Liverpool Royal Court Theatre, 1983

Recently I had the opportunity to watch a DVD of a recording from Liverpool Royal Court Theatre, December 18, 1983, where Slade gave their final concert in England (without knowing). The DVD claims to be the one and only full concert record in existence of Slade, which is not entirely true, as there's the concert taped at the Winterland Arena in San Francisco, 1975, as well.
Anyway, this Liverpool concert runs a little over an hours. The quality of both sound and picture is rather lousy, but what the heck. It's Slade! As hot and energetic as ever. Playing in front of an experienced audience that knows all the lines, singing along and shouting “Yeah!” at all the right times.
The set list is:
Rock'n'Roll Preacher
When I'm Dancin' I Ain't Fightin'
Take Me Bak 'Ome
My Oh My
A Night To Remember
Lock Up Your Daughters
Gudbuy T'Jane
We'll Bring The House Down
Hot Love
Get Down And Get With It
and for the encores:
You'll Never Walk Alone
Mama Weer All Crazee Now
Merry Xmas Everybody
This is really a great concert with many highlights. A great rendition of Bak 'Ome with Jim sticking his bass to the stacks, Dave doing an "Egyptian" dance and Nod freaking out on vocals.
Nod's banter is as always witty, for instance when after My Oh My he talks about doing Top of The Pops: "I said to the cameraman, I said, can you make sure you get me best side. He said, we can't get a camera up your arse."
Don's doing one heck of a job during Jane followed by House Down. He sure is a hard-working lad! And it was great seeing the guys do T. Rex' Hot Love with Jim on lead while Nod was taking a break.
I also enjoyed the speedy version of Get Down and of course MXE with Nod in a Santa's costume. A Christmas tree is being lowered down on stage, but Nod doesn't realise until Dave points it out to him. Great. The whole thing ends with the then obligatory Singing In The Rain.
I think the whole concert is fantastic, but it probably comes as no surprise to anyone that I'm especially fond of the Jim/Don-solos during Night To Remember. Jim does a great Purple Haze on bass as fast as only Jim can do it, and Don has an intermezzo on drums before Jim is back on violin. His superbly diabolical Rhapsody In Blue has plenty of audience participation before he finishes off with doing the gallop infernal from Offenbach's Orpheus, playing the violin under his arm, through his legs, lying on his back on the floor. Fantastic!
Well, zap, back to the present. It's truly a wonderful concert and you're left with the thought, why, why, why did they stop touring! What a waste!
Anyway, thanks for the view, mate!