Robin Trower's performance at Stockholm Concert Hall on February 3, 1975, has become one of the most celebrated live recordings of the decade. Released the following year as Robin Trower Live!, it captured the electric guitarist's power trio at the height of its powers.
But the album almost never happened.
"We were very lucky that tape was rolling that night," Trower tells Premier Guitar with a smile. "We were performing in a proper concert hall, and it sounded fantastic, which inspired us to play in top form.
"It was very refreshing, because most of the time we were playing in these hockey arenas that sounded awful. We weren't even aware that they were recording it."
At the time, Trower was touring behind Bridge of Sighs, the album that established him as one of rock's new guitar heroes on the strength of songs like "Bridge of Sighs" and "Day of the Eagle." Drawing a crowd to Stockholm Concert Hall wasn't difficult, even if the elegant, wood-paneled venue was better known as the home of the Swedish Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the site of Nobel Prize ceremonies than for hosting walls of Marshall amps.
The crucial detail, however, was invisible to the band. Swedish Radio had recorded the performance without Trower's knowledge.
Only later, after receiving a tape of the broadcast — a common practice for radio stations at the time — did Trower and his band realize they had the makings of a live album.
There was just one problem. James "Jimmy" Dewar's vocal track was unusable because his microphone had picked up too much spill from the rest of the band, particularly the drums. Rather than rebuild the album in the studio — as Kiss would infamously do with much of Alive! the following year — the band kept the repairs to a minimum.
"Jimmy sang it all again," Trower says. "He polished it off in about an hour — just ran through it in real time."
Now, 50 years after the concert and nearly as many since the album's March 1976 release, Robin Trower Live! has been expanded and remixed. The new edition restores the complete 12-song performance in its original running order, replacing the seven-track LP sequence, with a fresh remix by Richard Whittaker.
For Trower, though, there was no hidden ingredient behind the performance.
If there’s any secret to my tone, it’s that all my guitars have relatively high action.”
— Robin Trower
"There was no magic amp or special guitar," he says. "Almost everything I owned was pretty new. I just went to Manny's, the legendary guitar shop in New York City, bought a 100-watt Super Lead Marshall, and listened to about six or eight Strats acoustically before settling on a black-and-white one with a maple neck.
"If there's any secret to my tone," he adds, "it's that all my guitars have relatively high action and heavier strings. It's all about getting the strings to ring acoustically, and that's what translates into a great electric sound."
Ironically, Trower might never have become synonymous with the Stratocaster had Jethro Tull’s Martin Barre not nudged him toward Fender's iconic model in the first place. Although the Strat became central to his sound, Trower has long resisted comparisons to the player who defined it for a generation: Jimi Hendrix.
- Robin Trower Live! (50th Anniversary Edition) is out now. See Robin Trower for more.
