Review | Pat Travers – Heat In The Street Tour 1978

Purple Pyramid Records

We are in the year 1977 when Canadian guitarist/singer Pat Travers releases his third album ‘Putting It Straight’. He had been living in the UK for a while as he was signed to the English division of Polydor Records. But after the release of the album Travers loses a couple of musicians of his band and together with his steady bass player Peter ‘Mars’ Cowling he decides to relocate to Florida where he still lives to this day. Luckily for him guitarist Pat Thrall and former Black Oak Arkansas basher Tommy Aldridge join him there and as a quartet they rehearse and record the fourth album ‘Heat In The Street’, released in 1978. It is seen as the finest moment of the Pat Travers Band featuring excellent and heavy songs and lots of twin guitar work by Pat and Pat.

TOURING

Shortly after the release the band start touring and on the 27^th of November of 1978 the group touches down in Cleveland, Ohio and plays the Agora Theatre. At that point in time the live-reputation of the group is just smoking hot. A few months later official recordings are made from a few other gigs and in 1979 the live-album ‘Go For What You Know!’ hits the shops and marks another highlight in the career of Pat Travers. Another studio-album follows (‘Crash & Burn’) before Thrall teams up with Glenn Hughes for the phenomenal 1981 ‘Hughes/Thrall’ album while Aldridge gets hired by Ozzy Osbourne. Travers and Cowling (who passed away some years ago) move on with new musicians but the success from ‘Heat In The Street’ is never repeated. Although Pat Travers stays active to this day his popularity is just a shadow of what it was in 1977/1978/1979.

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

People that are not familiar with that period in the career of Pat Travers might do themselves a favour by diving into ‘Heat In The Street Tour 1978’. During that night mentioned above in Cleveland some recordings were made. They must have been gathering dust somewhere but with permission of PT (who even wrote some liner notes for this release) Purple Pyramid has released the recordings. It truly is a trip down memory lane (at least for yours truly).

This is quite an impressive live-album that sums up what Travers and his men stood for all those years ago. Flashy double leads, very decent vocals and in general a good impression of the first four albums Pat Travers released. ,,Rock ‘N Roll Susie’’, ,,Hooked On Music’’, ,,Getting’ Betta’’, ,,Life In London’’, ,,Heat In The Street’’, the evergreen ,,Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights)’’ (a song that always popped up in the setlist), ,,Need Love’’, ,,Go All Night’’, ,,Makes No Difference’’ plus a surprising energetic version of ,,Evie’’.

That song ,,Evie’’ is on the album credited to Travers himself as is ,,Boom Boom (Out Go The Lights’’), which is not correct. ,,Evie’’ was originally performed by singer Stevie Wright, the original singer of the Australian band The Easybeats (with George Young, the older brother of the AC/DC brothers Angus and Malcolm and Harry Vanda, who is of Dutch descent), who had plenty of hits in their homeland Australia (remember ,,Friday On My Mind’’?). Wright went solo and recorded ,,Evie’’,  (consisting of three parts) and scored a big hit with that. A bit odd that PT is credited as the composer of this track.

PAT TRAVERS – THE CONCLUSION

The recordings are good, almost just as good as the already mentioned official live-album. It is strange that all musicians are featured with a picture except Tommy Aldridge who left the group after a hefty financial dispute. What I am trying to say is that the people who have put this release together have not completely done their homework and acted sloppy. But the execution and sound of this album are very acceptable indeed. A good chance for heavy rockers to get re-introduced to one of the hottest outfits of that time, a group that managed to successfully blend melodic hard and groovy heavy rock with a shot of blues.

Release date: 30 May 2025