overlap

It's something like half past six in the morning, I''m halfway round
the world on no more than a dozen hours sleep in three nights, and I
just got the call to say my favourite cat's died. It's fair to say
I've had better days.

It's a funny feeling, sitting here with one big bag almost fully packed, and my hand luggage around my feet waiting for its final bagging and weighing. Last time I travelled to somewhere more exotic than continental mainland europe, it was all hugely new and exciting. Having never been on an aeroplane before, Heathrow to Boston as the first leg of a series of three out and three back was a good kill or cure approach to finding out whether I had any problems with flying! I have no plans to visit the States again, and it would take a lot to get me out there. It's a big but increasingly small planet, and there are other more interesting places I'd love to see first. This time I'm heading towards the East, and making rather more out of it than just the business trip it is based around. Earlier I was thinking about how the mind-broadening properties of travel sits in my family background. I have no problems with never having flown till my thirties, and I'm fairly sure my parents must have been closer to their fifties. One pair of grandparents visited a number of mediterranean sun resorts, and the other pair may or may not have visited the one of their children that lived abroad, if that. It's not a well travelled or especially broad outlook. My perspective is affected by the way I don't like surprises, in general, and I do like to know where I stand on all sorts of things, so the whole unknown of the business trip aspect is on my mind. It's not just the wine talking when I say that my next few nights in the sort of luxury hotel I would consider extravagant far beyond anything I would ever choose to use myself is not going to sit well with me. Nevertheless, I've always been a pragmatist, and if my soon-to-be-ex employer wants to fly me thousands of miles round the planet for the limited benefit to the business my visit will offer, then of course I'll take it. And when I'm not in the office because I've already headed off to somewhere a hell of a lot more exciting, interesting and rewarding, what are they going to do, sack me? I'm likely to amuse myself by listening to the Icicle Works song 'I never saw my hometown till I went around the world' at some point on my travels, and here's hoping it'll bring me back in one piece and with some slightly more focused thoughts on what I'm going to do with the next phase of my life. But in any case, I am expecting to bring back a few pictures, and some stories.

I'm sure that I said I had certain misgivings about the recreation of a whole album during the first shows of this type last year. While those misgivings were blown away by the freshness of how it sounded, it's not for no reason that there is the odd song from most albums that gets lost along the way. There's a couple of singles I'd happily add to that category too, though possibly not the ones you might immediately imagine. But it's not every day I get to go out in vintage clothing - see above! Support on this tour is The Men They Couldn't Hang, peddling their new album Devil On The Wind to a bunch of people who possibly aren't so familiar with TMTCH as they have been with previous tour supports. No matter, their folk-rock meets traditional songwriting meets agit-pop approach warms up the crowd a treat as they fill the stage with musicians and tunes. A very good start to any evening. Possibly the pivotal album in my life, The Eight Legged Groove Machine comes from a time when singles existed on vinyl and had PO Box numbers or postal addresses on the back, and came with b-sides and bonus tracks that were often as good or better than stuff on the associated album. It seems a very long time ago from a world where an album is now only a notional concept, but the first songs sound like long lost friends coming back from years out of the picture. If I never hear Like A Merry Go Round live again it'll be a shame, but it's great to be reminded I should listen to it perhaps more frequently than I ordinarily do. The real reward (part one) of making the effort to get to the two more convenient gigs on this tour is the tracks that weren't on the original album. Goodbye Fatman, Astley In The Noose and Song Without An End is a trilogy of stone cold classics, despite what anyone say about the Astley lyrics. There follows a short hits set, lamentably including Golden Green which is a song I could happily never hear again, but all the same it's a cracking show even from a band I've seen more times than I'm tempted to admit. The real reward (part two) in paying the extra few quid for the VIP ticket to the London show is a final short set of the other three tracks from the original Wonderful Day ep, which I am pretty certain I have never heard live before, or if I have it's not in the last twenty years. The thrill of witnessing these few songs is jaw-dropping, and worth the trouble and the travel on its own. If we do go through the same routine for the second album Hup!, I'm already excited about hearing It Was Me live again for the first time in a couple of decades, what a great excuse to Get Together! * 'Over and over and over and over' is from Who Wants To Be The Disco King?, another single from the ELGM time, and for a band who it currently turns out have been at one gig in every nine I've seen over the past twenty-odd years, there's a certain resonance there too!

Labels: gigs, The Men They Couldn't Hang, The Wonder Stuff

In a world where tickets come with postage fees and handling fees and all manner of administrative charges that appear to have minimal background in people actually doing anything for the money, proper value for money is something you don't see much of at events these days. But you can have too much of a good thing.

I missed the very first band, and of the next two I especially liked the cover of 3 Colours Red's Nerve Gas and a track called 'Sorry Ain't Enough'.

