WHAT COMES TO MIND … DAVE GLEESON SENDS ME AN ANGEL

Why did they call themselves the Screaming Jets? Whispering Dave Gleeson photographed by Stuart Spence.

Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, a new occasional series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence.

Each time, he will dig out a photo out from his archives going back almost 50 years and challenge me to respond with what comes to mind when I look at that image. It might be serious or ridiculous, personal or historical. It might be short and brutal, long and precise. But it will be inspired by a photo I’ve not seen before, and maybe even unseen by anyone beyond Stuart himself.

This week … Dave Gleeson, photographed ahead of the launch of The Screaming Jets debut album.

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REALLY, COULD YOU blame them?

These two boys, maybe early teens, sat slumped a couple rows in front of me, expressionless for hours but slowly dying inside. This was worse than that time they had to sit through carols and Auntie Joan’s stodgy Christmas pudding, while a farting grandpa stank up the room. Worse even than being made to watch those VHS copies of Kingswood Country that made dad laugh like a dying hyena each time the bloke said “not the Kingswood!”.

Maybe because babysitters were in short supply, maybe because somebody thought this would be good education in “proper music, not that shit you listen to”, but for whatever reason on this cold midwinter night in in the year of our lord, Kevin 07, here they were in the Newcastle Entertainment Centre being made to watch, or at least endure, the Countdown Spectacular 2.

They were as unimpressed with Graham Bonnett (who sadly sang while reading the lyrics to his one song from cue cards on the floor) and Samantha Fox (who sadly sang), as they were with Rick Springfield (who sounded great, played great and still looked better than any of us have or ever would look – the bastard) and Ignatius Jones (fabulous high camp fun in leather and bondage gear, leaving an audience as nonplussed as he and Joylene Hairmouth had in 1980 – the scamp).

I couldn’t begin to fathom what they made of the former singer of Racey recreating a Butlins camp-meets-Blue-Light-Disco while the audience recalled those dance moves (you know the ones, don’t pretend you don’t), though it’s possible this night was the beginning of Gen Z embracing the word cringe. But I wonder if they took a hard line on whether Doc Neeson’s Angels – that is, without the Brewster brothers, who had their own version of The Angels on the road somewhere tonight – was a legitimate enterprise for a fan.

Did they debate whether you can call a band a band if part of its core is no longer there? Did they say if the voice is there, then it’s the band? Or were they of the view that it’s the engine room of the group missing and what we have here is a solo act with a pickup band?

Did they a few years later at a pub down the road, watch a fellow Novocastrian in Dave Gleeson – him out of Screaming Jets; him with the belter of a voice and the poodle of a haircut; him who had grown up loving The Angels, dreaming of getting into the studio with them and Vanda and Young, hoping his own band might share a stage with them one day – step into the Doc Neeson role with the Brewster brothers playing as The Angels?

Whatever you think of Screaming Jets and however much you appreciated the oft-ignored subtleties Doc brought, Gleeson had power and a pub rock gutsiness that at the very least put him in the same (sweaty, beer-driven, homo-eroticism-disguised-as-bonding-exercise) room. And at least Rick and John Brewster didn’t embarrass themselves on a TV talent show to pick a replacement, but drew from the same well that had sustained them. But was it The Angels?

Gleeson never claimed to be Doc, not when he joined in 2011, not after Doc’s death in 2014, and not when he quit the post in 2023. And he didn’t, strictly speaking, channel Doc either while straddling that tricky line between respecting what people expected to hear (exactly what they had heard on record for decades) and respecting himself (bringing something personal to the job). More than a hired hand but less than a guiding one – this was a Brewsters enterprise in the end – Gleeson by all accounts did a good job. But was it The Angels?

Such an existential question may seem incongruous with a band often dismissed as mere meat and potatoes – albeit very good meat and potatoes for people who liked meat and potatoes, even on a vegetarian diet – but if you took a look behind Doc’s original lyrics, he wasn’t afraid of big concepts. Nor was he afraid of answering in the affirmative the “was it The Angels?” question when he performed under that name on the Countdown Spectacular 2 tour.

After all, on that Entertainment Centre stage was Paul Gray, the one remaining Wa Wa Nee-er, Martha Davis the sole occupant of The Motels, the single Reel-er Dave Mason and, heaven help us all, Les McKeown, last kilt showing of Bay City Rollers. And they were credited as from or of their bands while our man's band was listed as Doc Neeson’s Angels.

We could go on debating this. We almost certainly will sooner or later – maybe in 20 years when the KPop Demon Hunters return but without Rumi up front, replaced by a reanimated Jon Stevens fresh from the Noiseworks/INXS/Angels tribute show, Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again Yes Way Get ...

I can’t speak for those two boys I saw in Newcastle – probably reading this, slumped and expressionless again, in front of their screens – but let me tell you, I’m here for that debate.

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