The Angels play The Mansfield Tavern on Friday 21 November 2008. More dates below.
One of rock’s great estrangements has come to an end. The Original Angels Band and Doc Neeson’s Angels have patched up their differences and the classic Angels’ line-up that comprised front man Doc Neeson, guitarists John and Rick Brewster, bassist Chris Bailey and drummer Buzz Bidstrup are back in action.
To coincide with the reconciliation, the band have re-released their tour de force album Face To Face from 1978, and a DVD of a 1979 gig at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, This Is It Folks…Over The Top.
OB: Doc, It must be great to be playing with the band’s ‘classic’ line-up again?
DN: It’s exciting being back on stage again. I hadn’t been playing for quite a long time. The audiences are over the top and enthusiastic, we’re getting about three generations at a time [turning up].
OB: What was the motivation towards getting the band back together?
DN: The reason we got together in August was that [our label] Alberts were putting out an anniversary album of our Face To Face, which, at one stage, was so popular, it actually set an Australian record for being the longest album by an Australian artists in the charts. That was 79 weeks. I think at the time we were in the charts longer than Pink Floyd.
OB: You’ve been fronting Doc Neeson’s Angels and Red Phoenix in recent times, how did they compare to playing with this line-up of The Angels?
DN: Well, I’ve got to say, it was a bit like getting back on a bike and that’s not to diminish anything we’ve done. The thing is the guys I’m playing with [now] are a great band, and all of us are probably better musicians now than when we made Face To Face so it’s a very powerful unit.
OB: I saw you perform on The Countdown Tour last year, prior to the reunion, and you stole the show.
DN: I had no idea what to expect. I was wondering whether the audience that had come along would have enough in them to cheer along, but they didn’t seem to have missed a beat either.
OB: This current tour has been dubbed Night Attack; will it feature material from that era in the band’s career?
DN: The Night Attack Tour is something a marketing person came up with. Really, it’s a continuation of the Reunion Tour. That’s what the first tour was and, really, it’s what this one is as well. You can call it the Night Attack Tour or the Reunion Tour Part Two. I think if you were to say, ‘What could a fan expect?’ I would say about an hour and a half of non-stop Angels’ classics.
Face To Face and This Is It Folks Live at La Trobe are out now through Sony BMG.
The Angels play Caloundra RSL on Thursday 20 November, The Mansfield Tavern on Friday 21 November, Gold Coast Seagulls on Saturday 22 November and Toowoomba Rumours Nightclub on Sunday 23 November 2008.
