Ian Hunter Earl Slick Curly Smith
Rob Rawlinson Peter Oxendale
Ian Hunter, writing for the Friars Aylesbury website, 2009:
I was a
big mate of Pete Frame’s, who said to come with him to the club. Pete
had my dog when we left to come to the States. I always liked Stoppsy,
in those days of strange promoters he was one of the good ones at that
time.
We
always seemed to have a great time there: One of those gigs which became
entrenched in your memory for some stupid reason. We did hundreds of
gigs like that but, for some reason, that one would stick out. It just
became this very special gig that was up the M1. There were hundreds of
‘em but some that stuck out. Friars was one of ‘em. Great little club.
Ian Hunter, on his
website, responding to this website's webmaster in 2008:
"Well,
it was Pete Frame, Dave Stopps and Kris Needs territory wasn't it? I met
Dave Stopps on the Ringo tour (he manages Howard Jones) and Kris and Pete
came to a recent gig in Milton Keynes
(Spring 2008 - we were there
too!). (Friars)
itself was great but like I say I remember the people - 'Zig Zag' and all
that"
Hunter's solo career continues
to this day and he is due to play UK gigs in 2010. We saw him in 2007/2008
and he hasn't lost it in any way. Hunter returned to Friars in December
1977 and encored with old mates The British Lions performing All The Young
Dudes.
Mott the Hoople with the
original 1969 line up reformed for 40th anniversary shows in October 2009
at the Hammersmith Apollo. Some of the Friars team were there and can
confirm it was a sublime experience.
