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| FAMILY RE-UNITED AFTER 40 YEARS, SHEPHERD'S BUSH 02 EMPIRE FEB. 1ST 2013 |
They should’ve Been GIANTS!
February 1st -2nd was a break from all the trials our family are still wading through. Memory-wise, it took us back to a glorious night in 1968 at Burton Constable Hall, near Hull where for a couple of celebrated summers there was a pop festival there. That night we were treated to The Move, The Pretty Things, Free, Fairport Convention and all manner of other terrific rock acts, the final appearing about 5 in the morning.
But around 1 a.m., the MC announced a band we’d only heard on John Peel’s radio show. “Ladies and gentlemen – we give you – Family!” And the makeshift burlap curtains were ripped asunder as the truly frightening Roger Chapman revealed himself and his talented comrades. The decibels of In My Own Time tore into the crowd as Chappo’s fierce, piercing manic vibrato tenor caused everyone’s jaw to drop. From that moment Wendy and I were disciples. Wherever we could travel to see Family, we went. They had a line-up musically far ahead of any other guitar and drums band at the time. Vibraphone, fiddle, clarinet, sax, and such esoteric song lyrics and baroque chord changes. This was no three-chord blues group – this was complex, in-your-face musical poetry, and always in motion.
They didn’t become anywhere near as big as they ought to have been – despite being the support act in Hyde Park when the Stones played their memorial gig to Brian Jones. Chappo’s maniac tendency to leap into another dimension whilst performing got them taken off their big make-or-break gig by Bill Graham. He threw them off the tour on their first appearance at Fillmore East when Chappo somewhat dangerously chucked a mike stand across the stage. By 1974, and 8 albums, it was all over for Family. I defy anyone who loves rock music to not leap to their feet into an instant idiot dance (Family invented idiot dancing) when that mighty riff from Burlesque kicks in, and the same goes for the aggressive thrust of that growling bass in Part of The Load.
Sadly, one of the main components of the band, guitarist Charlie Whitney, refused to come out of his idyllic Greek island retirement for the re-union on February 1st. Other members, Jim King, Ric Grech and John Weider are all dead and gone. But the core of the remaining band, Chappo, Poli Palmer and drummer Rob Townsend ensured that even with the chosen replacements, swelling the stage to a nine-piece outfit, that the essence of Family as was retained. It has also been a remarkable and warm coincidence that since 1982, we have been close friends with drummer Rob Townsend since he joined The Blues Band and the re-formed Manfreds. I have a fond memory of Rob being incapacitated with a broken ankle after falling off his drum riser in Germany. I booked us both tickets for the Odeon cinema at Marble Arch to see the reconstructed Spartacus. I had no idea that the tickets I’d bought were for the top balcony, and I can still hear Rob on his crutches cursing the hell out of me as he made the painful ascent to the top of the cinema with all the strained fortitude of Sir Edmund Hilary. Thankfully, at Shepherd’s Bush last week we managed to have a drink with Rob before the gig. It was all magnificent, even though, now 70, Chappo’s tenor has lost a bit in the higher registers – but what he loses at the top of the scale is adequately compensated for at the bottom with some scary, gravelly growls.
On Saturday morning, a cold, sharp yet sunny day, Wendy and I wandered around Covent Garden and were amazed at the odd synchronicity of seeing a London busker named Pete doing a juggling act whilst balancing at the top of a ladder. He was the spitting image of Roger Chapman circa 1973. 
And so, we watched our aged heroes, a gaggle of little old men beneath the spotlights, as they recreated our youth. Such are the joyous memories we carry into our final years.