This week Gerry Brooke looks back on performances by Barclay James Harvest and the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Two bands well worth going to see this winter week in 1975 were soft rockers Barclay James Harvest (BJH) and John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, a much rated jazz-rock fusion group.

On stage at the Colston Hall, both were reviewed by the Post’s main music critic, James Belsey.

“Barclay James Harvest” he wrote the next day, “gave a somewhat insipid, shallow concert last night.

“To be fair to the band they rely on a carefully created atmosphere of dimmed lights, orchestral sweeps and gentle vocals.

“So, when - slap bang in the middle of their tear jerker Galadriel - the electronics starting sounding off deafening burps it was enough to unsettle any veteran of the concert scene.

“By the time they recovered their poise this particular reviewer - and I’m quite an admirer of the band - had rather lost interest.

“Once the aura of orchestral prettiness and romantic peace had slipped away, BJH started to sound very samey.

“I’d always though of them as somewhere between Pink Floyd and the Moody Blues - never as spacey as Floyd or as instantly acceptable as the Moodies

“I’d reckoned they occupied the middle ground but, on last night’s showing, it’s starting to sound as if they’ve tumbled between two stools.”

“John McLaughlin’s Orchestra” wrote Belsey, perking up somewhat at last, “ were like a breath of fresh air at the Colston Hall last night.

“His new, improved line up - a nine piece with a string section - included Jean-Luc Ponty on violin and keyboards, Ralphe Armstrong on bass and Narada Michael Walden on drums.

“Under McLaughlin’s guidance the band broke the barriers between rock and jazz.

“This was an exciting, invigorating concert which avoided the cliches of rock and explored areas of modern music lesser musicians wouldn’t dare to tread.

“John McLaughlin was superb, a master of the guitar who coaxes out ranges and colours you would never believe possible.

“At the same time he directed the rest of the band, prodding then to new heights refreshingly away from rocks’s banality and jazz rock’s pretensions.

Jean-Luc Ponty did some fine work too, with his all action violin passages set against some remarkable guitar phases.

“Behind them came a rich, subtle string section and the brass of Frankovitch and Knapp.

“The music was complex and careful, using dynamics and contrast with a rare ease, giving the stage to one player after another in a succession of solos.

“McLaughlin has bought together a truly exciting band, leads them with complete confidence and the combination is a delightful experience.

But if mainstream pop was more your thing then how about Brummie legend Carl Wayne at Baileys Disco Nightspot in Nelson Street or the Tremeloes (“Silence is Golden”) at Yate’s Stirling Suite.