SLADE ALIVE - EVERYONE'S A WINNER

Published in 1976, '' ROCK ON THE ROAD '' was a collection of essays on some of the major ROCK and POP acts of the day with photos by MICK GOLD. The book contained an excellent contribution from SIMON FRITH who describes how SLADE '' Weaned the hooligans off the football terraces and back into the concert halls '' . FRITH attended their EARLS COURT show in JULY 1973 and GOLD took photos at HAMMERSMITH ODEON in MAY 1974. What follows is an excerpt from the article and all of the photos that originally accompanied it

'' We went down the Kings Road first - a sunny afternoon and elegant accents, the shops were playing David Bowie and everyone looked suitably weary. French coffee and we got the tube at Sloane Square: it was packed with West Ham's North End. On their way rather than coming back, but happy like they'd already won. Scarves waving, shouting, elbowed ribs - no aggro, friendly but private. They knew something we didn't and by the time we reached Earls Court we'd picked up a Terrace Convention. Clenched greetings but they marched from the station at respectful distances. The singing began: rival anthems, graphic rudeness, but still no trouble. It was truce night. In the stadium the terraces came together and the enemy was outside '' 

'' At a football match the energy of the crowd moves in response to what is happening on the field - it is almost possible to follow a game just by listening. Not completely though, because the bond between footballers and their audience is twisted by two factors. First the crowd is not at one: every moment of joy is someone else's moment of frustration, every step forward is someone's mistake. In games of particular excitement or boredom or skill or brutality the contradictory responses of rival fans can create a pitch of tension which quite transcends what is happening on the real pitch - the crowd's energy becomes self-generated. Secondly, although footballers do respond to their crowds, only rarely do they do so exactly. The crowd is willing them to break the limits of their and their comrades' skills, to ignore the reality of the opposition, the pitch, the weather. Mostly they can't and if you do listen to a football match what you hear is brief moments of exhilaration punctured by periods of lull '' 

'' In it's cheerfulness and unselfconscious passion, Slade's concert was much more like a football match than any rock concert I'd ever seen. But it was unlike any football match too - Slade's bond with their audience was total and never broke: there were no twists. It was easy to say why: Slade's crowd was at one, they had all come to see Slade win and there was no opposition, no rival supporters, no reasons for bitterness: and Slade could and did respond to the crowds demands, they had no opponents to trip them, no lumpy turf, and although their musical skills are limited those weren't the skills they needed for this night anyway - skill here was not a matter of technique but of picking up moods and laying them down without missing a beat of the communal stomp ''