Album review : TRAPEZE – Midnight Flyers (The Complete Recordings Vol 2) 5 CD boxset

Cherry Red [Release date 28.04.23]

CD1 – Hot Wire (1974) & Trapeze (1976)
CD2 – Hold On (1979)
CD3 – Live At The Boat Club, Nottingham (1975)
CD4 – Live In Arlington, Texas, (1976)
CD5 – Live In Fort Worth, Texas (1981)

In 1973, after 3 albums, Glenn Hughes took a free transfer from Trapeze to Deep Purple.

The talented foursome who formed the “new” Trapeze, Mel Galley, Dave Holland, Pete Wright and Rob Kendrick subsequently elevated the band’s unique brand of hard rock and funk as they constantly sought to overhaul their own template during the band’s short lifespan.

The first album with the new line up, Hot Wire, 1974 (Disc 1), confounded the critics.

What impacts you most is the fact that there’s a rigour to the band’s music, a technical brilliance that’s hidden behind fluent, impressive playing, most notably on ‘Midnight Flyer’ and ‘Steal A Mile’. Hughes may have got the vocal plaudits up until now, but it’s clear from this album that Galley’s guitar, voice and writing helped lay the foundations of Classic Rock.

You can hear this further on the recording of the quartet’s gig at the Boat Club in Nottingham in 1975 (Disc 3), a UK live radio broadcast featuring tracks from their first 2 albums with Hughes, Medusa (1970) and You Are The Music…(1972), as well as Hot Wire and the forthcoming Trapeze (1976).

Hughes’ regrets on leaving Trapeze were widely documented. And indeed he returned to the band, as guest vocalist, on that 1976 self titled album (also Disc 1), performing vocals on two tracks, ‘Nothing For Nothing’ and ‘Chances’.

Clearly the magic was still alive. Hughes, Galley and Holland re-joined forces as a power trio for a US tour in 1976. The Arlington, Texas gig, constructed around a solid backbone of the band’s music… ‘Coast To Coast’, ‘Medusa’, ‘Seafull’ and so on … is included on Disc 4 in all its powerful, funk rock entirety.

At that point Hughes’ drug abuse intervened, the tour was called short and Hughes went on his way.

Galley recruited singer/guitarist, Pete Goalby (later to join Uriah Heep) for the ‘Hold On’ (Disc 2) album. It features six songs from Galley and three from Goalby.

One of Goalby’s first US Trapeze gigs was the Live In Fort Worth, Texas concert in 1981 (Disc 5). And credit to the guy, he rocked the house. It’s a short sharp set, in which Goalby more than holds his own on Trapeze classics, most impressively on ‘Way Back To The Bone’ and ‘Backstreet Love’.

With or without Hughes, this boxset displays the considerably awesome talent Trapeze possessed in spades, showing us how an astute compiler can take us on a thrilling journey though some of the best years of a band’s life. ****

Review by Brian McGowan

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