Larry Norman at the Tent Hall Glasgow
March 6th, 2008 by 
italker
Larry Norman the famous American rock singer died last week. He was in many people’s eyes the father of Christian rock music. He was for me the first real Christian artist who sounded authentic. He had an immense influence on all kinds of people from Dylan to the Pixies. Read his bio its quite extensive. He once said of his music;
“I wanted to push aside the traditional gospel quartet music, break down the church doors and let the hippies and the prostitutes and other unwashed rabble into the sanctuary…I wanted to talk about feeding the poor, going into the world….[I felt that] most of the modern music was anemic and needed a transfusion.”
I actually heard him play at the famous Tent Hall in Glasgow way back in 1972. He caused a great stir when he came out to play. The Tent Hall was a massive place, it must have held at least 1500 people and the place was packed. There was a huge walk about pulpit at the front a bit like an opera box. Sitting on the pulpit was the usual lectern. Larry appeared with his long straight blond hair carrying a guitar wearing jeans. He removed the Bible from the lectern, then climbed up on it and sat on it with his legs dangling over the side like a pulpit fall. He sat there all evening and played his gig. He was the talk of the town. It was one thing to remove the Bible from its hallowed spot, it was a complete blasphemy to place your bum on the spot where the Holy Bible had been resting.Watch Larry on Video
Posted in Worship, music | 
8 Comments »
March 6th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Remember that night well, Albert. Came across one of his albums last week on one of these American web-sites – great to hear his songs again. He certainly was the Bob Dylan of Gospel Music, certainly the most respected and most outrageous Gospel musician at the time. Cheers.
June 16th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I recall Parchment were sharing the bill. They were delayed in reaching Glasgow. The place was MOBBED. And, yes, I also recall the episode with the lecturn. I think he was ticked-off about it backstage!
June 19th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I remember my father (whoknew many of the people who ran the Tent Hall) going on about this and asking me if I knew anything about this American hippy who had just done all this.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Hi Albert
i was the person responsible for the tour – i just found your site as i have been requested by someone writing Larry’s story to recall the Scottish visit – your Tent hall story sticks in my mind vividly – yes it was world war 3 behind the scenes as what Larry had done in the pulpit was sacrilege – we survived and the tour which went onto Edinburgh, Falkirk and Bathgate was a huge success
Arthur (Falkirk)
June 25th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Great to hear from you Arthur. those were interesting days.
January 4th, 2010 at 10:30 am
I was at that concert in the tent hall as well.
Although I was only 20 myself then, I thought he really knew what he was doing and wanted to cause mischief.
Reading about him in Wikipedia last night the most common word used to describe Larry was “delussional”. This was from members of his former band “People”, also Randy Stonehill didn’t have much time for him either.
Looking back on it, maybe the guy was a bit sick in the head, but nobody wanted to say the king had no clothes on.
Apparantly theres a documentary about him called “Fallen Angel”.
There’s a bit in the NT which says “test everything”, and perhaps we were too willing to cast a blind eye on some of the things Larry claimed.
January 4th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Should add also that I don’t want to critcize Larry Norman just for the sake of it, but so much of the material praising him came originally from Larry himself.
Neither do I want to automatically take the negative side on him, but he’s a very nebulous character to get to the truth about.
His recordings probably did influence people,( I myself was into the emerging Christian contemporary music at the time and organised many concerts in Glasgow ), but to what extent is debatable.
January 4th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Hi Robert
Thanks for you contribution to this post. I suppose we never really know what is going on in the heads of all of us who perform from time to time. I just remember thinking that he had a good vibe. Looking back I’m sure there were attitudes that I had then that I’d be a bit ashamed of today. Did we meet in those distant days? Did you ever arrange a gig for the Living Stones?