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All photos ©2001 A. Durieux
All rights reserved
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Newcastle, March 1980 -- Brian Johnson, Dave
Robson, Dek Rootham & Davy Whitaker take the stage at Heaton Buffs
Club for what is to be one of their last performance together. Within
a week Brian would find himself in London to auditioned for AC/DC,
and a few days later he received the call that changed his life and
ended the career of Geordie II.
Newcastle, October 2001 -- As I sit down watching the same four
guys rehearsing on that same stage, it's hard to realize that Brian
has been in AC/DC all this time and become part of this gigantic
band. Of course he now has quite a few more bucks in his pocket
than his former bandmates now but the camaraderie is still there
- jokes are flying, Newcastle Brown is flowing...
This Geordie II reunion was quietly announced recently and it was
a rare & unique chance to witness Brian perform in such an intimate
environment after the Stadiums he played this Summer. Not wanting
to miss this I crossed the Atlantic for the last 2 shows at South
Shield Cellar Club and Heaton Buffs. Besides the first concert at
the Opera House in Newcastle on September 28th, the rest of the
gigs played took place in small clubs around Newcastle which they
used to play between 1977 & 1980. The Geordie line-up playing
these dates is the third Geordie incarnation, with Brian on lead,
Dek Rootham on guitar, Dave Robson on bass and Davy Whitaker on
drums. This line-up also recorded a few tracks in the late 70's
- "Rocking With The Boys" (which was performed during
those gigs), "Treat Her Like A Lady" and "Going To
The City" are the only ones that got released.
Arriving at South Shield's Cellar Club on the coast of Newcastle
a bunch of the die hard DC followers were already present, and meeting
me there was Terry Slesser, manager of the club, and former singer
of Back Street Crawler. Terry had actually been on tour with BSC
when AC/DC supported them on their very first British tour of 76,
and was a contender for the job to replace Bon in 1980 along with
Brian. Coincidentally he ended up taking Brian's place as singer
of Geordie II! What a small world... This was the Cellar Club's
reopening after a few years being closed and they were still painting
the walls the morning before the gig. Upon his arrival Brian received
many birthday greetings, as this was his 54th birthday on October
5th. Brian took the time to talk to everyone and sign a million
autographs - always the nicest bloke, not a surprise to anyone who's
ever met him.
Geordie took the stage in front of a packed club - OK it holds
only a couple of hundred but that's the whole point! Their set was
deliberately the same the band played the last time they'd performed
live in 1980. In those days Geordie only had a couple of original
tracks in their set, and mainly played covers, arguably a necessity
if you wanted to get booked in those days. The following set list
was played for the 5 dates they performed on this tour:
 ·
Lady (Put The Lights On Me) [Brownsville Station]
· We Gotta Get Outta This Place [The Animals]
· Since You Been Gone [Rainbow]
· Geordie's Lost His Liggy [Geordie]
· This Flight Tonight [Nazareth]
· Blaydon Races [Traditional]
· Bring It On Home To Me [The Animals]
· Hold The Line [Toto]
· Rockin' With The Boys [Geordie]
· Black Dog/Rock And Roll [Led Zeppelin]
· Doctor Doctor (Bad Case Of Loving You) [Robert Palmer]
· Warming Up The Band [Head Hands & Feet]
· Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood [The Animals]
· Feels Like The First Time [Foreigner]
· Dannie Boy [Traditional]
· Wrong Side Of The Law [Geordie]
· Can You Do It/All Because Of You [Geordie]
· 2-4-6-8 Motorway [Tom Robinson Band]
· Be Good To Yourself [Frankie Miller]
· Whole Lotta Rosie [AC/DC]
· Encore (Changed at each gig, played a song listed above)
It was quite interesting to hear some of the tunes that you certainly
wouldn't expect from Brian (Foreigner, Toto, Robert Palmer) Some
of those were introduced as "You had to play this one in those
days or you just wouldn't be booked!", or "This is another
puffy song, but we had to do it". Highlights of the set were
clearly the Zep & Animals tunes, the few Geordie originals and
"Whole Lotta Rosie," which was part of the set Geordie
played back in the days. The renditions of Led Zep were remarkable,
a perfect match for Brian's voice. Nice to hear some Geordie tunes
live, specially the traditional Northeast"Geordie's Lost His
Liggy." And I have to mention this - in the middle of this
track I got my 15 seconds of fame when Brian called me on stage
for everyone to witness that someone actually came all the way from
New York for the show! I was warned beforehand ("You're the
one coming from New York? You're going on stage tonite me son!!"
he told me when we met) but didn't think he was actually going to
do it - doesn't get any better than this for a fan, thanks Jonna!
He certainly seemed to be enjoying himself immensely, and talked
more in-between tracks than he does with AC/DC, cracking jokes and
felt very much at ease in front of these local crowds, quite different
from what he's used to with DC Despite very little time to rehearse
and after 20 years not playing together the band was very tight
and in place. Although it was rumored that some guests would join
Brian on stage that night the only one who came up was Terry Slesser
to present a birthday cake to Brian, that of course ended up on
his face a bit later...
