There’s a rather wonderful website out there listing more than 20 years of live performances for Noddy Holder, Jim Lea, Dave Hill and Don Powell, marking Slade’s evolution from their time with the bands that preceded the Black Country’s finest through to the final dates for the classic four-piece line-up.

I’ve lost myself in its pages many times, not least while writing, researching and editing Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade. Kudos there, as with so much detailed online information and history concerning this legendary outfit, to Chris Selby, who happens to remain on close terms with members of the group to this day and almost dismissively suggests he was just around ‘right time, right place’ to witness the band’s emergence and chart their progress. From newspaper cuttings to numerous hours scrolling through library archives, Slade fans have much to be thankful for regarding his painstaking research; with Don’s diaries also a great help along the way.

And this week is as good a time as any to skim through those archives in search of festive fixtures from the days of Dave and Don’s old band, The Vendors onwards, celebrating two decades of Christmas shows for an iconic West Midlands outfit forever associated with this magical time of the year.

I’ll start on Friday 20^th and Saturday 21st December 1963, with The Vendors at Etheridge Youth Club, Bilston, then Claregate Boys Club, Tettenhall, Wolverhampton, while Noddy’s fledgling outfit The Rockin’ Phantoms were doing their own thing the following lunchtime and the night after at regular haunt, the Three Men in a Boat in Bloxwich, before a Christmas Eve engagement at North Walsall Working Men’s Club.

The following December, 1964, The Vendors were getting bookings as The ’N Betweens, including a Sunday 20th show at the Ship and Rainbow, Wolverhampton, supporting Alexis Korner, and a Boxing Day bill with The Moody Blues at the Casino Club in Walsall, By then, Noddy was with Steve Brett and the Mavericks, also playing Walsall’s Casino Club (23^rd), Nottingham’s Bridgford Beat Club (24^th), and supporting Tony Dangerfield & the Thrills at the Ship and Rainbow (26^th), both bands managing two more shows before the year out, each in Wolverhampton.

By Christmas Eve ’65, The ‘N Betweens were apparently managing appearances at both Harold Clowes Hall in Bentilee, Stoke-on-Trent and the Civic Hall, Brierley Hill, Dudley, ending the year with a New Year’s Eve show at Sneyd Lane Youth Club, Bloxwich. And the following Christmas Eve, 1966, both Nod and Jim now also on board – the classic four-piece in place – they were at Le Metro, Livery Street, Birmingham, finishing the year there a week later at the Silver Blades ice rink. And in December ’67 – when I was barely eight weeks old – they were between dates at the Bolero Club in Wednesbury (24^th) and the Woolpack in Salop Street, Wolverhampton (26^th), just a few days after a Dudley Zoo date with Jimmy Cliff. Oh, to have witnessed that.

According to the records, they returned to the Woolpack the following Christmas Eve, 1968, also squeezing in a visit across town at Club Lafayette, appearing with the Montanas, before a Boxing Day Bolero Club return, then playing Wolverhampton Civic Hall on Friday 27^th with The Idle Race (Jeff Lynne now featuring prominently in Roy Wood’s old band) and The Evolution.

But while there were a pre-Christmas trip to the Bolero Club in 1969, the year they became Ambrose Slade, released their debut album, then with Chas Chandler taking over the reins shortened the name, they were regularly venturing further afield, playing Fisher’s Melody Rooms in Norwich with Eyes of Blond on Christmas Eve, before a Boxing Day return to the Ship & Rainbow (although they were also down for Annabel’s nightclub in Sunderland, that day, a third visit that year, the first two as Ambrose Slade), with Wolverhampton’s Park Hall Hotel and Dudley Zoo’s Queen Mary Ballroom that weekend.

Things had clearly moved on come the first Christmas of the ‘70s, two nights at Glasgow’s Electric Gardens the weekend before the festive break – by which time Play it Loud was in the shops –  followed by a George Hotel date in Walsall on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day’s trip down to the Temple Club on Wardour Street, central London… albeit keeping it real with a Sunday 27th Connaught Hotel show in Wolverhampton.