Touring support band Fury UK take to the stage long after I've started getting twitchy about just how late a night this looks like being, nevertheless I'm pleasantly distracted by them. There's only so much you can do with a trio, but they seem to be plentiful enough. Drummer Martin McNee sports a beard that would easily get him past the first audition for ZZ Top, and brothers Luke and Chris Appleton complete the line-up with (respectively bass, and guitar and vocals). There's no shortage of technical skillz on show, and to be honest I'd rather Chris either played and sang another song or that they got off the stage rather than the guitar showboating that closes the set. That's one way to stick in people's minds, that they want you to get off so the next lot can get on, so they can go home before tomorrow, and while it may not be their fault it does demand an extra special show to overcome it. Like 'em, yes. Want to watch *anybody* while every song makes for a further delayed trip home, definitively no. And you might guess what I'm going to say about that name - hilarious logo opportunity though the F UK abbreviation provides, if you really can't come up with a name nobody else has used and have to tag on the UK then it doesn't make me think I should be expecting vast amounts of originality and imagination in your songwriting either.

On the stroke of 23.15, it finally looks like we are ready to get the hell on with it, and with the characteristic intro - My name is Blaze Bayley... This is the Blaze Bayley Band... We. Play. METAL. - the set begins. While stood around waiting, it occurs to me that this is within touching distance of the 21st anniversary of the first time I saw Blaze laying waste to a stage. Blaze can never be accused of not trying, of not putting everything into his show, and there really is nothing quite like standing within touching distance of his intense frame as he reaches out into and around the front row, demanding attention and insisting on more hands in the air. This is British panto metal at its finest and all the more thrilling for the backing of an effortlessly capable line-up of musicians. I finally got a couple of pictures of Larry, and having done my best to get a few pictures from close range I moved backwards out of the immediate front of stage area.

Writing this several days later, I'm no longer sure of exactly which tracks were played, but Kill And Destroy and Ten Seconds were definite highlights. An hour into the set, I found myself increasingly fussy and considering leaving, which is something I've done before the end of few enough gigs that I can still count them all on one hand. As far as I'm concerned, Iron Maiden broke up my favourite band, and though I've long since got over it, listening to Blaze doing Maiden songs isn't something that's going to make me resist further the pull of the road and of my bed. If it had been two hours earlier I'd have stayed. I'm a big fan of Blaze, and I'm not complaining about him doing whatever material he chooses, and I can do nothing but applaud his commitment to metal and to playing music. But I'm also perfectly comfortable with walking out as he introduces The Clansman - some unfamiliar Maiden track that means nothing to me has no appeal. Having seen four bands for under eight quid, there's no shortage of value for money, and once again I'm going home with money in my pocket that I might have spent on merch if I'd felt the show was an absolute killer and I'd still been there at the end.

* 'Oh, let me go home' is a line from Blaze's song 'Smile Back At Death', and in itself should be explanation enough!

Labels: Blaze Bayley, gigs, metal, Wolfsbane

In recent times I've become a bit less conscientious about catching support bands, which I guess is a function of age as much as anything else. Dropping down the stairs into the venue, I'm accompanied by a burst of harmony vocals that remind me exactly what I love about unfamiliar music, and why support bands are important. Even if I don't catch the full set, I still hate the thought I might miss out on something much, much more than I appreciate the lazy convenience of not getting myself together to get there on time.

Dead Against The Rest are blessed with a frontman who looks like Gaz from Supergrass doing an impression of Jack Black, and a bunch of musicians whose technical mastery of their instruments is more than enough for their purposes. There's a bit of that galloping Maiden rhythm thing, guitar solos that go diddly-diddly-diddly and when the guitarist layers his vocals around the frontguy's vocals they sound especially great. Despite the influences they list on their myspace, this is a band who sound remarkably British to me, with a hint of Steve Hawkins' power in the lead vocal and if anything this is the sound of classic trad Brit pub metal. And that's very much a compliment - I don't often feel compelled to compliment band members handing out flyers, but I really did enjoy Dead Against The Rest for their obvious sense of fun, and the not taking themselves seriously but definitely taking their material seriously, which is the perfect balance.

The last time I watched a band where no member had shorter hair than me is something I am having great trouble guessing but it has certainly been a while. Lethargy are blessed with waist-length hair in abundance, and a similar quantity of crunching riffs and vocals that veer between power metal and Metallica depending on who is singing. To be honest, it's not the sort of thing I'd rush out to listen to, despite my high hopes when the first riff of their first song is virtually identical to the Tygers Of Pan Tang's Love Don't Stay. Saying that, the vocal and widdly guitar solo quality around the riffs is unquestionable, and there's something very right about watching four musicians headbanging their way through their songs. Not for my repeat listening taste in the long term, but I like them and they are definitely doing a lot right.

