It all began, believe it or not, in a queue for Genesis tickets. Same old story from here: Three boys meet, three boys form a band. The three boys were: Peter Nicholls, an art student, guitarist Mike Holmes and drummer Niall Hayden.
1977 saw the first gigs of The Lens, a band anything other than of a constant line-up. Niall sometimes was replaced by Brian Marshall, at other occasions both of them performed on drums. Nicholls' role, although he was always nominally a member, similarly nebulous. At one gig, for instance, he announced all songs, told stories in between but didn´t actually sing. Due to his residence in Manchester, the charismatic Nicholls, was usually absent at gigs in the south of England. Later Martin Orford joined on keyboards, Hayden left and the position on bass was offered to Brian's brother Les.
Their first cassette album, No TV Tonite, featured tracks from space hippie tunes to complex progressive rock and sold quite well. The Lens live performances were, no matter how small the venue, invariably impressive, using not only light, but films, projections and pyrotechnics too.
When Carmine Brudenell, a work colleague of Mike, joined the band on stage to dance in front of the musicians, The Lens was already in a class of it's own. Despite this, cracks (personal and musical) appeared, and in early 1981, Mike and Martin decided to form a new band: IQ.
On 26th October 2010, 'Regeneration', a second album by The Lens, written by Michael Holmes (who performs most of the album) will be released on GEP and will be available via the online store.
