Watch The Sensational Alex Harvey Band terrify hippies in 1974
There was something so perfectly timed about The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s demise. The same year they parted ways, The Sex Pistols released their era-defining album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols, an album indebted to the provocative Scottish quintet almost as much as Harvey and Co. were indebted to their record label by that time. Around 80 grand of debt, to be specific.
Oddball to the core, the members of the Alex Harvey band were essential role models for the simmering wave of punk bands lurking just beneath the surface of the UK scene. Seeming to exist in a lane of their own devising, the Glaswegian group stood in stark contrast to the soft and self-indulgent world of hippiedom. This footage of the band’s performance in Norway in 1974 reminds us of just how much pleasure they found in scaring the living daylights out of young hippies.
Formed in Glasgow in 1972, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band were, first and foremost, a live act. Take Zal Cleminson, the band’s distinctive guitarist, who chose to perform in vaudevillian mime makeup and loved nothing more than grinning back at the band’s disconcerted audience with sinister eyes. Then there was Alex Harvey himself, a fearless, charismatic and undeniably manic performer who developed a performance style based on pushing himself to the outer limits of acceptability. Honestly, if you’ve not seen this footage yet, I urge you to check it out. Harvey makes Johnny Rotten look like a wailing toddler.
Interestingly, Harvey’s career as a musician began in much the same way as that of The Beatles. Like the Fab Four, he started off in skiffle bands, later honing his skills in provincial German clubs before The Sensational Alex Harvey Band landed a gig supporting Slade on their UK tour. After a string of dates and numerous performances on The Old Grey Whistle Test, they finally found themselves on the map.
This footage was filmed the year before SAHB entered the top 40 with a curveball cover of Tom Jones ‘Delilah’, and you can feel the confidence seeping from Harvey’s every pore. The young, flower-adorned crowd clearly hasn’t got the faintest idea of what’s going on. As Harvey garbles nonsensical lyrics and dashes about the stage with a pair of tights over his head, all they can do is look on in utter bewilderment. It really is beautiful to see.
Make sure you check out SAHB’s 1974 performance of ‘Framed’ if you haven’t already.
