Colosseum was the brainchild of John Hiseman, champion drummer , who gigged with John Mayall as part of the Bare Wires album line-up .He then defected from Mayall to form his own band Colosseum ,taking with him veteran sax man Dick Heckstall Smith and bassman Tony Reeves . The band was very successful for a number of years and they were a great live unit, powered mainly by the balding Dick Heckstall Smith ,  (who often played two saxes at once a la the late great Afro American jazz sax player, Roland Kirk ) as well as the powerhouse drumming of their leader .    The band reformed in the 1990's , but whether they are still as potent a force , I could not say.     A very short audience tape exists of one portion of this set. Short snippets of a super 8 film taken by Ross Mortimore show Colosseum's performance exist . They are now available as stills and a downloadable quicktime movie. . Go to the BATH MENU to view.

Personnel: John Hiseman-drums.  Dick Heckstall Smith - saxes.  Louis Cennamo - bass.  Dave Greenslade- keys.  Dave Clemson- Guit/vocal. right:  John Hiseman. His drum solo rivalled Bonzo's in terms of energy and was infinitely more sophisticated

   Ex Renaissance guitarist Louis Cennamo was with Colosseum at Bath , here's his story.

I was with Colosseum for about three or four months, in the summer of 1970. But the style was so different... and we didn't just quite hit it off. I diddo some big gigs with them, and enjoyed that, I played at the Bath Festival in 1970 in Somerset in England, and that was very lovely, there was aquarter of a million people or so in this huge , huge field... It was amazinglooking at the faces as you come out on stage, that was very exciting...
That's my main memory of Colosseum, really... We played at the Royal Albert Hall, and a few other big gigs in Germany and places in France, I think,too, but I didn't really fit in with the style of the band. They were a bit
too heavy for me at that time, I'd just come out of Renaissance, and I was used to creating with Renaissance whereas with Colosseum I just had to sort of play a bit robot style, and I didn't quite make it actually, and it didn't quite work. So I did an album with them, Daughter Of Time, and I left.

Hisemans' fabled drum solo .  Note the presence of the two video cameras , this could mean that the footage may feature on the forthcoming video feed film of Bath.

Photos courtesy Ian Morrison.

We know the whole tape is out there, somewhere ...., if you have a setlist, tape, photos or recollections Contact us

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