Pallas

Aberdeen to EMI

Wikipedia's infobox gives 1976 but its history text says the band formed in 1974 as Rainbow, dropped the name when Ritchie Blackmore's band took it, and were briefly Pallas Athene. Alan Reed told Progressive Newsletter in 2000 that Graeme Murray and Derek Forman started it as Rainbow about 1974 and that Pallas was picked from a list of names. A private-label EP, Pallas, came out in 1978 and most of the original members left in 1979, when Euan Lowson joined. The live cassette Arrive Alive (1981) got them noticed by EMI, at the end of what Get Ready to Rock! calls a four-year grind on the live circuit. They played the Reading Festival in 1983, headlined at the Marquee, and recorded a BBC Friday Rock Show session on March 9, 1984.

EMI signed them with a reported 500,000-pound advance. The Sentinel (Harvest, February 13, 1984) reached 41 in the UK; Lowson left in 1985 or 1986, Reed joined, and The Wedge (1986) reached 70, after which EMI withdrew promotion following staff departures. They were semi-dormant through the late 1980s and 1990s, with Reed citing money problems and a difficult EMI split. Beat the Drum (1999), The Cross and the Crucible (2001), The Dreams of Men (2005), XXV (2011), Wearewhoweare (2014) and The Messenger (December 2023, with Reed back) followed. Paul Mackie sang from 2010 to 2022. Esoteric issued the box set Eyes in the Night: The Recordings 1981-1986 on June 28, 2024. Wikipedia places them with Marillion, IQ, Twelfth Night, Pendragon and Solstice as leaders of early-1980s neo-prog. Setlist.fm lists about 217 setlists.