Back in 2006 I saw Roadstar a couple of times, just after they'd changed their name from Hurricane Party. Another name change later, they are now called Heaven's Basement though by the time you read this they may have changed again - who knows?! My recollection is that I wanted to like Roadstar, but they somehow seemed a couple of songs short of an album. In the meantime I've been reassured from a couple of different sources that their newer material really is the business, and a quick spin through myspace before leaving the house vaguely raises my hopes.

Now, there's something about someone wearing a Rolling Stones t-shirt when we are almost on the cusp of the second decade of the new millennium that makes it seem about as rock n roll as wearing the tie of the accountants' union golf club. This is very much not a compliment. The musicians are all competent enough, but it just doesn't quite work for me, and that's a lot to do with a frontman who comes over as Jizzy Pearl by way of Stars In Their Eyes, shorn of the mad-eyed staring and the possessed by rock vibe, and yet trying way too hard. I'm all for giving it some, and the line between enough and too much perspective is sometimes difficult to draw. I wanted to like it, I really did, but I left unsatisfied and without spending any money on the single and ep. Shame.

* Someone That You're Not is part of the chorus of the Heaven's Basement song Mirrors, one of their brighter moments.

Labels: Dead Against The Rest, gigs, Heaven's Basement, Lethargy

You know there's something right in the world when even in 2009 you can go to a gig and stand behind someone with a shock of peroxide hair and a Theatre Of Pain era back patch of Mötley Crüe on their denim jacket. At first glance, unknown support band Sharks might seem lost in a timewarp. The guy in front of me says that if we were in 1977 they'd be hailed as the next big thing, and he's got a point. Nevertheless they are an engaging mix of a pocket bass player whose backing vocals definitely add something, even when it's only 'ooooooh', a guitar player who looks like a fifteen year old Bruce Springsteen doing an impression of Pete Townshend and a frontman whose voice might be the only slightly weak point, though that may just be the volume and what you get at third on the bill. Ultimately their secret weapon might just be the drummer whose playing is absolutely immaculate even though you could be forgiven for assuming that he's bunked off his geography homework to make the gig. Either way, I'm showing my age and they aren't, but if they were to launch into SLF's Two Guitars Clash or indeed The Clash's Safe European Home, it wouldn't be remotely surprising. They play with a load of conviction and provide a diverting half hour, but special mention has to go to the spectacle of the guitarist's plectrum slipping out of his fingers and flying out into the crowd as he fires into the start of a song, landing at the feet of a guy in the crowd. Thirty seconds later, he's picked it up, and he's offering it back to the guitarist, who stops playing for a few seconds to take it back. You just haven't made it yet baby, but I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility. Tony Wright shuffles onto the stage like the lost puppy of Brit-metal, and immediately reminds me how he is such an engaging frontman, albeit one from the lost planet of Yorkshire. There's something very authentic and natural about his unaffected accent, and while it might not get him a long way in Hollywood it seems that couldn't be much further from his mind. I'm reminded of another non-giant but airliner-flying frontman in terms of sheer born to be singing songs on a stage in parts. Some of the Laika Dog material is a bit more bluesed out than Terrorvision's uptempo pop-metal, which doesn't do so much for me, but Mad Dog and Piano Song sound great. With a pre-gig email warning that no Wildhearts songs would be aired due to there being enough solo material to learn as it is, anything could happen. I think this is the first time I've seen Ginger solo with a full band since Silver Ginger 5, and to be honest the main attraction in the gig for me is getting to see one of my favourite guitarists, Jase Edwards. The Wildhearts may have better songs, but to me Wolfsbane will always be the better band, and getting to see Jase in the substantial flesh is always a delight. He seems to be having plenty of fun too. Ginger mentions a couple of times that it's the first night of the tour, and there's a bit of the telltale raggedness that shows that, but we wouldn't have it any other way. Highlights of the set are This Is Only A Problem and Girls Are Better Than Boys, and a couple of disarming responses to lame heckles - I especially liked "I'd love to talk to you all night long, but there are some other people... who exist, and we're going to do some more songs for them". Three entertaining acts, and the night is rounded off nicely by Jase spotting my Wolfsbane shirt in the dark and commenting 'nice t-shirt!' on his way out, adding that he too is looking forward to the Quireboys shows. Can't wait! Jase the gentle giant: Ginger: * Divine Imperfection is a song from the Silver Ginger 5 album, Black Leather Mojo

Labels: gigs, Ginger, Jase Edwards, Jase the Ace, Laika Dog, Tony Wright, Wolfsbane