overlap

First gigs in places hitherto unvisited are always a source of a tiny bit of time pressure, directions pressure, parking pressure and the general stuff of unfamiliarity. Even if the venue's own website is somewhat rudimentary and yet the venue is sufficiently distinctive to be visible in the google maps satellite view, it shouldn't be that tricky. In a small town where there may not be hundreds of bars/clubs/pubs/venues and other sources of entertainment for a friday night, any kind of night out may turn out to be more of a night out than just another gig. Which is how I found myself surrounded by pretty young things in their friday best, in a venue that's rather smarter than my manky trainers, tracksters and t-shirt are fit for. Of course I'm not jealous, in any way. First support is Ben Squibbs from the Calling Card - no, me neither. He's pretty chipper for someone who doesn't get everyone's full attention, and seems rather good humoured about it. In his quieter moments he sounds not unlike Dave Gibbs in his Kid Lightning guise, but there's also more than a hint of voice-as-instrument power that leaves me missing the words. I'm sufficiently impressed that I will have another couple of listens to what he's got on myspace, and he's young enough you never know what might yet happen. Second support goes without being named. Partly because I'm not so keen on slating things I don't really enjoy. I'm a big fan of bombast in the right place, and that's in the hands of Clarence Clemons and Roy Bittan, not in an acoustic guitar that's played almost entirely for rhythm, and not in a voice that's got power and urgency by the bucketload but falls short on melody and subtlety. I know, different strokes and all that, and I just don't get the sainted Damo either for the same reason. Making any sensible kind of comment on someone I've seen more times on a stage than anyone else is not easy. To answer the question of what keeps me going back, it's definitely something to do with making the acquaintance of new material that I've not heard done live before or revisiting old tunes that are being partially revised and reinvented. The convenience of relative locality helps, especially when the novelty of a venue new to me like this one is added in. In some ways it's refreshing and in others it's predictable how people who don't go to multiple gigs by the same artist within the same month still seem to have the same predictable expectations. Ok, so nobody should be surprised that a couple of particularly high profile hit singles over fifteen years ago stick in people's minds more than the other twenty-odd singles, or their b-sides or associated album tracks. Sure, there's the odd exception - see the Weddings Parties Anything I saw last year - but I gave up on the fantasy setlist game a long time ago. And that's probably the nature of what you should generally expect to read here, it's as much about my relationship with the material and/or the artist as it is a description of an event, and often more so. And likewise nobody wants to do the same thing at work day after day after day without some kind of variation, so it's only right that those people who do that particular kind of thing for a living must embrace the differentness wherever they see it. As with football matches, there's barely a gig where there isn't something to differentiate it from the one the week before or the year before, or even the decade before. Sometimes it's the travelling to get there, sometimes it's running into people I was or wasn't expecting to see, and every now and then it's a song I haven't heard in ages coming back to say hello in different clothes. In this case it's plenty of the latter, as Miles and Erica have worked out ways to play some things I've not heard them do before as well as adding forthcoming single Stay Scared Stay Tuned from Catching More Than We Miss. That and DWI are the higlights for me from the new stuff, but I'm delighted by Miles doing Can't Shape Up all by himself, and the duo versions of Cartoon Boyfriend and especially this version of The Animals And Me are tremendous. Overall probably not a career-defining highlight gig, or much in the way of a radical departure, but a thoroughly decent gig representing excellent value for money. If only everyone's every gig lived up to that description, but that would only make for more boring predictability! That setlist in full. DWI/Corny But true/Back On the Charm Offensive/Stay Scared Stay Tuned/Rogue's Biography/Fill Her Up And Foot down/Welcome To The Cheap seats/Mission Drive/Circlesquare/Room 512/Can't Shape Up/The Cake/The Animals And Me/Cartoon Boyfriend/Amongst The Old Reliables/Golden Green/Unbearable

Labels: Erica Nockalls, gigs, Miles Hunt

I have spent the weekend doing a very intensive training course, and sat a 90 minute exam for the first time in more years than I care to count up. This may lead to a period of reflection on any grand plan to invest redundancy money in training for a bright new future, or indeed to pursue this particular qualification any further either. My exam technique was always pretty good, back in the olden days when dinosaurs still walked the planet, which is part of the reason I never really learned to do much in the way of work or revision. But I have a feeling that exam technique alone is unlikely to be much good for my future, and sooner or sooner I'm going have to do a bit of work.

