Biography

1997

Released: 'Regeneration' CD-R EP, 'Vintage Fear' CD-R Album

By now the band had played over seventy gigs, released two albums, appeared on many compilation CDs and toured the UK extensively. Eager to top the last tour, the band undertook an even bigger tour of the UK. The May 1997 tour was a lot of hard work going from Devon to Scotland and all the places in between, the only major city that wasn't covered on this tour was London. Unlike November 1996 many of the venues were not that well attended although one outstanding show in Sheffield made up for it. ALF only played two gigs in London this year, one at the Camden Falcon where the owner of the venue complained to the promoter that there were too many Goths in the venue and it didn't look good (the Falcon was all things Indie and N.M.E. friendly and Goth is not that!), then a show at the Camden Underworld as support to Gothic legends Christian Death.

The duo line-up had always worked well but it came to the point where the band felt it needed another member, so enter Ant Whitehouse, a friend of the band and originally a drummer but also a more than competent guitarist and bass player. All Living Fear recorded one new track, "What If?", and a cover of the air-guitar classic "Born To Be Wild". Added to this was a new version of "Crimson" and two demos formerly released on compilations and we have the "Regeneration" EP, released on CD by way of Matthew's new toy, a CD recorder. At the same time the band re-released, as a CD-R, the early works as an album, "Vintage Fear".

A small tour of the UK was to follow; a warm up in Birmingham then off to Leeds to kick off "Regeneration 97", though things didn't go well. Andy was tired of touring and really didn't like the prospect of going up to Edinburgh and quit the band. Worried about what to do, the Scotland gig was cancelled and Matthew and Ant decided to practice like stink and do the last three dates as a duo. The last three gigs of the tour were actually good fun, with the added surprise of Martin appearing on stage to handle vocal duties on "Blue Sky"; attendance was far better then the summer tour and the band even made a bit of money.