Review: Hep Stars - On Stage (1965)

Tracks: 1) Cadillac; 2) What’d I Say; 3) Donna; 4) What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For!; 5) So Mystifying; 6) Only You; 7) Wear My Ring Around Your Neck; 8) Surfin’ Bird; 9) Talahassie Lassie; 10) No Response; 11) If You Need Me; 12) Farmer John; 13) Bald Headed Woman; 14) Whole Lot-ta Shak-in’ Goin’ On.

REVIEW

"KRIL-LE! JAN-NE! LEL-LE! BEN-NE! SVEN-NE!" — that’s the band’s manager Lennart Fernholm shouting at the top of his lungs through a seemingly distorted microphone, and the way he goes at it, you’re almost certain he is going to end this up with a "FIVE LIVE HEP STARS!", but an unseen barrier still prevents him from going all the way to plagiarize the Yardbirds, so he just ends it with a simpler, more predictable "THE HEP STAAAARS!" Nevertheless, the slight nod to Five Live Yardbirds is unmistakable: just like that album made a subtle point about how the most exciting, penetrating, and relevant way to experience a modern rhythm’n’blues band in a spontaneous live setting, so were The Hep Stars chosen to symbolize the same meaning for the local Swedish scene. Unlike Giorgio Gomelsky with the Yardbirds, Fernholm came up with the idea a little too late — the very first Hep Stars LP was recorded in the studio — but Hep Stars On Stage was the very first live album by a Swedish rock’n’roll band, and although it did not even properly hit the Scandinavian LP charts, from what I hear, it did acquire a certain cult status in the mid-Sixties.

Which is, allegedly, somewhat hard to grasp in retrospect, and probably even harder if you are not Swedish, because there is really very little in common between the Hep Stars and the Yardbirds. The latter, after all, were a «rave-up» band in their early years, whose primary task was to gradually boil up their audiences’ blood through the primal power of the African-cum-American-cum-Crawdaddy tribal groove. The Hep Stars, in comparison, were a pop band that mainly played two and a half minute-long catchy singles (usually not of their own creation), without either the skills or the desire to do anything unusual with them on stage. It’s hardly a crime, but it does not exactly justify the need for a live album — or, at least, the need for that live album to endure and still be considered «important» after a while, even in its own native country.

At the very least, there is not a lot of overlap between On Stage and We And Our Cadillac, other than, naturally, ‘Cadillac’ itself and a couple other tracks (‘No Response’, being the band’s first original song, most certainly had to be played). They do, however, play a lot of ther non-LP singles (‘Donna’, ‘So Mystifying’, ‘Farmer John’, ‘If You Need Me’) which you already know if you have the modern expanded editions of the album, which makes only about half of the live album formally «original» — and that remaining half, of course, also exclusively consists of covers, though the stylistic range is fairly impressive: everything from Ray Charles (‘What’d I Say’) to Elvis (‘Wear My Ring Around Your Neck’) to doo-wop (‘Only You’, ‘What Do You Wanna Make Those Eyes At Me For’) to joke-rock (‘Surfin’ Bird’). It is, however, notable that even in the fall of 1965, with the musical world rapidly changing all over the planet, the Hep Stars’ primary interests squarely remain in the past as they cover one Fifties’ act after another — with the exception of the early Kinks, whom they still take as their role model, pretty much everything is pre-British Invasion stuff.

The sound quality of the experience is somewhat average, which at least confirms that the album was probably a true live recording (the proclaimed dates are August 7–8, 1965 from two separate Swedish outdoor venues), but the audience screams (not Beatlemania level, yet still loud enough to be annoying) and the heavy echo on Svenne’s lead vocals take their toll; the worst side effect is that Benny’s organ, the most important instrument of the entire lot, is heard quite poorly, except for when Benny takes the lead — this is when the sound engineer pushes him up in the mix, like on the ‘Cadillac’ solo — and overall, the band’s enthusiasm is much easier to appreciate than their musicianship.

That said, I’d be lying if I said there was no fun quotient whatsoever on the album. The lads rip into ‘Surfin’ Bird’ with every ounce of the expected Trashmen hooliganry, cook up a Southern-rock storm on ‘Tallahassee Lassie’, and even show startling progress with their palatal affricates on their rendition of ‘Farmer John’ which is just a bit more rambunctious than on the studio version. But when they start playing with the loud-and-quiet suspense dynamics on ‘Bald Headed Woman’, it is hard to find their style mesmerizing — they are not doing «their thing», they are trying to adapt, and their level of musicianship and theatricality just ain’t up to par, though I do appreciate Benny ripping into ‘Entry Of The Gladiators’ for no reason whatsoever at the start of the song’s jam part: he at least seems to know that the Hep Stars can only earn the gratitude of future grumpy reviewers by being as goofy as possible.

Unfortunately, it gets even worse with the last track, a nearly six-minute version of ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’ which the band drags out so that Svenne can take his time toying and interacting with the audience. Not even Jerry Lee himself ever took that much time with the song, and nobody in this band has even a tenth part of the Killer’s showmanship, so it’s simply a bleeding disaster. We must give the appropriate honors to Chrille Pettersson for trying to keep up the energy with his athletic drumrolls throughout all the six minutes — at least he’s got more stamina than all of his bandmates combined — but honestly, I’d rather they gave him a proper five-minute drum solo than have him serve as trusty backup for Svenne’s tired repetitive mantra of "shake baby shake it".

Other than the band’s unconvincing attempts to exercize their «trance power» over the crowds (well, unconvincing for me; judging by the enthusiastic response from the crowds themselves, the Hep Stars did achieve their limited goals for those particular days), On Stage can certainly be a bit of nostalgic fun — but it does show how strangely out of time Sweden’s leading pop-rock band was at the moment, almost symbolically representing their country being so strangely behind-the-times at a pivotal period in pop-rock history. (Not that Sweden was alone in this, as opposed to the rest of continental Europe). Just as symbolic, for that matter, was the band’s last studio single of 1965, found as the last of the bonus tracks on the CD edition: ‘Should I’ — a cover of a pop-rocker by Chad & Jeremy, the meekest couple in Britain’s contemporary musical business. They stick very close to the original version (with its somewhat clever alternation between folk-pop and rhythm’n’blues phrasing in the intro), predictably replacing the harmonica solo with Benny’s organ but not managing to improve on the already crystal-clean guitar sound of the original, so it’s mostly just an interesting fact to me that of all the UK acts they were hearing on the radio at the time, they decided to go with Chad & Jeremy. Well... I guess this is why Benny Andersson ultimately ended up in ABBA rather than, say, Opeth.

• Only Solitaire reviews: The Hep Stars