By Christmas ‘71 we’re talking bona fide pop stars, on the back of first UK No.1, ‘Coz I Luv You’, Slade‘s engagements that festive season including Preston Public Hall (21^st), Up the Junction in Crewe (23^rd), and back on Wardour Street, this time at the Marquee (24^th), finishing the year with a Friday date at The Boathouse, Kew Bridge (29^th), the audience for the latter including Andy Scott and Mick Tucker of The Sweet.

In fact, Andy told me recently, “I remember dragging Mick, when I first joined The Sweet, down to the Boathouse at Kew. We walked in, went into the dressing room, and you could see they were getting ready to go on. I said, ‘Nice to see you,’ they went on, and we stood at the back somewhere. And it was like being in a war zone, the sound. They had that huge WEM PA system, which was like, I suppose, a good quality transistor radio turned up very loud. There wasn’t a hell of a lot of frequency differences. But the band themselves… I remember Mick and I both going, ‘Well, you know, that is full on energy!’”

December 1972 involved three London dates between the Sundown Centre, Brixton (a short-lived disco in a venue now better known as the Academy) and linked Sundown Theatre, Edmonton (better known as The Regal), up to the 18^th, the final date added to cope with demand. But there were no festive dates listed in 1973, while ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ was at No.1, their third single to enter the charts at the top in that momentous year, a gap showing between November 20th’s European tour finale at Zirkus Krone in Munich and a January 9th US tour opener along with Jo Jo Gunne and Brownsville Station at the Spectrum, Philadelphia.

As for Christmas ’74, the schedule just shows Paris Olympia on December 16^th – where French super-fan Gerard Goyer missed out, two days after his 19th birthday, as he was doing compulsory military service – and a TopPop performance in the Netherlands on the 29^th, appearing with Mud, The Rubettes, George McCrae, ABBA and Carl Douglas… which all sounds a little bit frightening.

During their US exile, they appeared on Friday 19th December 1975 at The Centrum / Cherry Hill Arena, New Jersey, with Kiss and Steppenwolf, the first band majorly inspired by Slade, the other a key influence on the band at the tail end of the ’60s. And to see Slade ‘Bak ’Ome’ at Christmas you had to wait until December 1979, a private do at St Bart’s Hospital followed by a Goldsmiths College date then Camden’s Music Machine (13^th), the latter venue becoming familiar to the Slade faithful (this being their fourth of eight dates at a venue at other times in its distinguished history known as Camden Palace and now Koko), before a Beau Sejour Leisure Centre engagement in Guernsey (22^nd), a mixed bill also including West London punks The Lurkers. Times had certainly changed.

Daryl Easlea mentions the St Bart’s function in fellow 2023 arrival Whatever Happened to Slade? He writes, ‘Cutting engineer Phil Kinrade, a lifelong fan, was in hospital in December 1979 at St Barts in London’s Smithfield. Recovering from an operation, lying in bed, he kept thinking he could hear Slade playing in the distance. Worried, perhaps, that he may be hallucinating, Kinrade asked a nurse if he could hear Slade. It transpired the band were playing the hospital’s Christmas party.’

Meanwhile, Dave Hemingway, the former Housemartins drummer/vocalist who went on to feature with The Beautiful South and these days Sunbirds, told me that Goldsmith’s date was his second Slade show, while he was a student there in New Cross. ‘They played the students’ Christmas party when they were assumed to be past it – has-beens. Not a chance. The students’ hall they played had a really low roof, and was long and narrow, with Slade at one end, and I was lucky enough to be around ten yards from the front. I say lucky, but my ears were ringing for two days afterwards. They got a girl up on the stage and Noddy, Jim and Dave just rocked out at her while she danced.’

The following year saw them play Grimsby’s Central Hall on December 22^nd, eight days before a Rotters Club engagement in Doncaster, that landing four months after their Reading Festival triumph, fortunes changing again.

