Alan Gorrie of Average White Band Talks 2024 Farewell UK Tour, Setlists And More

Average White Band will embark on a 17-date 50th Anniversary UK Tour in April/May 2024. Alan Gorrie of AWB sat down with us to talk about the tour, setlists and more:

Firstly, congratulations on the band’s 50th Anniversary. Does the band (as a whole) have any specific memories/highlights of your illustrious careers and do you personally? 

 Many: Marvin Gaye joining us onstage at Hollywood Palladium in 1976, for starters. Being chosen to be the ‘Engine Room’ for the Atlantic Family’s 1977 weekend at the Montreux Jazz Festival with a host of their other luminaries including Etta James, Luther Vandross, Ben E King, Brecker Brothers and many more.

Who is in the Average White Band and what do they play?

 Myself on bass, lead vocals and guitar; Onnie McIntyre on guitar & backing vocals; Rocky Bryant on drums; Freddy V on tenor sax; Cliff Lyons on alto sax; Rob Aries on keyboards and 2nd bass; Brent Carter on lead vocals.

You will be embarking on your Farewell UK Tour in April and May 2024. How are the band feeling about the tour and are there any specific venues/cities on the run that have any significance/importance to the band?

 Obviously our hometown Scottish shows – Glasgow for Onnie, Perth for me, Usher Hall Edinburgh for everyone (we first played there on same tour as Montreux in ’77, and with Ben E King involved too). The Albert Hall is such a prestigious gig, and Onnie and I first  played there in 1968, along with Joe Cocker and The Move, so a fitting farewell to London. I think they’re all going to have great significance, judging by how many are already sold out, frankly. The band understand that Onnie & I have been doing this forever, and are cool with it.

 Given your extensive back catalogue is it difficult picking a set list, and do you have a specific song selection process?

 The process is dictated by, in this case, a first set of ‘early-days’ tunes from our first 3 albums (Show Your Hand, AWB, and Cut The Cake), and the second set of ‘latter-day’ favourites from the albums in the late seventies, early eighties, and one or two from records in the nineties. We know the usual crowd pleasers, and we’ll throw in a couple of curve balls for our own fun.

Do you have any favoured stage instruments, effects, pedals, microphones, etc?

My two 5-string Fender Jazz basses; my Epiphone ‘John Lennon’ Casino guitar; my Fender Custom Shop Stratocaster; A matching pair of vintage AKG 414EB microphones in my studio, and my Sennheiser stage microphone. And a vintage Mason & Hamlyn piano at home. Pedals are for cyclists!!

 How do you look after your voice?

Practise, practise, and then more practise. You must stand up, with microphone in my studio, and really ‘be’ onstage virtually. Forget the shower or sitting humming away – they do nothing at all for the toughening of the tonsils!

 What two things does The Average White Band hope to have achieved once they have left the stage?

 A respected legacy of quality, dedication, and some innovation in our chosen genre. Already achieved three Grammy nominations and other lifetime achievement awards, plus a host of gold & platinum albums to polish from time to time.

Are there any plans to record any of the farewell shows for a potential future live release?

  Not as such yet. A great Vinyl LP of the original band’s final live recording in 1974 with Robbie McIntosh coming out April 20th, though.

 I wanted to please ask you about how the riff for ‘Pick Up The Pieces’ came about?

The skank guitar riff was Hamish’s, we all joined in to create the track, and Roger Ball wrote the sax melody overnight. All done in 24 hours! 

The special guests for The Royal Albert Hall show in London will be Kokomo. When did you all first meet and have you shared stages/toured together before?

They toured with us on our first headlining tour of the States and have been mates since Day One. Jim Mullen played alongside myself, Molly Duncan and Roger Ball at Perth’s ‘Blue Workshop’ in the mid-1960s, where arguably the template for AWB was born. 

In doing some research, I was fascinated to discover that AWB are one of the top 15 sampled acts of all all-time. What has it been like over the years hearing songs on the radio sampling your work? Would you say that you have noticed younger people and families in your audiences as a result of people discovering AWB for the first time through sampling?

It most definitely brought us a new audience throughout the Nineties and onwards. Some samples were great and inventive uses, some not quite so much. However we were grateful for the renewed attention to what might otherwise have been a bit of a forgotten art-form in ’70s Funk & Soul.

What makes Alan Gorrie happy and what makes you unhappy?

Happy? A great night onstage, and the camaraderie within the band. My family. Being in the hills (and the coasts) of Scotland. Painting, cooking and being the recipient of good food, wine & laughter at friends’ tables. Unhappy? Today’s divisive and disrespectful culture brought about largely by Anti-Social media and modern political scoundrels; Oh, and too much VAR involved in football matches…drives me batty with all the stoppages! Otherwise, I’m fairly cool with life in general. Thanks for all your interest.

Feature Image Photo Credit: John Bull/Rockrpix Photography 

The Average White Band will tour their 50th Anniversary Farewell Tour for April and May 2024 at the following venues:

April 2024

26 Manchester Bridgewater Hall

27 Birmingham Town Hall

28 Cambridge Corn Exchange

30 Norwich Epic Studios

May 2024

2 London Royal Albert Hall (With Special Guests KOKOMO)

3 Bexhill De La Warr Pavilion

4 Bath The Forum

6 Newcastle Tyne Theatre & Opera House

7 Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

8 Aberdeen Music Hall

10 Perth Concert Hall

11 Edinburgh Usher Hall

13 Nottingham Rock City

14 Oxford O2 Academy

17 York Barbican

18 Holmfirth Picturedrome

Tickets are on sale now, available from www.ticketmaster.co.uk and all venue box offices. 

For more information visit the band’s official website here: https://www.averagewhiteband.com/