Mother’s Finest: The opening act every headliner hated
Being the perfect opening band is a tricky balance to strike. If you sound bad, crowds will become restless and get bored of the gig before the main act is even on. On the other hand, if you play too well, you overshadow the main band to the point that you won’t be booked again. Black Sabbath struggled on a few occasions to get the right support band on tour with them.
The difficulty people had throughout the 1970s and ‘80s was the experimental nature of a lot of music. These days, while originality still exists in music, it tends to be a contortion of something we have previously heard. In the early days of rock, funk and disco, so much innovation was happening that people were constantly exposed to something new. This resulted in a lot of love-it-or-hate-it reactions.
Black Sabbath had a couple of innovative bands supporting them, making it hard for them to come on stage afterwards. Audiences weren’t just exposed to a good live band; they were treated to musical innovators and some of the biggest names in the future of music.
When Kiss went on tour with Sabbath, they introduced pyrotechnics to rock shows. Pair that with the outrageous outfits and make-up, and people were seeing a live show unlike anything they had seen before. “Kiss was the first to use pyro,” said Geezer Butler, “You’ve never seen that. I mean, the shock of that.”
He continued, “And they were supporting us, so they weren’t even headlining. I went out and watched them. There were all these flames coming out the stage and everything. It was like, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on here?’”
Tony Iommi had similar problems when Van Halen supported them, and Eddie Van Halen introduced a completely new way of playing the guitar to audiences. “Eddie was playing things I’d never seen before…” he said, “We’re still friends, and we became friends then. Of course, he set off a whole new load of players playing like that, and now I can’t believe some of them. I can’t follow it. I certainly couldn’t do it.”
When it came to the best support band of all time, though, there is no escaping the fact that Mothers Finest were a huge problem for a lot of acts, as they were constantly upstaging those they were supposed to be supporting. While what Kiss and Van Halen did was groundbreaking in the realm of rock, Mothers Finest’s sound expanded beyond just the confines of rock music. Instead, their sound transcended that genre and played into funk, soul and disco as well.
Their strong sound, paired with the cutting-edge vocals of lead singers Joyce Kennedy and Glenn Murdock, was impossible for people to turn away from. The moment they took to the stage, it was impossible for people to listen to what they were doing and not become completely infatuated with it.
They supported several different bands throughout their career and became notorious for upstaging acts. These artists included The Who, Aerosmith, Ted Nugent, and Frank Marino. There has always been a fine line for a support act to strike, and Mothers Finest always crossed that line, using innovative sounds to outshine many of the people they were supporting.