That’s where it really came together, those next three Christmases all about celebrating with Slade and finishing the year in style, December ’81’s schedule climaxing at Newcastle’s City Hall (18^th), Birmingham Odeon (19^th) and Hammersmith Odeon (20^th), while the following year also ended at those venues, two nights back in the capital (17^th/18^th) followed by a Birmingham return (19^th).

And then came December 1983, Friday 16th’s Queen Margaret University date in Glasgow and Saturday 17th at Durham University followed by what proved to be Slade’s full UK live finale as the classic four-piece, at Liverpool’s Royal Court Theatre on Sunday 18^th, 40 years ago this week and a year to the day after my sole live sighting of the legendary Nod, Jim, Dave and Don line-up at Hammersmith, when I was barely 15.

There were set to be more, the Black Country’s finest returning to America three months later, supporting their friend Ozzy Osbourne. But they managed just four warm-up dates – one in Texas, two in Colorado, then finally at the Cow Palace in Daly City, California, on Wednesday, March 28^th. That was it, Jim collapsing in the dressing room after a performance, later diagnosed with hepatitis C. They returned home and never toured again, Noddy proving resistant to another bash, despite them finally making waves on the US charts, concentrating on sorting out his divorce, Slade’s final decade together confined to the studio and promo appearances.

In early December ’84, a 1985 tour was announced, but while they appeared on BBC children’s TV show Crackerjack! on Friday 14^th, within a fortnight that tour was cancelled… and never rearranged.

I’ll head back here to Hammersmith Odeon on Saturday 18^th December 1982. Backpacking around the world in 1990/91, I grew to understand how well known the support act, Cold Chisel, were in their native Australia, frontman Jimmy Barnes big news over there at the time. However, while reports suggest there was an impressive turnout from a fair dinkum expat/travelling fraternity, we were across the road soaking up the festive spirit in the Britannia instead.

As I put it in my introduction to Wild! Wild! Wild! heading up by train – Hammersmith bound – that night was ‘sketchy and vivid in equal measures.’ I shouldn’t have touched the ale, but the occasion commanded it, the clientele in the Fulham Palace Road boozer – lost to London by the end of the ’80s – that night ‘a motley mix of hippies, rockers, skins, punks and new wavers’, providing a cracking pre-gig vibe.

I wrote, ‘The first series of The Young Ones had just aired, and it seemed I was living it. A ginger-haired guy led the choir, his voice strong enough to secure the gig if Noddy rung in sick; a biker on the balcony poured beer on a stranger’s head below (getting little more aggro than a few swear-words); and a Vyvyan-like skinhead commanded, ‘Oi, hippie, buy me a pint!’ and his brazen request was granted.’ And I’d still love to know if anyone can name that red-haired ringmaster in the pub.

At the Odeon, the absolute power certainly registered, as did the sight of Santa-suited Nod and his scantily clad elves for the inevitable ‘MXE’ encore. And while my evening caught up with me on a packed Tube jolting back towards Waterloo, what a night that was… and thankfully there are more in-depth recollections of that show in Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade.

It wasn’t Slade’s first visit to the Odeon. In fact, there’s a testimony from Style Council/Dexys keyboard maestro Mick Talbot in the book about being there when they played there in mid-May 1974 (doing three nights on that occasion), when he was 15. A five-minute walk away – under the Hammersmith Flyover and beyond – there was also the Palais, where they filmed a scene for Slade in Flame in early September ’74, fan club member Steve Edwards among those recalling that appearance in the book, turning up both there and at the Rainbow Theatre (up on the Seven Sisters Road in North London) the previous night. Then there’s Trevor Brum, who mentions seeing them twice at the Odeon, something he managed at the Marquee too, as well as seeing them back at the Rainbow in ’77.

