Oct. 20, 1972 Review: The Hollies at Kleinhans Music Hall

 

The Hollies, despite being at a low point, hold their heads high. 

Oct. 20, 1972

A Fine Hollies Concert

… And Nobody Came 

        “Looks like you all came here in the same taxi,” Tony Hicks told the meager audience in Kleinhans Music Hall Thursday night.

        Only about 800 or so showed up to see Hicks and the rest of The Hollies, the British quintet that gave the world Graham Nash and a dozen hits like “Bus Stop,” “Carousel,” “Hey, Marianne” and “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.”

        It seemed like the people who were there felt like they made a mistake. Their only mistake was that they didn’t forget about the empty seats and get carried off by the music.

        The Hollies, undaunted, trotted out the high three-part harmony that endeared them to the late ‘60s and only took occasional nods to the past.

        More concerned were they with the most recent album, “Distant Light,” where they sound like lightweight Moody Blues, and their upcoming LP, “Romany,” from which they did a couple quietly complex and well-crafted tunes.

* * *

HICKS provided those fluid, sensual lead guitar lines that ornament the group’s latter-day work, while the rest of the band (excepting drummer Bobby Elliot) made veritable musical chairs out of instrumental switching.

        Hicks and Terry Sylvester comprise two-thirds of the famous Hollies vocal sound and they do it with relish and ease.

        Third part goes to their newest member, Mike from Sweden, a handsome blond tenor with a catch in his throat.

        The tall, dour-faced Swede is a real find – a balance for Hicks and a talented instrumentalist and a singer of considerable power.

        Also unexpected were Mike’s version of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break a Heart” and a potent “Amazing Grace,” which Hicks said they’d only worked up that afternoon.

* * *

THEIR RECENT hit, “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress,” finished it righteously, but the crowd was only mildly stirred. Then again, what can you expect when some of them walked out on lead-off man Danny O’Keefe and his band.

        O’Keefe, currently riding high with “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues,” came on with a loud four-piece band and showed off some of the rocking songs that addicted a small cult to his first album more than a year ago.

        Two of them are undiscovered – “Saturday Morning,” a song about school being out (forever), and “Covered Wagon,” an archetypal down-the-road song.

        These and other country-tinged rockers alternated with his quieter, heavier stuff off the new album – “Valentine Pieces,” “After the War Is Over” and, of course, “Good Time Charlie.”

* * *

WEARING what looked like a tan leather suit, the lean O’Keefe overcame shocks from a fouled-up microphone to deliver authoritative vocals in his buzzy tenor and trade minor-tinged Allman Brothers guitar riffs with second guitarist Steve Lawler.

        Rocking with them was Alex Richmond on piano, out of spotlight range and buried most of the time in the instrumental balance, but excellent whenever she sounded out.

        Meanwhile, where were you, Buffalo? Missing a bad concert is understood, but this was a good one.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE: A low point for The Hollies after a change of record companies and the departure of founding member Allan Clarke. Clarke’s replacement was Mike from Sweden – Mikael Rickfors, former lead singer with the Swedish band Bamboo, which opened for the Hollies in Sweden in 1967. He stayed with them for two years and two albums, until Clarke returned to the group. In the photo, Rickfors is the guy on the left. 

        Opener Danny O’Keefe wrote a bunch of songs that have been covered by other people, from Elvis to Jackson Browne, but “Good Time Charlie” was his only hit.