Nights At The Roundtable with Newcastle Headbangers (i.e. Heavy Metal) band Geordie featuring soon-to-be-member of AC/DC, Brian Johnson in 1973.
July 25, 2011

Geordie-in-Concert-1973.jpg
Geordie in concert, 1973 - Metal heads will know exactly who these guys are. Novices will ask "okay, who?"


Funny you should ask. Back in the early 70's, before Heavy Metal was actually an officially acknowledged genre, it was Hard Rock as put on by a bunch of Head Bangers", or "Sweat Bands" as they used to be known. Lots of hair, lots of riffs, heavy on guitars and wretched excess. Most of these Head Bangers or Sweat Bands came from England and some of them crossed over into Glam (i.e. The Sweet, Slade, Mott The Hoople), but some stayed true to their roots and won loyal fans (Nazareth, UFO, Hustler). Geordie were one of those true-to-their-roots bands and had a run of good popularity in the UK and throughout Europe. Sadly, they didn't do much here, probably because their first album was released on MGM and that was a label on its way out.

The historic importance of Geordie, aside from the fact they pretty much epitomized 70's Hard Rock, was their lead singer. If tonight's song doesn't sound familiar, but the vocalist does, that's because the lead singer for Geordie was Brian Johnson. Johnson, whose high-pitched wail bore a strong resemblance to AC/DC's Bon Scott, he was recruited into AC/DC upon the death of Scott in 1980.

Tonight's track is off their debut album We Hope You Like It. All Because Of You became a top-10 hit for Geordie in 1973 and laid the groundwork for a long and productive career, which has seen various incarnations of the band materialize since 1973.

Yes, Heavy Metal was getting it's act together. And Geordie was one of those bands who helped it along.

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