Lincoln lad Martin Brooks – nowadays with the Pouk Hill Prophetz tribute act – was also there, having first seen the band on home ground in late April ’78 at the Theatre Royal. As was Leeds-based regular attendee/commandeered roadcrew legend Nomis Baurley, on the scene since a March ’77 date at Sheffield City Hall, eventually amassing more than 100 Slade shows. And the same goes for fellow contributor Paul A. Smyth.

Dylan White, the London-based radio plugger and promo man responsible for getting Noel Gallagher on board for that ’96 Oasis cover of ‘Cum on Feel the Noize’ (and more recently getting plenty of acclaim for his own debut LP, Unfinished Business), has an association with Slade live dating back to the Palladium in January ’73… and he was also at the Hammy Odeon in ’74.

As for the aforementioned Gerard Goyer, he was there both nights in December ’82 for his fourth and fifth Slade shows (having also managed two Music Machine shows in 1980), taking a few photos too, his trip over from Paris by train and boat taking him three and a half hours, probably far less than those who came straight from a show in Glasgow that Thursday night.

I mentioned in my ‘Merry Xmas Everybody feature how that was Gavin Fletcher’s last Slade concert and author Bruce Pegg also enjoyed his night in the capital, in his case getting backstage with his US fiancée plus old friend Glenn Williams, later clambering out with Iron Maiden legend Bruce Dickinson and Girlschool drummer Denise Dufort, all five sharing a phone booth in a bid to keep warm while waiting on taxis. It was also Roy Capewell’s only chance to catch the classic Slade line-up.

As for Tony Roach, his recollections chime with mine. It was his last Slade show, and he recounted, ‘They were flaunting their heavy rock sound from Till Deaf Do Us Part, but it was regularly punctuated with Glam stompers like ‘Gudbuy T’ Jane’, ‘Mama Weer All Crazee Now’ and ‘Far Far Away’. Two immediate memories from that occasion: first, they were loud! You really did Feel the Noize. It vibrated through your ribcage like an earthquake. Second, the cross-section of the audience impressed me. There were kids and pensioners, hippy chick girls, black dudes, Japanese fans, middle-aged couples rubbing shoulders with Mohican-haired punks, Hell’s Angel types in studded biker leathers, dancing and joking with bovver-booted skinheads in denim and braces. Really, the most cosmopolitan crowd you could imagine, every one of them having a ball!

‘There wasn’t an ounce of trouble, just a groundswell of bonhomie which seemed contagious. The atmosphere in the audience itself was brilliant, let alone what was booming out from the stage… I’ve never seen anybody work an audience better than Noddy Holder. He teased us, he jested with us, he thrilled us. My God, that voice – like a pitch-perfect, melodic concrete mixer. If he stood next to the runway at Heathrow, he’d drown out the jet planes! Don Powell behind on the drums: immense, relentless. He had those trademark stick-of-rock stripey drumsticks and he was like a runaway juggernaut. Finally, twin imps springing in, out, up and down either side of Circus Ringmaster Noddy. Jim Lea gave a good impression of Spring-heeled Jack, playing his violin like a man possessed. And he was matched in energy by whirling dervish Dave Hill – resplendent in giant brimmed hat, bandolier and stack-heeled snakeskin boots. I remember him bouncing all over the stage that night, like Tigger on speed, his guitar breaks breath-taking.

‘All in all, it was the most exhilarating concert I ever attended. We were visited by a musical cyclone that evening, and I didn’t see a single person leaving who wasn’t smiling and dripping with sweat. A fantastic night.’

Fast forward a year and they were clearly still on top form, not least judging by a piece online this week from another Wild! Wild! Wild! Contributor, Ian Edmundson, co-author with Chris Selby of the six-book The Noize series. Marking four decades since that final full UK show, he said, “I have to feel really sorry for anyone who didn’t see the original line-up totally destroy an audience in 70 minutes and a dozen songs. You missed out.”

