The Power Of Rock, Manchester G-MEX Arena - 12th Dec 1989

Love this track,pity it’s not been played live since
Cheers

Love it but i cant help but think "where the f**k did this come from" on an album that really was beyond shite 

"I'd been working on POR for some time. It was no secret that I loved the B tuning and I'd long wanted to do another extended rock tune with the guys, with the solos, tempo shifts etc.

The whole Irish conflict was big news then and I had this idea for a lyric about a couple separated by the no go areas in Belfast and the Catholic/Protestant divide- then brought together by the power of rock 'n' roll. Corny as f--- by today's standards, but it seemed a great idea at the time.

I borrowed the idea of the "wows" in the chorus from John Farnham's You're the Voice. We all loved that track.

It was VERY difficult to get Frame motivated to come all the way from Purley to my house in Iver to work on the song. Rick was over regularly anyway, because we'd written and demo'd a lot of things there. It was most important to me that they were both involved in the writing. I was fully aware of the type of songs that were being put forward for that album (PR) and knew exactly what kind of outcry there would be from the fans.

I'm proud to say that most of the song structure was mine. Rick contributed strongly to his middle vocal section ("But they were learning" etc) I had the other melodies, riffs and most of the lyrics in place and the guys helped me to tidy them up. Frame is great at finding lovely melodic twists and turnarounds.

I remember that I wanted to book rehearsal time to really work the song in, but that wasn't possible before we left for Nassau. I'd put together a pretty good demo in any case. It was recorded as a single backing track and I sang the guide vocal in the studio. The guys played all their own parts and Frame's extended solos were spontaneous (he'd not yet lost the enthusiasm for playing long solos!) This is some of the best improvised soloing Frame ever did on any of the songs I recorded with them, and the piano solo is a belter too. We got a few people in to sing the chorus- crew and others.

I think they turned in brilliant live performances of it later. It's always easy to say that they play certain songs better live (such as BB) but the simple truth is- Of course they do, they were still learning them when they were recorded!

(Incidentally, the reason that the fade of IAWMT breaks down so quickly is because Francis made a few cock ups and stopped playing! The bulk of that solo was taken from his demo and Francis was not at all keen on recording another. The feeling was- the song is over anyway!)"

There is an early demo of "The Power Of Rock" with just Rick and Pip. 

The man's a prophet 

I have to confess, it's not a song I'm completely wild about but compared to most of Perfect Remedy, it easily stands out along with a couple of others.

At the time, I thought it was TOO like John Farnham's You're The Voice in places and Pip has confirmed that they basically pinched the 'shout'. That song was still within pretty recent memory and therefore The Power Of Rock lost some of it's impact for me. 

I think I read somewhere that they wanted to cover You're The Voice but I'm glad they didn't. I'm not sure anyone else could have sung it as good. 

Alan had already written about Northern Ireland almost 20 years before and came up with a song that was much, much better. Certainly more subtle and a fabulous listen to this day 

I was at that gig and it was superb, fantastic crowd and sound, amazing energy from the band

Hi guys,

This is amazeballs. I was at that gig in 1989. Thank you, Quoincidence. I remember ROLD being magical that evening too.

Happy New Year!

These 1989 gigs were great, regardless of my thoughts about the album. In fact, that really applies to all gigs/tours whether the albums have been good, bad or indifferent.