THERE was a time, and it wasn’t so long ago, when it was impossible to imagine many of the more sophisticated songs—Lennon and McCartney’s ‘Strawberry Fields Forever,’ for example—being performed on stage.

Such songs were the product of the recording studio and depended in large part for their effect on all manner of mechanical devices—feedback, multi-track recording, backward tapes and so forth—which gave birth to a genre of composition rich in potential.

In parallel with these developments in recording, came the collapse of much live performance in Britain by established groups between 1968 and 1970—the result of unreliable amplification equipment, inadequately equipped concert halls and insufferably inflated pop egos. The belief was engendered that music on disc was the way forward. That the potential of recorded music has still not been realised is a comment on the tatty pretensions of pop.

During the past year the trend has been reversed and out of the woodwork have come some of the stars of yesteryear.

POP

Last weekend four major concerts demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of contemporary British pop in live performance. On Monday, at the Rainbow Theatre, North London, the Incredible String Band continued its progress as one of pop’s more overrated groups. With its uneasy mixture of amplified folk and unaccompanied dirges, the band’s predilection for fairy stories played out with mime and incoherent chordless has never seemed more banal.

Messrs Heron and Williamson remain tantalisingly gifted, though the pop world’s assumption that because the latter seems able to play 15 different instruments he is near to genius is a little hasty. Nonetheless, at its best, this six-man group presents a harmless variety act that has occasional musical ambitions.

On the two previous nights another home-grown band of an altogether superior calibre was on show in the same theatre—Roxy Music. Led by the pampered Bryan Ferry, looking more and more like an effete Elvis Presley, this formidable group has undergone numerous personnel changes since it last appeared in London, but while the ensemble playing may be tighter now than before, its performance, paradoxically, is shoddier. As if unsure whether it is a circus act or a group of dedicated musicians, Roxy has lost that central dynamic which marked it out above the herd. Admittedly, on Saturday night the amplification equipment was rotten and the audience unresponsive. Ferry, who really is a successor to Jagger, was as sexist as ever, and his group as unnervingly menacing. If only he and his band would take a cool look at themselves and assess what it is they wish to promote. At present they remain a musically inventive group whose style is ill-defined. Consequently, their act is insubstantial.

Sunday witnessed the first of six concerts at the Lyceum by the most experienced of all British live groups, The Who. Alas, the performance was bad. It was too loud and too long.

The result was that the excerpts from ‘Quadrophenia’ which the group played were almost unrecognisable and no amount of apologetic introduction by Pete Townshend could excuse the nightmarish organisation—or lack of it—at the concert.

The most interesting concert of all was a comparatively simple affair held the night before by a new group, Greenslade, in the concert hall of the Commonwealth Institute. The loudness was bearable, the acoustics adequate, the musicianship considerable and the performance thoroughly pleasing. The keyboard player has studied with Stan Tracey, the drummer is ex-King Crimson and the leader, Dave Greenslade, is an associate of Jon Hiseman. Together, they made few claims for their music and there was no attempt to crush the audience with flashing acrobatics either from performer or performance.

Their introductory chat was kept to a minimum and there were no rambling, metaphysical excuses for the message, in case we missed it. The group’s qualities are admirably reflected in their second LP, ‘Bedside Manners are Extra’ (Warner Brothers K46259), just released.