Simon Harvey was among those who made it to Liverpool. He was 11 when he first heard ‘Get Down and Get With It’ and fell in love with Slade, three years later seeing them live for the first time at London’s New Victoria Theatre in late April ’75, travelling in from home town Slough with school friend Kim Bryant on public transport, embarking on his ‘Slade live journey in style’ with the first of 98 sightings between 1975 and 1983… up to that final gig on Roe Street, Liverpool, L1.

John Barker, who runs the Slade Are For Life – Not Just For Christmas online pages, saw them the previous day, writing, ‘I didn’t discover Slade until 1983. Keith Chegwin was doing an outside broadcast for the BBC’s Saturday Superstore from Saltaire, West Yorkshire. It was only about a mile from where I lived, so I thought I’d pop along and meet some school friends there. I found out that the band appearing with Cheggers that day was Slade. As a 13-year-old into Adam Ant and other popular ’80s acts, I knew ‘We’ll Bring the House Down’ but I didn’t really know ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ and so on.

‘Seeing them do a playback performance of ‘My Oh My’ that day changed my life forever. There was a sense of fun about them, and Noddy’s personality shone through. He was wonderful with the crowd, even when the cameras weren’t rolling. That afternoon I bought the ‘My Oh My’ single from my local record shop and found a second-hand copy of Slade Smashes! on the market. From that moment, I was a Slade fan. My collection grew quickly, and I discovered just how great they were as recording artists. Sadly, I never saw the original Slade play live, as their final UK show was the day after that Superstore appearance.’

Another regular Slade attendee, Peter Smith, caught them the day prior to the Liverpool finale at Durham University Students’ Union, and wrote, ‘Slade were, as usual, excellent. A packed Dunelm House gave Slade a rapturous welcome. I didn’t know it at the time, but it would be the last time I would see the original Slade line-up. A UK tour was scheduled for 1985 but cancelled. An era had come to an end and one of the greatest rock bands the world has ever seen were no more.

‘Slade were truly one of the best bands I ever saw, and I carry many fond memories, particularly of wild shows in the 1970s. A class act. Their like is never to be seen again. The front cover of the tour programme at Durham shows Slade on stage at Reading in 1980. The concert was recorded and released as the live album, Slade on Stage. They were clearly very proud of that performance and wanted to be remembered for it and their status as heavy rock heroes. I am somewhere in that crowd close to the front, but I can’t see myself.’

Nomis Baurley revealed that the Liverpool gig wasn’t meant to be the 1983 tour finale. ‘It should have been Durham Uni, but gigs got switched to allow for Top of the Pops appearances in a bid to push ‘My Oh My’ to No.1. It didn’t happen, but we came so close. I’m glad the last gig was in a big theatre. Durham Uni was a small sweatbox. I travelled down from there with two of Slade’s old crew, Haden Donovan and Mickey Legg, in a Smith’s Self Hire van. We thought it would be a good idea to steal a Christmas tree from a service station to hoist above the stage in Liverpool at the gig.

‘Once again, it was another triumphant tour, with lots of back-slapping and ‘see ya next year’s… but it wasn’t to be. They got the call to support Ozzy in the States on the back of the success of ‘Run Runaway’ there, but a couple of gigs in, Jim got ill, and they had to cancel. A tour was announced for 1985 and then got cancelled.’

Peter Farrington, who first caught Slade on Top of the Pops when he was nine but didn’t get to see them until 1981, catching both Liverpool shows that year – at the Empire Theatre in February and the Royal Court Theatre in October. And now a policeman, he was back at the latter for ‘the last hurrah’ in December ’83. He wrote, ‘I later acquired a video recording, a story in itself. On the night I had no idea it would be the last show. That June, I was involved in a serious motorbike accident. I spent three weeks in hospital and my leg was in plaster for several weeks. I was on crutches and only returned to work late in November. I’d persuaded a doctor to let me back as I was worried I’d have my probationary period extended. I should not have been walking a beat as I couldn’t run or even cross the road easily – stepping on and off kerbs was very hard. I couldn’t bend at the knee. Nevertheless, such was the desire to see Slade, I took my chances. Again, I was blown away by the sheer power and their exuberance. Holder is the greatest frontman of all time, better than Mercury, Jagger, Lydon or anybody else that might contest that accolade. If you’ve never seen Slade, you just can’t grasp how different they were on stage to the TOTP sound and image most people know.’

