Dragon - Live One

Apologies for the lack of posts of late. School holidays are a killer for finding time to do cool stuff like posting to a blog!

Thanks to Todd Hunter, bass player in the band, here is a live set by Dragon from 1984 (issued on vinyl and VHS video in 1985 as "Live One"). It was recorded at the Sydney Entertainment Centre during the tour supporting their hugely successful LP "Body and the Beat".

Considering this was recorded in 1984, you can guarantee that the clothes and the mullets are outrageous. What is undeniable is the quality of the music and the performance. Vocalist, the late Marc Hunter, owns the stage. His performance style, honed from years of bashing out gigs, seems suited to this large venue. He manages to get the crowd singing in unison on "April Sun In Cuba".

The days are gone when a local rock band could fill a 10,000 seat venue like the Sydney Ent Cent. Cold Chisel, INXS, Midnight Oil and Dragon all did it during the 1980s. The most recent band to do it was Powderfinger (if there were others, please correct me). Fame is a curious beast, and just over 10 years later, I witnessed the band play the stage in the food court of the newly opened Westfield shopping centre in Tuggerah on the Central Coast of NSW. Again, Marc owned the stage, and I had no idea he was not long for this world at the time...

I considered this gig was somewhat a fall from grace. In reality, it's hard to sustain a career at the heights of which they scaled in the 1980s. This video is a great reminder of just what a solid performing band they were.

Enjoy.