Red Angel Panic : VietRock

The first of two singles for this Adelaide band, it reached #27 locally in 1971. They regularly performed at anti-Vietnam moratoriums and rallies; this song was also part of a play called Viet Rock.

According to the song's writer and singer Rob Tillett: "Viet Rock was a play performed at Adelaide University in 1969, directed by Doug Anders, featuring among others Margot Nash. Doug (originally from Brisbane I think) had a theatre group called Tribe,
which went on to greater things in Melbourne. I wrote the music or most of it, as it's a bit blurry now (if you can remember the 60's you weren't there etc etc).It was based on the US play, but Doug's method was to form a group that then more or less reinvented the script (if there was one).

"In fact the Red Angel Panic was first formed in 1968 to work with Doug in an absolutely incredible piece called Rites Underground, which was performed at Theatre 62. This led to us forming a theatre/poetry/dance performance group called Holocaust (an Adelaide version of Tribe), and we put on some plays here and there, published magazines, did some poetry readings, and various street theatre events, along with a vast amount of revolutionary fervour. We were known as the "Psychedelic Left" Hahaha. It was always a spiritual journey for me, rather than a political one.

"The song Viet Rock as performed by the Panic was not used in the US unfortunately. At least not to my knowledge. I did write the Panic version. Hmm. Not that happy with the recording, but there it stands. John Freeman was our drummer (rock writer for News or Advertiser or something too at the time) and he had strong views on production (or rather the lack thereof) and he got his way. It was good fun though. I love recording and must get back to it one day soon."

Red Angel Panic's bassist was (the late) Chris Bailey who went on to Headband and then great success with The Angels and Gang Gajang.