All the Slade classics!

We can all slip back 40 years and more as Slade and Mud 2 take to the stage at the Pavilion Theatre, Worthing on Friday, November 17 at 7.30pm.
SladeSlade
Slade

Slade first hit the road in 1966, touring throughout Great Britain and Europe and becoming a regular concert attraction.

Joining forces with the former Animals bass guitarist and Jimi Hendrix Experience manager, Chas Chandler, Slade took things to the next level when they secured their first chart hit in May 1971 with the Bobby Marchan song Get Down And Get With It. The October saw their first number one, Coz I Luv You.

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And then the hits poured out, Take Me Bak ‘Ome, Mama We’er All Crazee Now, Cum On Feel The Noize and Gudbye T’ Jane among them, a key part of the soundtrack to the great glam generation.

Things have changed a little down the decades, but they are still led by founder members Dave Hill and Don Powell.

The band’s latest additions are ex-Mud bass guitarist John Berry, frequently spied in the guise of the Big Issue seller in EastEnders, and new lead vocalist Mal McNulty.

One other thing that’s changed is that Don now lives in Denmark: “I spend most of my time here now,” he says. “I have been here 14 years, and it wonderful.

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“It is great to be in a country where people love their country. They have got a lot of respect for each other here, and it’s a good place to be.”

But Don’s still delighted to slip back into the Slade mode whenever required: “It does surprise me that it’s all still so popular.

“If somebody had said to me 20 years ago I would still be doing this now, I wouldn’t have believed them.

“But I love it. I have got a fantastic job.

“What I do for a living still feels like a dream, travelling the world. I have been round the world four times now… though sometimes it feels that you don’t actually see much more than hotels and airports.”

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For the band, the big come-back after all the 70s chart success was as early as 1981: “And basically we haven’t stopped.

“What was really interesting was to be able to spend quite a lot of time in Russia where you just couldn’t go in the 70s.

“It was just fantastic. We played the Olympic stadium in Moscow to 18,000 people.”

And then they played a private dinner party to a couple of hundred – the two extremes in one of the many, many countries that still lap them up.

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“Right from the start, Dave and myself started a band in 1963, and then Slade was formed in 1966.

“Noddy Holder’s band split up around then, and we got together, and then from 1966-71 it was just slogging around the country, going everywhere trying to make the break-through…”

Also on the bill in Worthing is Mud 2, featuring members of Les Gray’s original Mud line-up.

After the original band broke up in 1979, Gray reformed the band as Les Gray’s Mud.

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In 1987 everyone except Gray left the band, and Gray brought in bassist John Berry, drummer Wole Rothe and guitarist Syd Twynham as replacements.

The line-up lasted until 1998 when Rothe was replaced by Phil Wilson, and the band remained the same until Les’s death in 2004.

Berry, Twynham and Wilson then rechristened the band Mud II and recruited keyboardist and long-term Mud collaborator Chris Savage.

The following year Berry left and was replaced by Marc Michalski, creating the line-up which still continues to this day.

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The show is another back-to-back all-hits show including Dyna-Mite, Rocket, The Secrets That You Keep, The Cat Crept In, One Night, Oh Boy, Tiger Feet, Hypnosis, Moonshine Sally, Crazy and Lonely This Christmas.

Tickets: 01903 206206 on www.worthingtheatres.co.uk.