Fool's Gold - Chapter 1
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Extract from ROCK GUIDE TO THE GALAXY
NO 4 Page 384
Re-printed by kind permission of Kerr and Stein, Inc., N.Y., and Rock Life Magazine, London.
NIGHT MISSION
Mike Adams (bass, synthesizer); Aaron Craig (lead and rhythm guitar, clarinet), David Hampton (vocals, lead and rhythm guitar); Clifton Hawkins (drums).
Near-legendary London-based band formed by Hampton (ex-U.S. group Blues Bread Line) and Craig, when fellow students at the Royal College of Music, with the addition of school-friend Adams, who had previously played with Craig in school group, Safety Rule. They brought in Steve Morris, from failing band Scram to sing vocals. At first self-managing, with the assistance of Adams' sister, Janey (see separate entry, JANEY ADAMS) the band played the pubs and clubs of London and the South East, building a fanatical fan following and acquiring a largely undeserved reputation for promoting violence. They rapidly became a cult band on the University and College circuit, where they attracted the attention of legendary, producer-manager, Gerry Woods (see separate entry, GERRY WOODS) who later became their manager. Neither Hampton nor Craig, with professional music careers already mapped out, were anxious to jump on the rock/pop bandwagon, but their first single, Wild, Wild Cat, went into the Top Twenty, followed by their splendid rock classic, Drum Beat, which made Number Four in the U.K., Number One in the States, four weeks later.
A series of fine concerts, including one at the prestigious Rock Top, where thousands of fans packed the streets afterwards, appearances at the Hastings Open Air Festival, and a charity concert at Wembley Arena, quickly established them as the finest and most exciting new band to emerge in recent times.
Morris quit to join The Shriek, but the band came back with a new and even more brilliant line up, with Craig moving on to rhythm and lead guitar, and former school friend Cliff Hawkins (also ex-Safety Rule) brought in on drums.
This has proved an electrifying combination. They cut (3), (4), and (5), with Janey Adams singing vocals, all massive international smash hits. (6) was issued to great critical acclaim, and went to Number One in the Album Charts on both sides of the Atlantic, following by (7), which repeated all the success and went platinum in UK and double platinum in US. (8) with Paul Devlin, achieved mythic status overnight.
The versatility and eclecticism of the band is celebrated. In the vanguard of the R & B/Rock revival, but with influences from many sources, notably early black music, rock and roll, the Stones, Led Zeppelin and electronic music, and with an interest in the classical avant guarde composer, Stockhausen, Hampton and Craig have managed to blend these influences into their unique and distinctive style. Writing together and separately, and with the contribution of electronics man, Adams, they have proved the most exciting song-writing combination since Lennon and McCartney.
Discography
(1) Wild, Wild Cat.
(2) Drum Beat
(3) Someone Waiting (with Janey Adams)
(4) Moonlight Girl (with Janey Adams)
(5) Kissing Games (with Janey Adams)
(6) Night Mission 1 (Album)
(7) Night Mission 2 (Album)
(8) Live at Azras (with Paul Devlin)
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Chapter 1
Sixty thousand people had packed themselves into the sweltering stadium at the edge of the famous desert town to get a look at the new super band, Night Mission, which had blasted its way to the top spot nationwide on the Singles Billboard chart. Their album was Number One too, on both sides of the Atlantic.
All day long the fans had been arriving along the great highways from all over the State, on motorbikes, in vans, buses, every kind and condition of car. Overhead police helicopters circled, hovered, using their megaphones to control the massing crowds, landing at the side of the road in great swirls of dust.
Concession men, scarlet and sweating, sold hamburgers, hot dogs and ice cream to the fans, picnicking in their jeans and teeshirts, lying out in the burning sun.
At last the sky began to darken to a spectacular red and orange. Far across the desert distances in the western sky there was a ribbon of glowing turquoise. The vast lighting rig on the centre stage exploded into brilliant light. The support band played on, unappreciated. The excitement began to build.
Thirty minutes away, on time, the great Boeing on private charter swung down on to the airport runway. Two thousand fans on the airport roof waved and screamed wildly. They had been waiting all day for the brief wave from the tiny figures far away, before the fleet of white limos moved forward smoothly and drew away quickly.
At the stadium the excitement had grown to fever pitch. The white limos slid into the reserve area and stiff figures emerged, stretched and disappeared into the backstage trailers.
'They've arrived,' said an anonymous voice over the sound system, and a roar, like some huge beast, ripped the night air.
'Pretty good,' said a boy, crushed near the stage with his girl. 'Right on time. No messing. Not like some crappy bands.'
The frantic activity on the stage intensified. Roadies, technicians, stage hands, scrambled with their cables and equipment. On stage there was a huge, steeply sloping shape with a central bowl.
'Get off the stage, please,' said the big voice to the climbing fans. 'Get off, you'll get hurt.' Security men moved forward grimly. The crowd took no notice. They pressed forward, sweating.
