Can anyone recall the name of the tour which included a set of Red Noise numbers by the Practical Dreamers and also The Yorkshire Actors Company performing Das Kabinett (The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari).
Tour Dates:
May
21st Bristol Polytechnic 22nd The Cedar Club, Birmingham 23rd Manchester Polytechnic 25th The Porterhouse, Retford 26th The Warehouse, Leeds 27th The Warehouse, Leeds 28th The Limits Club, Sheffield 29th The Kirklevington Country Club, Yarm 30th The Nite Club, Edinburgh
June
1st Heaven, London
I attended one of the Leeds Warehouse performances.
Slightly tenuous connection to this thread, but may be of interest to some. A couple of pictures below of Bill with Frank Chickens - Billy Bragg that is! 😊 These photos are from a post this week on Billy's Facebook page - detailing his reunion with Frank Chickens (plus Hank Wangford) at this year's Glastonbury Festival - 40 years after they toured the UK together. The black and white photo features both Frank Chickens - Kazuko Hohki and Kazumi Taguchi. Kazuko only is in the colour photo.
Back to the Practical Dreamers tour 1981 - the 14 year old me travelled a fair distance in the hope of persuading my brother to take me to the Retford Porterhouse but he wouldn't take me because it was a nightclub and I wouldn't get in. Hence I never got to see Bill promoting Quit Dreaming. I also wouldn't (of course) have got into the Heaven gig. It would have been quite a coup for my first gig to have been Bill plus the fab Josef K...
Just Realized 'Orphan' that there were two dates at the Warehouse. I feel sure that we attended on a Wednesday, so that would be 27-May-1981. What a year 1981 was! The best in my life for a multitude of reasons, including 'Quit Dreaming and Get on the Beam'. The first 'New Bill' in ages!
Thanks 'Orphan' for informing of the date this tour was at the Leeds Warehouse. I was only thinking the other week that I need to research and discover this date as I also attended with my friend Ashley. I don't suppose you can remember some of the songs played can you? Do you remember from the gig the rumor that members of The Psychedelic Furs were in the audience?
I did find this reference to the US leg of the tour. Not Spring but...
Bill Nelson & The Practical Dreamers
Elegant Machines
The Keystone, Palo Alto, San Francisco, California, USA 7/29/81
1.Sleepcycle.
2.Boom Year Ahead.
3.Don't Touch Me (I'm Electric).
4.For Young Moderns.
5.Rooms with Brittle Views.
6.A Kind of Loving.
7.Furniture Music.
8.Do You Dream in Colour?.
9.Eros Arriving.
10.Youth of a Nation On Fire.
11.Out of Touch.
12.Decline and Fall.
13.Stay Young
14.Opium.
I was the tour manager for that tour, don't remember it having a name other than Spring Tour.
Final Solution presents.....in a gay nightclub! Someone had a wicked sense of humour back then 🙂
I don't believe there were any legitimate recordings (either audio or video) of these BN & the PD performances. Certainly nothing was ever officially made available from either this or the 1981 Invisibility Exhibition tours.
And just the one flyer that I'm aware of; from the PD London gig at 'Heaven' nightclub that I was fortunate enough to attend on the 1st June 1981.
I was right at the front of the stage and having bought a copy of the AFOS first single '(It's Not Me) Talking' on Cocteau Records was quite vocal in my appreciation of their performance; which resulted in Mike Score handing me their written setlist that I've kept hold of ever since.
There are bootlegs from the PD tour I know, but is there any live music which is legit available ?
There must have been flyers for this tour ?
Saw Bill at the Kirklevington Country Club. Can't remember much of the show (I'm quite old) but after the main performance he came out, reluctantly, for an encore. He said something about wanting to get away from the label of 'rockism'. He sat on a stool and proceeded to play guitar with two tape decks (Fosdex-type) accompanying. It was about 5 minutes into the performance when my mate pointed out that the tape decks had stopped and the incredible wall of music was all coming from Bill's guitar. The man's a genius.
You are correct in saying that 'The Invisibility Exhibition' was a totally different tour to the Practical Dreamers one. I conceived the 'Invisibility Exhibition' as a kind of left field cabaret with invited performers including Richard Jobson, The Frank Chickens, David Claridge, the Yorkshire Actor's Company and myself with my brother Ian. We also had film projection behind my performance featuring classic clips from avant garde films by Maya Deren and Man Ray, amongst others. It was a wonderfully engaging show which, whilst challenging for some people, was widely appreciated by hip audiences of the day. At that point in time, there seemed to be a more adventurous spirit in the popular air than we have today.😉
I was there....a few weeks after Discipline. I think Do You Dream In Colour? was played...that was an exciting Spring.
Did teh second Invisibility Exhibition Tour in February 1983 come to glasgow? I asked a man to keep my girlfriend and i a seat at the table he was sitting at while we bought drinks which he kindly said he would...when we returned to the table after buying drinks i thanked the kind gentleman who minutes later was up on stage ..his blond hair having fooled me ..yes i didnt recognise him !!!! LOL
Invisibility Exhibition --- we were there Liverpool
'Spring Tour 1981'
https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/bill-nelson-shirt-practical-dreamers-270712076