied the stage alone for a brief unplugged interlude prior to the Hot Rods original members appearing.
That line-up played a selection from the classic second album Life on the Line, recalling fondly the role of Dave Higgs in the band before a storming version of the 1979 live set closer 'Beginning of the End'.
Surprise guests during the course of the evening included JC Carroll of the Members, who told the story of how his band toured as opening act for the Rods, but then had the bad grace to get a UK hit single during the course of the tour, 'Sound of the Suburbs', which he performed solo with guitar.
Raucous cheering greeted Captain Sensible of the Damned, who sang the Hot Rods debut single 'Writing On The Wall' from a lyric sheet under a photo of the rare 'misprint' of his band's debut album which featured a photo of the original Hot Rods line-up. Ironically, Hot Rod Paul Gray would later join the Damned a few years later. He recorded and toured with the Captain in a project called the Sensible Gray Cells, and has been touring and recording with the Damned in recent years.
Original member Lew Lewis also made several appearances, adding his trademark harmonica to take the Hot Rods away from pop/new wave/hard rock back to their R’n’B roots.
The evening flew by and it looked like the end as everyone in the Academy sang along to the UK top ten single 'Do Anything You Wanna Do'. There were more than a few tears at the realisation that while there may be future one-off live appearances by Eddie and the Hot Rods, the band is nearing the end of a career that started in the mid-1970s and has thrilled countless fans and converts since.
Another encore came in the form of a ramshackle but spirited version of 'Gloria', the audience encouraged to belt out the chorus with the band.
Then it was all over, an event announced last year and anticipated by fans since. The title of the show? - 'Done Everything We Wanna Do'
The End? Certainly The Beginning of the End.
*sniff*