The sky turned a deep electric blue and now everybody was waiting.
A weird, unearthly drone began to come from the huge sound stacks, unsettling, frightening. The crowd stirred, uneasily. Backstage, the frenetic activity multiplied.
'Cut the lights!' screamed the lighting director to his console. 'Cut the lights! God, are you deaf? Cut the lights you mothers! Oh, Jesus H. Christ...'
A velvety darkness descended slowly.
'Cue 5,' said the lighting director, calming down. 'Cue 5. Purple.'
Pale green light flowed over the centre stage, turning the sloping shape into a mountain, with an open crater.
'Green?!!! That's green. Are you crazy? Purple. Cue 5, purple. P.U.R.P... Okay, that's good. That's good. That's great. Bring up the red...I said, bring up the red. BRING UP THE RED! For Chrissakes bring...'
The twenty-ninth concert of Night Mission's forty-four-date U.S. Tour was under way. Everything was running smoothly. Just another gig.
Smoke began to rise from the imitation crater, slowly at first, then increasing, great billowing swags of it, orange, yellow, green, boiling up red and purple, and rolling down the sides of the mountain, like purple and blue-glinting lava. The mountain was erupting. The whole stage seemed to be rocking. A tone higher, the drone began to roll in waves like the steam.
The boy's girlfriend, near the stage, clutched him. 'It's scary.' He laughed and held on to her.
The sound rose higher, faster. The steaming clouds were obscuring the whole stage now, rolling scarlet and orange, with imitation flames shooting sideways, licking up to the sky. Then the sound deepened, the rhythms intensified, and through the scarlet clouds and flame, came a great golden glowing orb, a huge moon, as big as the whole stage. Bigger and bigger, and still it was rising. Rising and throbbing. The membrane of its skin was pulsing, moving, as it came out of the crater, above the clouds.
Across the face of the moon moved a figure. It looked small, but in its hands was a sword, and when it raised its hands above its head, there was a monstrous shadow. The crowd drew its breath. The shadow swayed back and slashed forward at the membrane, once, twice.
There was a deep-throated roar from the crowd and screaming, as the membrane split, curled back slowly, and the growling menace of the band's famous Drum Beat thundered out on eighty thousand watts into the night sky.
The musicians were there, within the moon, on a glowing platform, the focus of a coruscating light explosion. Four dark figures in skin tight black leather pants and sleeveless vests each with a single gold star on the centre.
The platform began to move down and locked back into the stage. Two of the four figures moved forward with their guitars into the solid wall of cheering. The tall, big-built bassist, the anchor man, moved back towards the black drummer, already pounding out the great rocking rhythms, his face impassive, like an ebony sculpture.
'That's Mike Adams on bass and Clifton Hawkins on drums,' said the boy.
Their fans rose to them, a constellation of gold and silver stars held high above their heads, waving in the sweeping laser lights.
'Fantastic,' breathed the girl. 'Just fantastic.'
'There's Dave Hampton,' said the boy, 'The best guitarist since Eric Clapton maybe.'
Dave Hampton was tall, dark haired, unsmiling and arrogant, but his personal magnetism was already dominating the huge stadium.
'I rate the blonde one. He's cute.'
'That's Aaron Craig, but they call him Ronnie. They write the music together.'
The second guitarist was wearing large mirror glasses, flicking back the heavy dark gold hair falling across his forehead. He was just above medium height, slender, muscular.
'I'd like to see him without the shades.'
'They say the lights bother him.'
'He's so sexy!'
The boy grinned. 'Listen to the music.'
The lights turned a deep magenta, and the music, howling from the stacks, deafening, a physical assault, changed its rhythms. Waves of applause were tossed away as the music thundered on, not stopping.
The first half-hour was continuous, the two guitarists alternating lead guitar, Dave Hampton singing the vocals with a hoarse, sensual, bluesy voice. Then the players took five to towel off the perspiration and the assault came again, the beat aggressive, overwhelming. There was a brief intermission with a wonderful drum solo, then they resumed, with a change of emphasis, some slower, darker songs, some raw love songs, some longer pieces with strange electronic effects, and the concert wound up to an explosive finish with two wildly exciting instrumental pieces, exhibiting the virtuosity of the band members.
The wild finish unlocked the frenzy of the audience. They went crazy, bouncing on their seats clapping over their heads, stamping, roaring.
Exhausted, the perspiration dripping from them, grinning feebly, the band played an encore, a second, and a third encore, and launched raggedly into a fourth, and stopped at last, physically unable to play another note. Nearly three hours of raw energy and splendid musicianship.
'Incredible, just incredible,' said the girl. She stared up at the figures, waving to the cheering, adoring audience. 'I'll never forget it. Never. It's just about the best concert I've ever been to.'
'Me too,' said the boy.
'I wonder what it's like to be them? To be able to play like that? All these people loving you. They must feel just wonderful.'
Copyright Liz Berry. All rights reserved
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