Dunfermline rock band Nazareth have announced that they will play a “huge hometown gig” early next year.

Original member Pete Agnew has kept the group rocking since its inception in 1971. Still going strong, he recently returned from touring Canada, and has gigs lined up across Europe in 2025.

But on March 1 he will return to his old stomping ground to play the City’s Glen Pavilion.

Reflecting on the band’s early days in Dunfermline, he said: “It was absolutely wonderful back then. In the late 50s and early 60s the town had a lot of bands. I think we had more semi-professional bands than Edinburgh, there must be something in the water here.

“There was a lot of camaraderie as well. I remember at the time everybody had a van. If anything broke down, there was always someone who wasn’t playing that night who could help you out.

“Around 1966 we started up a wee club called the Flamingo in the Bellville hotel, and we’d play weekends as kind of residents. Then we were asked to play the kinema ballroom and that was the main gig in the town. Nobody played in pubs, pubs were for old men in those days.”

Mr Agnew is the last remaining original band member in the group. He said: “We get people who ask: ‘How can you call it Nazareth when you’ve only got one original member?’ Well, the guys that support Manchester United know that George Best isn’t playing anymore, but it’s still the same team. These guys are Nazareth now.

“You’ve got to remember that in the audiences we’re playing to, there’s usually not too many 78-year-olds. You’re looking at a crowd that never ever saw that original band, and for them they this is what they picture when they think of Nazareth.

“The weirdest thing for me is on the tour bus, I’ll be looking out the window and I’ll say: ‘remember when we’, then I have to stop myself because there’s nobody there that actually will remember.”

“I think the hardest time for the band was when Dan had to pack it in. That was the closest to the time that I thought about giving it up.”

In 2022 former lead singer Dan McCafferty passed away. He played with the band from its inception until 2014 he had to step back due to suffering from a lung condition.

Speaking about touring in recent years, Mr Agnew said: “We don’t really play the UK much. We’re lucky to have a worldwide audience, which you really need because Britain is such a small island. You really need to expand into other markets to keep going.

“The biggest market we’ve ever had was actually Russia and Ukraine, which is off the table now at least for the rest of my life. I’ve played in Moscow more times than I’ve played in Aberdeen.”