overlap

My pre-Christmas exploits headed some way north of home, firstly to the shiny new Birmingham Academy where The Wonder Stuff's second (and weakest of the first four*) album, Hup!, was perfromed in its entirety. * complaints to the usual address! Taking over all three stages in the venue meant for high scores of the value-for-money-ometer, and a bit of a festival vibe in the moving from one stage to another to see a bit of everything. Timothy Parkes still doesn't get me hugely excited but his song Looks Like Rain is definitely growing on me. Then it's off upstairs to catch a bit of Dirty Ray, and his song The Rain Song is also a highlight, in fact he makes a far better impression on me from the stage than he does on the Shared album, which is nice. Anyone spotting a weather theme coming through? I hadn't seen Dave Sharp since he scuttled off with his hood up, the only member of The Alarm not signing autographs for the people who'd stood around waiting for them after the show on a frozen Jaunary night. On this equally snowy of nights, Dave is busier telling stories than getting on with playing songs and it doesn't feel like a shame when I'm heading off for the main stage. Main support The Twang caused a bit of dissent when they were announced as the main support band, but bringing through representatives of a new generation to introduce them to tired old hasbeens like me is no bad thing. I was pretty impressed, and writing this up has reminded me that I've still to get their album despite making plans to do so when I was watching them. A quick trip back upstairs to see Jim Bob's solo acoustic renderings of Carter USM hits and his own Touchy Feely was well worth hanging around in a draughty doorway for, the room being rammed. Great stuff, but no surprises there. And so to the main event. The album Hup! is played through in a dfifferent order to its vinyl incarnation, with some explanation from Miles about how they got the running order wrong back in the day. Because the high tech venue refurbs mean it's pretty well aircon-cooled where I'm stood, I never really get warmed up and the fact the whole thing is going down on six or eight cameras for a later DVD release means it's a bit more of a performance than the slightly more appealing shambles it can sometimes be. The post-Hup! section of the gig goes on for some time, and while it's fantastic to hear Unfaithful and 30 Years In The Bathroom and Them Big Oak Trees again, there's a couple of songs I could happily never hear again. Whatever the moans, it was a worthy occasion and a better way to do a gig with all the other acts than the lesser event it would almost certainly have been otherwise. And having a room in the hotel at only a stone's throw away from the venue was definitely a big plus on a snowy night.

Labels: gigs, Jim Bob, The Twang, The Wonder Stuff