SDL Music Album of the Month: Live at the Esplanade - The Legionnaires
It’s December, the Christmas parties are cranking up, the summer holidays beckon, and we need an album to turn up to 11. So accordingly, the December SDL Music Album of the Month is The Legionnaires, Live at the Esplanade.
At the time The Legionnaires consisted of Graham Brazier, Harry Lyon, Vinnie Buchanan, Dave McArtney, Stuart Pearce and Neil Hannan. We all had long history of performing in various bands together but of course the core of The Legionnaires was its history with Hello Sailor. However, ‘The Legionnaires’ was very much Graham’s band and his mission was to perform his own songs that weren’t necessarily part of the Hello Sailor stable, but really, it all merged into one during this time in 1993. Graham’s banter between songs and his energy reflects his love of being ‘the showman’.
The Auckland live scene nearly 30 years ago was lively with pub gigs and The Esplanade in Devonport was one of the great venues for local music. Punters took a ferry over from the city for a night of live music.
“Hey you, snappy shorts, if you wanna get stroppy, you and me come outside now”
- Graham Brazier
Live at The Esplanade is a fabulous snapshot of a night out in Auckland, singing and dancing along to a bunch of seasoned performers knocking out the music that the crowd wanted to hear. If anyone knows that bloke in the crowd singing the backing vocals for Blue Lady, while we are hoping he didn’t give up his day job, someone needs to let him know he’s streaming on Spotify!
All the sound is gathered from one stereo mic placed high in the middle of the room > wired to a DAT machine, which picked up everything from Roger Westbury’s fabulous FoH mix. Most live recordings are of course, done direct from the mixing desk which can lose some of the ambience that the crowd provides. I think the measure of this live recording is that the crowd is part of what makes it so great and transports the listener to that warm Auckland night.
I was really pleased with how the recording came out but didn’t do anything with it at the time. It wasn’t until a few years later that I played around with it and put it out on CD and then it had new life again when it went online to be streamed.
As this is the last album of the month, we wish you a merry Christmas and hope you’ll be adding a bit of SDL Music magic to your holiday playlist with a few classics from Live at the Esplanade.