Two days later after a short trip to Scotland (where it rained
for two days) I was back in Newcastle at Heaton Buffs club just
in time to catch Brian & the boys rehearsing and sat down with
them for a few beers.
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Why this tour & why now?
Brian - Well, we talked about it about 2-3 years ago in a
pub after a few beers, and it stared to sound better &
better the more we talked about it so we did actually do it.
We said, let's finish the AC/DC tour and come back and do
it. And it's good and I hope I can do it again because it
was so much fun, cause guys like you, and all the Swiss guys,
and all the German guys, and all the English, you know Carl
and Darren, you know them all.
Dave Robson - Well I can't believe people like you flying
from New York City to see this band, I can't believe people
from Ireland coming to Newcastle to see us!
Brian - He was the star of the night when he got up! ah ah
ah I hope I didn't embarrass you!
No no, I'll never forget that!
Brian [talking to a local]- Hey Dick ye alright me son? [Geordie
talks... Can't understand...]
Brian - See, you gotta understand these working man's clubs,
they serve the cheapest beer, because it's nonprofit, it's
just for the working man, unfortunately, years ago some of
them were like dictators, you know, they have a committee
that runs them, and then they have a head committee man, and
these were like dictators in the early days. So when you came
in, like four guys doing music, they couldn't understand why
you should be paid money cause they're all minors, steelworkers
.. and they look at you like you're the devil. But they brought
their wives on Friday and Saturday nights for what was called
"the entertainment." They don't let women in here...
Dave Robson - They wouldn't let women in the bar, they got
them serving behind the bar but that's all.
Brian - But you can see, look around you.. These people are
coming here and sittin' here... Can you imagine how alien
it must be to someone from New York, cause there isn't anything
really like this... You know you got your Veterans of foreign
war this kinda clubs, but they're usually happening joints,
but here it's like... but it was worse then cause they were
all stronger, a lot more powerful but then all the worker's
gone. You see all these guys, middle aged some of them, they're
unemployed. They're not working, it's Monday, they should
be working, but these guys just don't have jobs.
Is this the kind of clubs you used to
play?
Dave - Yeah
Brian - This was one of our favorite ones, Heaton Buffs was
the best club because they had gigs on Friday, Saturday, Sunday
and Monday. And then on a Wednesdays - they were really forward
thinking, and the concert hall upstairs as you can see was
actually designed for bands. Some of the other ones, you wouldn't
believe, some of them you'd walk on a stage, and part of the
room would be up there [showing on the left], and the other
part would be there [showing the right side], and you'd be
playing to this corner! Y'see it was good cause you served
your apprenticeship didn't you, you learned, you learned how
to work a crowd, you had to! You couldn't just stand there,
because the boredom level would just... silence stages...
You see we got by at it cause we were funny, we were very
funny, we used to make them laugh. And that was the only thing
we could do, because we played rock & rock, those songs
that you heard.
It's the same set you did back then?
Brian - It's exactly the same set. It's fun songs you know,
underneath it all everybody had a passion and a burning desire
to write their own songs, but they didn't want to hear them.
You could be finishing one song, "Since You been gone"
and they'd be all dancing, and "here's a song we wrote".
[Miming dead silence.]
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NEW GEORDIE II RECORDINGS
Brian & Geordie were approached to
participate to a project designed to collect together the
vast number of roots and folk song from the North East of
England, documenting the industrial history of the region
as well as the traditional songs of love, loss, and humour
which abound in this part of the UK.
The songs will collated onto a boxed set of 20
CDs, each devoted to one of the small but distinct regions
within the NE corner of England, and will be distributed,
free of charge, to schools, colleges and libraries across
the entire North East, with the intention of keeping alive
the unique cultural identity of this small part of the world,
and passing it on to succeeding generations to whom an industrial
culture is rapidly becoming the subject of history, rather
than a living tradition.
The tracks: Brian and his 'homies', Geordie guitarist
Dek Rootham, and bass player Dave Robson have got together
with Anthology producer/arranger Jed Grimes to tackle two
songs from the NE UK tradition:
a) "Byker Hill". "Byker Hill and
Walker Shore Collier lads for evermore..." So runs the
chorus of this Geordie anthem-a rallying cry to the work-force
who shaped the region until only 15 years ago-traditionally
sung in a lamenting, almost sentimental fashion, Brian's fiery
vocal, and the hard rock guitars/bass/drums of the band turn
this song with its wry, sardonic verses describing the life
of the Tyneside working man, into a celebration of regional
identity: it's funny, defiant and rabble-rousing: a real stadium-shaker!
b) "Wor Geordie's Lost His Liggie"
Geordie humour has always thrived on double-entendre and a
kind of vaudeville 'cheeky' style of word-play. In this old
street song, a 'Liggie' is in fact, a local dialect name for
a marble, as in the game of marbles: 'Penka' and Muggle' are
regional variants on the theme. This song was recorded originally
recorded by Geordie back in 1973-this brand new recording
owes its spontaneous, 'lads in the pub' feel to the fact that
the guys laid it down 'live' in the studio control room, complete
with interruptions from the band, and Brian's own whacky asides
in between verses. As said above, this song is about the innocent
kid's game of marbles: any other interpretation is strictly
in the mind of you, the listener!