Despite certain reservations when I saw them a few months ago, the Hot Leg album release date was on my calendar, and it remains the only time this year I've rushed out and bought something on the day of release. It partly brings to mind White Sister's Fashion By Passion album from 1985, though where FBP is brutalised by over-production, Red Light Fever doesn't quite go over that edge. All the same, with Roy Thomas Baker even appearing in the thanks list, you know there's going to be at least one kitchen sink on there. Hoping that familiarity with the material would make some difference, I figured turning up to pay £13 on the door was also a good investment in keeping local venues going, in a week where one of my favourite venues has gone into administration. For once I didn't have any tickets for there on my pinboard, though I don't think it's me that's singlehandedly been keeping the place going! Walking up to the venue and hearing noise spill out on to the street isn't always a tremendously musical experience, but it's credit to to the PA and to the support band that it sounded like an album turned right up rather than a messy mix coming off a stage, so that was a good start but also a moment of worrying I'd missed something, then the singer announced they had a couple more songs to do, so I had enough to go on. As band names go, The Crave aren't in danger of topping my league of rubbishness, but it's not exactly terrific, is it? As unknown support bands go, on the other hand, I got as far as checking if I had the cash to pick up their album, so they've got to be doing something right, despite the distraction of a guitarist who looks like a bad Russell Brand, a lead singer and drummer both with dodgy dreads, which is a style crime in itself but in the case of the drummer, the combination of that with a barely there immaculate George Michael tidybeard seems incongruous at best. I like that they have backing vocals aplenty, and the odd moment of striking guitar solo, and that they obviously know their way around a stage. There is no question of whether they mean it, or that they might be filling time before going off to become accountants, and as I type this up I've got their myspace tunes running in search of soundalike comparisons. I guess it's somewhere between the melodic sensibilities of the sublime Little Angels, and the slightly more bluesy angle of Glasgow's Gun. From the extra prominence of the guitar on Right Side Of The Tracks they nearly register as sounding like Gigolo Aunts, which is about as well rated as praise gets in my world, but what you mostly get is the pop end of Terrorvision missing a little of the urgency and bounce factor. That said, High is a classic hit single for summer radio, just needs a bit more guitar solo cutting through the massed vocals, and given the chance I'll be checking them out again for sure. As for Justin's band, they do seem to have grown into their haircuts a bit more, and over eighty minutes they play the whole album, Todd Rundgren's Dust In The Wind and a couple of other tunes and generally do what it says on the tin. I know people are bound to have their own ideas based on Justin's previous band, but how can you seriously doubt a band where the sleeve credits the members as follows: Justin Hawkins: lead singing, lead guitar, lead synthesiser Pete Rinaldi: lead guitar, lead BVs Samuel Stokes: lead bass, lead BVs Darby Todd: lead drums, lead drums I guess that like Hot Leg, you'll either get it or you won't, but where the Storys was a good show, this is a good party, and it's great to see a band who realistically are unlikely ever to scale the heights of popularity that the other lot did, and who seem to be having a perfectly good time just getting on with doing what they are doing. There's a lot to be said for that.

Labels: gigs, Hot Leg, The Crave

Harmony is an Elton John track from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road which has a specific and lasting sentimental reference value for me, to the point where I've just put it on and found it sufficiently uncomfortable that I've turned it off again. With nearly a year since my last trip westwards for a gig, it was refreshingly straightforward finding a venue I'd never been to, and which was yet another example of local authority design standards being a touch more elaborate than the average sticky beer floored bar venue. I got in just in time to see the first support act saying 'thank you very much, good night!' so I've nothing to tell you there. Second support Eaglesbush comprise the drummer and keyboard player from the headliners, in this instance performing as a guitar duo. To be honest it didn't really work for me - no concrete complaints perhaps beyond a slight over-emphasis on guitar and vocal skills rather than the songs themselves, but I'd try to catch some of them as a support again just to see if it was them or, as is more likely, me. Third support Andy Morse has a voice that switches between a husky roar and something of much greater delicacy. And he really hit the recognition button - halfway through I realised that the comparison I was searching for was Billy Falcon, with a touch less sunshine. Again I wasn't moved to hit the merch stand in search of an album but I enjoyed that rather more. Headline band The Storys are a band I first (and last) saw in the company of My Friend, and as with the nagging sentimentality of this post's title track, that is something that still bothers me. As a one-off hometown show, this was a friends and family plus extravaganza - see three support acts - rather than date x of a y date tour based around flogging the new album, which always has the potential for turning out something special. Over an hour and half, we got 15 or 16 tracks off the two albums, and a handful of new ones. Unless you are Teenage Fanclub with three songwriters who each take lead vocals for exactly a third of the set, spreading it around is always going to be a little tricky. Steve Balsamo may front the Storys, but Rob Thompson plays a mean lead guitar and takes lead vocal a couple of times. Bassman Andy Collins has one of the best haircuts in music and takes lead vocals on a couple of tunes. Newest recruit Rosalie Deighton has a very strong voice and also takes lead vocal on one tune. And of course the drummer and keyboard player have both had their own lead vocal moments earlier, though at many points there are three or more voices harmonising. And overall it adds up to there being no real overall vibe, more a disparate collection of covering more bases than necessary and fails to truly nail any one element. This is a shame, and I love the first album though I can't say I've been taken by the second one. It may well be the case that I thought they were outstanding when I saw them before because they were doing a 45 minute festival set in the sunshine, and didn't have as much scope for variation. All the same, I think The Storys are great and they do make fantastic vocal harmonies and a groovy seventies-flavoured sunshine sound where if you like multi-vocal stylings like CSN playing The Eagles, they've got something for you. Andy Collins, and some serious hair.

Labels: Alan Thomas, Andy Collins, Brian Thomas, gigs, Rob Thompson, Rosalie Deighton, Steve Balsamo, The Storys