Photos From The Archives – Bob Catley (2001)
In celebration of Magnum’s recent ‘Evolution’ release I’ve looked out this shot of frontman Bob Catley, taken on 20th May 2001 when he played the Bristol Bierkeller as part of a co-headlining tour with Ten. The bands had equal stage time and alternated as openers, and Bristol the Cat in the hat came on first and delivered a stunning set – although the post-band chat afterwards revealed that people would still rather be watching Magnum than Catley as a solo performer.
Still, signing to SPV resurrected the band’s career and ‘Evolution’ celebrates their first ten years with the label, culling two tracks off each of the band’s five albums for SPV and lobbing two newies into the pot for good measure. Aside from the two cuts from last year’s ‘The Visitation’ (the title track itself and ‘Wild Angels’) the material has undergone some minor changes like re-recorded drum tracks, for example, and remixing, although I’m not close enough to the material to know whether this makes much of a difference. Still, the choice of tracks, which includes ‘Brand New Morning’, ‘Blood on Your Barbed Wire Thorns’ and ‘All My Bridges’, makes for a thoroughly enjoyable compilation, and the new songs ‘The Fall’ and ‘Do You Know Who You Are?’ are well worth having..
Incidentally, in days gone by Magnum’s guitarist (I’m sure you’ll remember) was known as Tony ‘The Hat’ Clarkin before he shaved his noggin in 1990 or thereabouts and the headgear became a thing of the past. Presumably on this (storyteller's) night Catley was sporting one of Clarkin's cast-offs…
‘Evolution’ is out now on SPV Records
Words and photo © John Tucker January 2012