Nektar 1978
An End To An Era
1978 was a confusing year for Nektar fans. During January 1978, Nektar performed
a few concerts on the East coast of the States with Mo Moore Ron Howden Taff Freeman
and Dave Nelson still at the helm. By this time, Mick moved on to "Sam The
Band". When the Magic Is A Child tour was completed, Nektar went back to Mo's
basement and began writing new songs. The new songs reverted back to Nektar's progressive
roots and included some long jams and improvs and an occassional love song. Dave
Nelson was there at the begining of the writings and Ryche was there at the end
and both contributed to the writings.
During 1978 Nektar returns to the small club circuit and playing to smaller audiences(around
300) except this time around it was in the USA and not Germany.
May 1978 saw Nektar back in action again with a concert at Great Gildersleeves,
New York City (A club that Mick also played regularly with Sam the Band). This reunion
concert was unique. It featured Dave Nelson and Ryche Chandra on lead guitars at
the same time and it was the only time Nektar used two guitarists and two keyboardists
(Taff and Larry). RTF (part 2) was stunning. The band's official stance on the Ryche
and Dave concerts is "rehearsals" but tickets were sold, posters were
made and there were some advertisements so we are counting them as concert performances
and not rehearsals! As of today, we have never come across any memorabilia to confirm
this, only recordings.
Some of the songs played that day were:
"I’m On Fire"
"Why Can’t I Be More Like You"
"How Long"
Midnight Maker
"Love Is"
"Sky Pilot"
By June 1978 Nektar had only Ryche Chandra lead guitar with Dave Nelson departing
Nektar for good. For more information on this check out the
Nektar Timeline. Nektar begins playing songs from their older (pre-Magic
Is A Child) albums with Ryche as well as the new songs that were born during the
Dave and Ryche rehearsals in Mo's basement. All Magic Is A Child songs were dropped
from the set list.
On July 1, 1978 while on-stage Roye rejoins Nektar. Roye played with his back to
the crowds while Ryche was on-stage. There is a bootleg concert of this historical
event circulating around the Net that can confirm this. You can actually hear the
audience shouting "turn around Roye". Due to Roye's charismatic personality
and stage presence, Ryche does not play during the 2nd concert that night. The first
concert that night was Ryche’s last. The first concert was also the last time the
new songs written by everyone but Roye was played. Two songs of note from this historical
concert are: "Only Today" and "Welcome Back Old Rockers". Both
are fine songs and were worthy of being on their next album.
Roye Albrighton & Mo Moore
Concert photos from July 15, 1978 reunion concert held at the Giulio's South, Asbury
Park can be viewed on our 1978 In Concert
section
July 16, 1978: while playing at My Father’s Place, Roslyn, New Y,ork Nektar
performs another new song called "Nektar 79". Again this is another fine
song that was worthy of being on their next album. "Nektar 79" During
this concert there was an announcement by the band that Nektar was going to take
some time off to work on a new album and tour Germany. However, that never happened!
According to Mo, Nektar's last reunion concert may have been November 22,1978 at
the Stars Club, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Once again several new songs were introduced
and all were to said to be the next album that was going to be recorded over in
Germany. "Man in the Moon" was played to a live audience for the very
first time as well as some other songs that wound up on the "Man in the Moon"
album that was eventually released in 1980 in Germany. However, several of the other
new songs from this show never make it to any album or ever heard again.
It's now been nine long years since the formation of Nektar and Mo calls it a day
instead of working on the next album over in Germany and starts managing a plumbing
business. By now Mick started a classic car restoration business and was touring
around the New York/New Jersey area with Sam The Band. Taff, Ron, and Roye stay
in the music business. Larry is very busy touring with Peter Gabriel by now. Dave
and Ryche moved on to other bands.
And so came an "End To An Era"
To Be Continued...