back to the light

In December 1973, Banks got back together with Ian Adamson, the original ATF drummer, and tried to find members to re-form the band. This did not prove easy, and several line-ups failed to stay-together. By March 1974, things were getting desperate, so Banks and Adamson had a meeting to decide on the future of the band. It happened that Piercy, now a good friend, was staying with Banks over that weekend, and he gave them a hard time asking them what their priorities were, and what direction they wanted to go in. He had been in that same situation only a year previously after all, and knew the importance of sorting out such issues. All the time, however, he was thinking that what they really needed was a good front man to carry the band. Banks and Adamson listened, but apparently took Piercy's remarks to be a little on the negative side, and told him that it was a shame he thought the way he did, because they were considering asking him to join the band. Piercy said of the moment:

"I couldn't decide whether they said that because they did or didn't want me in the band. In the end I wrote to Banksy."

Banks and Adamson, discussed whether Piercy should join them, bringing his six-string acoustic into the band, in order to replace the bass. But this arrangement made them apprehensive, however, as it would be unusual to have a band without a bass guitar. Nevertheless, Piercy joined the band, and the new line up became:

Peter Banks (vocals, keyboards)
Andy Piercy (vocals, acoustic guitar)
Ian Adamson (drums)

In May, banks purchased a mini-moog to suppliment the Hammond.

The outlook for Christian music was growing positively in the UK, but would grow even more by the start of what would turn out to be it's biggest showcase. Over the August Bank holiday weekend at Prospect Farm, Charfield in Suffolk, the first Greenbelt Arts Festival took place. Attended by almost 2000 people. On the bill, were both Narnia, still fronted by Pauline Filby, and still with John Russell on guitar, and the new After The Fire, who did a short mid-evening set on the Sunday night. It was only about their fourth gig, and now here they were playing to one a half thousand.

The problem with the lack of bass remained, however, and in front of this immense crowd such a deficiency was clear. Having no bass looked odd, and it proved difficult for audiences to relate to the band. They needed to recruit.

In February '75, John Russell decided to leave Narnia for financial reasons. Talking to a clearly shocked Robin Stride, for Buzz, Russell explained his frustration of having no reasonable income:

"We were paying for ourselves to be in that band! Everyone thought that we all must have been very well off - in fact we were all the bread line, never knowing where the next gallon of petrol was coming from. Now I'd like to earn some money for being a musician, and feeling that I'm worth something. As it was you could work fifty-odd hours, up and down the motorway, just to get a fiver. It was just ridiculous."

He formed a new band, Starship, and immediately began rehearsing songs with them in a village hall in Surrey. They stuck mostly to covering pop songs such as Candle In The Wind, Country Road, and Make It Easy On Yourself. Russell saw no conflict between his style of playing in Starship, compared to that in Narnia:

"There are two kinds of Christian musician - those who played to communicate the gospel, and those who were musicians, and Christians too. Whatever I do as a musician, and 'Unto The Lord', to quote the cliché, I want to do a really good job, and make a fortune."

Piercy contributed backing vocals to some of the tracks on Gwen Murray's first album, for which Ishmael wrote one song, which is released by MGO. In March 75, two years after they had split up, Ishmael and Andy were invited to perform in South Africa with Murray during a New Life In Christ Campaign. It would have involved spending a two week period in Cape Town from the 14th to the 30th. In the end, however, Murray went alone.

In May, 1975, the bass problem was resolved when Robin ('Dobs') Childs joined the band. The line-up was now:

Peter Banks (vocals, keyboards)
Andy Piercy (vocals, guitars)
Robin Childs (bass)
Ian Adamson (drums)

Over the August Bank Holiday weekend, they again played the Greenbelt Festival, which had now moved to a new site on the grounds of Lord and Lady Luke's Castle Estate in Odell, Bedfordshire. Festival co-founder, James Holloway wrote of the band described them thus:

"An unusual combination this. Lacks distinct guitar tho' that could be remedied. Music, well to be hypercritical is cubic stretching to the oblong, mainly the fault of longish themes. Oh, but when they flow it's into some exceptionally fine music both melodic and lyrically well conceived. Fine keyboards, superb vocals, proficient rhythm section indicates my bent"

After The Fire actually played two evening sets, the first headlining on Friday, and the other during Monday night. Friday's late night set was delivered to a sea of sleeping-bags, with Banks' soaring keyboards filling the fine summer night air. The show climaxed dramatically, when on the very last chord of the final song, the stage was plunged into darkness. The ecstatic crowd thought this was a piece of marvellous theatrics, and cheered wildly, demanding the usual encore. They were unaware that, in fact, Bank's keyboards had overloaded the main generator, and that the power had gone down all over the site. It took considerable effort to get the generator going again, allowing the band to go back on main stage for a final number.

Banks at gb75

Also at the festival that weekend was Arnion, the recent metamorphosis of Narnia, after the sudden departure of John Russell in February. Still fronted by Filby, they performed The Pulse, a longer multimedia presentation, which included impressive lighting to accompany the music, and also used children for vocals.

Later in the year, After The Fire recorded with Ishmael, providing backing on his album The Charge Of The Light Brigade, which was released by MGO in Feb 1976. ATF were not credited, though most people knew it was them. The album itself gained a certain notoriety for it's expression of Ishmael's outspoken views on the church, and several Christian outlets refused to stock it.

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