The Northumbria Anthology boxed set of 20 CDs
will be issued in mid November, and is launched via a concert
on November 8th at Newcastle City Hall (Brian will not be
able to attend the concert). Two CD's will also be offered
for sale before Christmas and one will include both Geordie
tracks. Although initially only available in the Northeast
a national distribution should evolve next year, with profits
funding more work by the Anthology.
Thanks to Jed Grimes
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That's why you didn't play more Geordie songs?
Brian - Well, the ones they knew, they were quite famous from the
first Geordie. And I'm still quite amazed, I mean my nephew, he's
24, and he said "I fucking love that song, they're fucking
great!" Cause he'd sort of heard them when he was a kid but
he'd never heard them anymore and he just said "I've heard
them on record but live they're rocking." I said cause this
band's better than the first one that's why, easy to explain!
[Brian starts talking about a local newspaper which printed a pack
of lies in an article over the weekend]
Brian - The pigs, it's just the local press, they got no stories
so they jump all over you. One minute you're great the next minute
you're not, and "who do they think they are?" That's just
horrible. The paper wrote something on Saturday about saying we
should've done more clubs and.. I haven't got time, and the guys
have to rent all the equipment, and I'm doing it for the boys, I'm
not doing it for me - I came here, paid my own fare, I can, I'm
very lucky, but it's turning into something ugly and bad when it's
a nice thing, just because of a club that got pissed off. We can't
play all the clubs - I'm only here for two and a half fucking weeks,
and I gotta see my family! That's just stupid you know, makes me
so angry. But we're doing these clubs, these clubs treated us well,
and the other ones didn't, they were nasty.
Is this what happened at the Central Club? [The
scheduled gig of Oct 3rd that got pulled]
Brian - The thing is, we only played there once, and the idiot wanted
to say yes, there's tickets on sale but no you can't get in. Now
you're seeing these guys let you sign in, now this man just went
in, "No, you gotta be a member", now he knew he could've
just let the guy sign in, but he didn't let any foreigner in the
club, he's an idiot. He's an out of work man, who just sit behind
a desk, they don't get paid for it, but their club is their domain.
Saw these poor guys, 40 of them, couldn't buy tickets! And Dave
went in and checked and said "why aren't you advertising this
gig?" "We don't want any people from other countries."
Even people from Newcastle, they wouldn't let them in, they just
wanted local people. He said "How many tickets have you sold?"
"30." Its a tiny little village, there's no work there,
they can't afford to come in and see us, so the boys can't afford
to hire all the equipment which is 500 pounds a night to get 200
pound in a club and have to pay 300 pound to play to 30 people -
forget it! You gotta let people in and let them buy ticket otherwise
you're in a no win situation, but they're idiots.
[A joke circulating was that apparently Brian had called them to
cancel and was told "You'll never work in this club again!"]
Is this something that you think maybe AC/DC
will do one day, a club tour?
Brian - Well you know, one of the best gig we did last year was
in Atlanta, we played the Atlantic Conference in a small Ballroom
in a hotel. We just stuck it in, they invited us, it was our day
off really, so we said yeah cause we'd played Atlanta the night
before and it was absolutely... We just played about 8 o'clock,
we did 30 minutes, 5 songs. And you know what? Mal & Angus coming
out "Fuck, that's what it's all about isn't it!" I mean
the sound was fucking great. It was just for Atlantic executives
& everybody else who works there, about 500 people and we got
on there and we just fucking rocked the joint. It was brilliant
and you could hear everything, we're standing touching shoulders
you know cause it was a tiny little stage, we got "fucking
yeah!" It was brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. But that was
just a one night you see, about the first time we'd done it. In
Atlanta, the Peachtree Plaza, lovely hotel it is... That's the only
small club we've ever done.
Do you think that may happen again?
Brian - Ah I don't know, you never know. I'll tell you, you never
know with the boys, they always pull out some surprise every time
they go on tour.
Geordie II played a similar set that night at Heaton Buffs, this
time in front of an older, "working man's" crowd. It was
quite bizarre to see the audience present in that room, but the
band was at ease there too and delivered a great set, and I got
another 15 seconds of fame that night too!
Before returning home Brian recorded 2 tracks with Geordie II that
will be released on a Northeast England Compilation album. More
details on that elsewhere on this page. Plans for Geordie II now?
Well there's been talks (read well, TALKS, no firm plan, don't start
asking for dates!) about a similar club tour in Brian's state of
Florida at some point. Brian most certainly enjoyed this and this
will probably happen again in the future. We'll keep you posted
of course.
»» Check the GEORDIE
II Photo Gallery here
»»
Check GEORDIE's complete discography from the Discography Database
Special thanks to Dave Robson & the Geordies, Brian, Brenda,
Terry, Cam, Allan, John, Alex, & the British fans!
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