Motorhead rolled into Tyneside 40 years ago, kicking off their 1982 UK tour with three sold-out nights at Newcastle City Hall.
The rockers were on the crest of a wave, with their previous album - a live offering called No Sleep Til Hammersmith - having soared to number one in the charts, and the new one, Iron Fist , also expected to sell by the bucketload. As rock music enjoyed a renaissance in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Motorhead also became one of the leading standard bearers for a movement labelled the New Wave of British Heavy Metal (or NWOBHM for short), enjoying a string of hit singles and albums.
Not that the band's three larger-than-life members were new to the business by any means. Thirty-six-year-old singer/bassist Lemmy Kilmister - a man with the constitution of an ox who reputedly thrived on a strict diet of cigarettes, Jack Daniels, meat and cheese - was a former member of '70s space rockers Hawkwind and had sung lead vocals on their 1972 hit Silver Machine . Guitarist 'Fast Eddie' Clarke, 31, had paid his dues and honed his musical chops playing in a succession of local groups from the mid-'60s onwards, while drummer Phil 'Philthy Animal' Taylor was the baby of the band at 27.
READ MORE: The remote, Northumberland church of Holy Trinity - and how to get there
Taylor, incidentally, played a pioneering role in rock drumming, with his 16th-note double-bass drum onslaught on the 1979 Motorhead song Overkill rarely being heard on record before and inspiring a legion of heavy-metal drumming imitators. It also turned out, the Chronicle reported back in March 1982, that Phil had spent the early part of his childhood growing up in the North East, and he took the chance to revisit the location during the band's three-day stint on Tyneside.
As fans waited outside his Newcastle hotel, Phil was being shown around his old home town, Ashington, Northumberland, by his parents Colin and Margaret Taylor who by then lived in Leeds. They had kept in touch with friends in Ashington where Mr Taylor had been an Army staff sergeant major.
It was the first time Phil had seen his first home in the town's Elder Square for 25 years, after moving away as a toddler with the family. "I don't remember much about the place," he admitted, "But I always get a kick out of coming to Newcastle with Motorhead. There has always been something special about the North East fans.
"They have the kind of energy you don't find in other parts on the country - not even London - although they are pretty good down there." The three Newcastle City Hall concerts on March 22, 23, and 24, 1982, would be riotous, noisy, headbanging affairs with the band pumping out classics such as Ace Of Spades, Bomber, Overkill and We Are The Road Crew at maximum volume.
This classic Motorhead line-up was, however, reaching the end of the line, with Fast Eddie quitting the band later in 1982 and Philthy Animal two years later. Fronted by Lemmy, Motorhead would rock on through the years with different line-ups until 2015 when his death in Los Angeles, at the age of 70, was announced to the disbelieving rock world.
Sadly, Phil Taylor and Eddie Clarke are also no longer with us, passing away respectively in 2015 aged 61, and in 2018 aged 67. Motorhead might be no more, but for those who saw the band in their heyday 40 years ago, the eardrums are probably still ringing.
