Leslie Harvey: the onstage death that changed music history
Playing music is typically not associated with risking one’s life. Concerts are meant to be communal experiences centred around bringing people together to enjoy a shared love of music. However, Leslie Harvey’s tragic and mysterious death onstage sent shockwaves throughout the music world, underscoring the unexpected dangers that can arise even amid a performance intended to provide joy and entertainment.
During his teen years, Harvey first followed in the footsteps of various British invasion bands before finally getting the itch to pick up an instrument. While he did get the opportunity to tour as part of British favourite The Animals, Harvey knew that he was better served in his own outfit rather than trying to play ‘House of The Rising Sun’ every time he performed.
Joining the band Cartoone in the late 1960s, Harvey had the kind of opportunities that most rock stars only dream of. Along with opening for Spirit during a handful of tours, one of his biggest breaks came when he supported Led Zeppelin throughout their inaugural tour of America in 1969.
Seeing what Zeppelin could do live, Harvey would eventually find a new band in Power, who were taken under the wing of Zeppelin’s manager Peter Grant and renamed Stone the Crows. While Harvey seemed like a promising young talent at the time, everything would come to an end when he collapsed onstage.
Right as the band were picking up steam, their arrival at a Top Rank Suite in 1972 quickly turned deadly when launching into their first handful of songs. As Harvey went to grab a microphone to sing, he was electrocuted and pronounced dead within minutes of paramedics arriving. While the group had taken proper precautions with their instruments, the microphone was not earthed properly, which made a normal static shock turn fatal.
This was far from the last time that the rock world would encounter such a problem. When Kiss was performing during their prime, Ace Frehley would go through a similar situation when he was walking down a flight of stairs during their lavish stage show, being knocked out and eventually writing the song ‘Shock Me’ about his experience.
Nothing would bring Harvey back, though, leading to venues starting to take special care of how the cables were run during every show. While many bands would have run-ins with electrical problems based on whatever venue they played, performance spots across the board would start putting inspections in place to ensure no talent was grabbing onto their microphone for the final time.
As technology became more advanced, amplifier companies would make sure to keep any of their PA systems properly grounded. Even though Harvey would not get to carve out a legacy of his own, the people around him would continue to carry on his love for music. Outside of his own musical outfits, Harvey’s brother Alex would follow in his brother’s footsteps, keeping hard rock afloat with his namesake outfit, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
There is still new material yet to come from Harvey as well, including his performance on various songs for a shelved Maurice Gibb solo outing that has still yet to be released. The shoddy production of the time may have cost Harvey his life that fateful night in 1972, but the music world has helped make rock and roll a less hazardous job ever since.
