I was about six years old when I began listening to Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel back in the early 2000s. My father was a fan since his younger years and he had a copy of EMI’s 1980 Best of LP, along with The Best Years of Our Lives, the latter copied onto a blank tape for him years earlier by a friend. I remember falling in love with many of the tracks on these releases, but it was Poetic Justice that left such a lasting impression on me and remains one of my favourite albums. My father bought a copy when my parents saw the band play on the Poetic Justice tour at Weymouth Pavilion in October 1996. I can also remember requesting anything Steve Harley-related from my grandparents and they were able to obtain a copy of the Come Back, All is Forgiven Tour VHS for me from a shop in Yeovil. At some point, my parents got me the double CD set of A Closer Look and Love’s a Prima Donna, too.
Weymouth Pavilion on the Poetic Justice tour in 1996.
Admittedly, I somewhat strayed from listening to SH&CR for most of my teenage years, but fast forward to 2012 and I began to reacquaint myself with Steve’s work and seek out the many releases I had not heard before. Once again I was hooked and went as far as tracking down copies of the numerous vinyl singles on which exclusive B-sides remained hidden away. By happy coincidence during this period, Steve, in his acoustic trio format (with Barry Wickens and James Larcelles), was booked to perform outdoors on Plymouth Hoe for Armed Forces Day in 2013, only an hour away from me. With a couple of friends in tow, not only did we experience a fantastic show that evening but we briefly got to say hello to Steve, Barry and James afterwards. The stage technicians also gave each of us the three copies of the set-list that had been taped down onto the stage. I then saw the full band play another cracking show at the Portsmouth Pyramids Centre in November 2013.
In 2009, I signed up to Wikipedia to write and contribute to articles on the music of the artists I listened to, purely as a labour of love. Naturally my attention soon turned to improving the coverage of SH and SH&CR’s back catalogue on there when I began listening to them again in 2012. At the time, none of the singles beyond “Make Me Smile” had its own page, not even “Sebastian”, “Judy Teen” or “Mr. Soft”, and all of the existing album pages were very short with only the most basic information such as the track listing and a personnel list. Over the next couple of years, I took on the huge undertaking to expand those album pages and create the ones on the singles. One of the most useful and excellent resources at the time was the now defunct Harley Fanzone website. I joined as a member of the forum on Steve’s official website and my thread updating fans on the Wikipedia work drew a lot of interest and, rather unexpectedly, that of Steve. He went on to supply me with some valuable information on the recording of certain tracks and I took up his offer of chatting over the phone in February 2015, when we ended up spending a good hour and a half discussing his career.
Something I never expected to come from all of these efforts was Steve’s offerings of tickets to his shows, not to mention merchandise. I took him up on his kind offers and was added to the guest lists of his shows on three occasions. The first was at Salisbury during the 40th anniversary tour of The Best Years of Our Lives. It’s probably my favourite show of the ones I saw in the full rock band format, and myself and a friend also got to meet Steve and then the rest of the band backstage afterwards.
The following year I saw the acoustic trio at Yeovil with another friend and Steve treated us to the soundcheck beforehand. We arrived as Steve, Barry and James were running through “Save Me (From Myself)”. We spoke between the next few songs, then Steve went off to do his vocal warmups and we headed off for our evening meal. After another excellent show, we visited backstage and chatted over a glass of wine for a while with Steve, Barry and James. Steve kindly signed a copy of Poetic Justice for me, too.
In 2017, I took my brother to see Steve and the band play at the Cheese & Grain in Frome. As always, the band put on a good show but the concert was slightly marred by technical sound issues throughout (feedback, certain instruments levels way too high, etc). I can also remember at one point someone backstage decided it would be a good time to make noise that sounded like the banging of a hammer, to which Steve finally had to shout out “can you be quiet back there, please!”
Unfortunately, the venue’s shortcomings extended to the rather unprofessional and unpleasant staff as well and we did not get to go backstage that evening as intended. I politely explained to the manager (who was fully aware that we were on the show’s guest list) that it had been arranged with Steve’s team to say hello to him afterwards. I have no idea what had irked him, but he was extremely aggressive with us from the start and completely uninterested in simply going to ask someone from Steve’s crew. He was only concerned with getting us out of the door and I must say is certainly one of the most unpleasant characters I’ve had the misfortunte of running into. As per an email I received the following day from Steve’s team, Steve was left wondering why we didn’t say hello and I had to explain the situation.
Regrettably, the Frome show was the last time I saw Steve and the band play live. With the release of Steve’s new album Uncovered, I was set to see the band play at Bristol in April 2020. Of course, the COVID-19 pandemic hampered that and ultimately I was unable to attend the rescheduled show in June 2022. The Exeter date in 2023 was tempting but other commitments got in the way. Then came the announcement of the “Come Up and See Me… and Other Stories” tour for 2024. Me and my partner certainly intended to see Steve on the Axminster date, but with his sad passing it was not meant to be.
I still have fond memories of those shows between 2013 and 2017 and Steve’s music remains in regular rotation. His kind gestures for my efforts in promoting his work will not be forgotten and I hope that those articles on Wikipedia and now here on this website provide an interesting insight into his music. I have never stopped improving and expanding the articles over the years and decided to create this website in 2025 as an addition to that labour of love.
Ashley Smith
