The 1970`s is renowned as being the decade when stadium rock was
its peak complete with huge delirious audiences and the well doc-
umented backstage groupies which were customary for the biggest
rock acts of the day, just imagine how much white powder and weed
all the roadies would have seen behind the scenes at any Led Zep-
pelin, Fleetwood Mac or Pink Floyd concert. Hey man! It was the
70`s, so i better lighten up and get with the spirit seeing that
i am going to review one very groupie sounding 70`s rock album,
marginally metal, but from a band that never achieved a squill-
ioneth of the long term success of the three bands i just men-
tioned. Remember the term `spacerock` or `boogie rock`, both
those descriptions accurately describe the style of this band.
We are talking about the UK band UFO and the classic live album
which they recorded in 1978 called STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT. The
band had recorded a few albums worth of solid but uneventful
material prior to this unofficial live `best of`, notably with
the services of famous pyrotechnic axeman Michael Schenker,
a german which they imported into the band at the beginning.
The stand out studio album which is represented the most on
this live outing is the critically well recieved LIGHTS OUT,
but the one thing which this album highlighted the most is
that UFO were always meant to be a live band, like Peter
Frampton in the 70`s UFO`s studio recordings just lacked
the panache which the band whipped up on stage. The for-
mula was simple, three-chords, unpredictable variations
in dynamics and a crowd in Chicago and Louisville which
went nanas in response to standout performances from a
band that had never quite made a album to rave about.
STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT is best described as being ballsy
blues rock with a touch of keyboard progression. It does re-
main ambiguous to this day whether or not Schenker was
still a member of the band or not for the recording of the
album, some music books have him down as being the
guitarist and other ones dont. Due to brewing tensions
within the band as to musical direction and conflicting
personalities, Schenker did quit the band and the timing
of it was awefully close to when STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT
was recorded. Officially he quit in November 1978 which
was just after the bands US tour, including the concerts
in Chicago and Louisville which were used for the album.
Whether it was Schenker or fill in guitarist Paul Chapman
who played lead on STRANGERS the performance was brilliant.
Phil Moog on vocals, Pete Way on bass and Andy Parker on
drums rounded out the band. The songs all basically sound
similiar, but it`s a boogie rock-a-athon from beginning to
end. HOT `N` READY, NATURAL THING, ONLY YOU CAN
ROCK ME, MOTHER MARY, DOCTOR DOCTOR, LIGHTS OUT,
ROCK BOTTOM and TOO HOT TO HANDLE is quinessential 70`s
rock, it has the enthusiasm of The Who, the solid structure
of Montrose, the atmosphere of Peter Frampton Live and
a hint of experimentation in the Hawkwind vein. Whether
or not Schenker was involved with this album or not, he
went on to record a classic solo album in 1980 going by
the simple title MSG, more on that another time. UFO
never recovered from Schenker`s exit from the band. A
number of re-formations have been attempted, the last
time anyone know vocalist Moog was the only original
member. This is the one great testament to the world
of hard rock which UFO left behind, get a hold of it.
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