Andrew Rigby added, ‘Did anyone ever see Slade play a bad gig? I doubt it. Although I missed them in their pomp, even in the doldrum years of the late Seventies and early Eighties they never failed to deliver, regardless of whether there were 100 people there or if it was at their Reading renaissance. For excitement and audience participation, I don’t think I’ve witnessed anyone to touch them, and that’s after nearly 45 years of concert-going. I would match them only with The Clash, Springsteen at his best and Thin Lizzy in their prime. And that’s some company! There are of course other artists with more credibility and respect, but no matter. Nod, Dave, Jim and Don had that something that made them untouchable as a live act, a bit like The Who. The sum of their parts together was never matched by them as individuals. Years of paying their dues up and down the M1, Nod’s almost vaudeville-like approach to audiences, Jim’s intensity and need for respect, and Dave and Don’s pop background all made for an untouchable live sound.

‘I think I saw them twelve times in all. Highlights were the infamous Christmas gigs, where the roofs were literally blown away when they launched into that song, and the Reading and Donington festivals, where they were considered underdogs on both occasions, only to blow away all the opposition even without lights or stage gimmicks to rely on. My personal favourite is what was (regrettably) their last stand, at the Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool. It was another Christmas tour, complete with Nod in Father Christmas garb. You could literally eat the atmosphere when they hit the stage, and they gave a performance never bettered by a rock ‘n’ roll band. You could feel the balcony literally shake, but this was nothing new at a Slade gig. Anything less was not acceptable.”

And I’ll leave you with another Royal Court Theatre finale attendee, Les Glover, of Don Powell’s Occasional Flames (alongside Slade poet laureate Paul Cookson), telling me, ‘It was brilliant, a full-on assault of the senses. I’m convinced they, along with Judas Priest and Motörhead, were the main cause of my hearing problems in later years. I’ve seen them several times since, and although never as good as the original four, they can still make you sing, smile and stomp like the best of them.’

Wild! Wild! Wild! A People’s History of Slade (Spenwood Books 2023) features more than 350 accounts about the band – live sightings, appreciations, and key moments – from down the years by close to 300 contributors, be those committed fans or musicians who played alongside the band or were inspired to follow their lead.

There are also excerpts from Malcolm Wyatt’s interviews with Dave Hill, Don Powell and Jim Lea, further insight from Noddy – with permission from the interviewer – and forewords by glam legends Suzi Quatro and Andy Scott (Sweet). Contributors include members of Status Quo, The Beat, The Jam, Lindisfarne, The Members, The Selecter, The Specials, The Stranglers, The Style Council, The Undertones, The Vapors, The Beautiful South, Carter USM, The Chords, Dodgy, The Farm, Folk Devils, The Loft, The Wolfhounds, The Wonder Stuff, and The Woodentops. Legendary photographer Gered Mankowitz, ‘80s pop icon Nik Kershaw, children’s author Cathy Cassidy, music writer John Robb, and Slade poet laureate Paul Cookson also feature.

There’s still time to order before Christmas direct via Spenwood Books or online via Amazon, or you can try before you buy at your local library or order through your favourite bookseller. You can also track down copies in my old hometown at Ben’s Collector’s Records, Tunsgate, Guildford, Surrey, or Action Records, Church Street, Preston, Lancashire.

For Chris Selby’s impressive Slade concertography, my main source above, head here. And for more about Ian Edmundson and Chris Selby’s six-book The Noize series – namely The Noize: the Slade Discography; Six Years on the Road: 1978 – 1983; Did You See Us?; Slade on 45 (Volumes 1 and 2); and the newly added Prime Cuts: A Barn Records Singles Discography – head to the authors’ Amazon page.