AETHERIA
ALAN CLAYSON AND THE ARGONAUTS
IN CONCERT
Thank you for your attention.
A telephone call out of the blue in June 2005 resulted in the pressing
six months later of Sunset On A Legend, a double-CD retrospective by
(Alan) Clayson and the Argonauts. As the release date approached, I
began thinking aloud about a one-off reunion concert, two decades after
what had been thought to have been the ensemble's last hurrah. We
couldn't get arrested then, but once we'd been a very happening band.
Indeed, there are people around today who'll tell you that Clayson and
the Argonauts were nothing less than The Greatest Group Ever Formed.
After much protracted negotiation, a venue was found for the launch of
Sunset On A Legend at the ultra-trendy Metro in central London. I wasn't
expecting it to be like Pink Floyd at Live 8, very much the opposite,
partly because nearly all the Argonauts - containing four original key
members out of five - had in common professionally with Roger Waters,
Dave Gilmour et al was that they hadn't been immune from the ravages of
middle age either. Moreover, when studying photographs of a Clayson solo
recital a few weeks before, I was taken aback at what a painted old dame
I had become, looking just like Vanessa Redgrave in the RSC's recent
production of Hecuba.
There'd been a public dress rehearsal - billed as 'Mystery Band' - on a
solitary poster - nine days earlier in a village pub deep in rural
Berkshire, over which I will draw a veil - except to say that it
precipitated dark nights of the ego in which I imagined waking up on the
morning of the reckoning with the mother of all sore throats; howling at
the Moon in the late afternoon as an AA patrolman shakes his head over
an over-charging alternator on the M4's hard shoulder, and the support
acts - Project Adorno and The Otters - over-running valiantly as we reel
into the Metro, hot and bothered, and then shamble on without a
soundcheck to delivered a truncated Codswallop Special to an audience
consisting of the cloakroom attendant's barking dog and a couple of
blokes who leave leave after the first number, setting off a
fire-extinguisher on the way out.
Instead, the entire day was a joy. The road crew functioned with quiet
efficiency, and the Argonauts and I fired on all cylinders from start to
finish before a capacity crowd - of all ages. Carol Boyer, president of
our long-defunct US fan club, flew in from Minnesota with her niece.
Other parties arrived from Holland, France and Scotland.
Perhaps they were too pre-hyped not to like a stage act that defied
succinct description, and forgotten - or maybe not so forgotten -
numbers that were up to nearly forty years old, the lyrics of which, I
was flattered to notice, were being mouthed by onlookers. Up on the
boards, we were as ecstatic as our cramped devotees at being so rabidly
remembered by those there virtually from the beginning - solid heads of
families now - and others for whom we had preceded consciousness.
In the dressing room afterwards, the general feeling was that we'd done
OK - more than OK - and would now get on with our individual lives.
However, almost immediately after the dust settled, we were approached
about further 'farewell performances' - and, two years on, we're still
very much a functioning entity, not merely as a tribute band to
ourselves, but attracting interest for fresh artistic developments -