Be Bop Deluxe
Be Bop Deluxe was led by Yorkshireman Bill Nelson. I first heard them when the record shop where I worked got in the import of their debut, ‘Axe Victim’, with a rather striking cover. Bill was an imaginative guitar player who looked very stylish for a hard rocker in the early ’70’s. Bill was more into futurism, which came more to the fore in the next decade.
Bill also produced the excellent 2nd album, 'Days In Europa', by the great Scottish band the Skids.
They put out a number of pretty good albums before they folded and Bill went solo with a band called Red Noise, but truly great songwriting was not a particular strength of Bill’s, which likely prevented them from having greater success.
At this particular show, they were headlining 5500-seat Winterland in San Francisco and were supported by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Their fortunes went in rather opposite directions not long afterwards.
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Winterland, San Francisco, 09/10/77
