overlap

There's something about going up to someone in the band at the end of the gig to say hello and having their eyes open wide when they see your t-shirt. That it "goes back a very long way, that goes back a very long way!" is undoubtedly true, but there's nothing wrong with that, and there's an observation about that t-shirt being older than a good number of the people in that crowd just begging to be made.

So, the gig. John Q Public are a mildly amusing punk outfit with a handy feel for the internal song dynamic that makes the likes of Green Day poppishly successful. With an amusing interplay between the bassist and singer, and a guitarist in an ill-advised bandana and more silly faces than Nigel Tufnell, I'm more impressed than I might have been with both the songs and the performance, and the way the singer reminds me of Mark Lyons from Chuck.

Performance is something the main draw for me this evening knows all about. The Grip remain one of the best live bands I've ever seen, and where for some people it's the first time they saw KISS or the first time they heard AC/DC, there's a small number of slightly lesser known bands who first swept me off my feet with the power of rock, and showed me that it was possible to do more than just stand on the stage and reproduce the album. This also has a lot to do with how I grew up to be much more a fan of British bands who I could go and see for myself, with the odd long distance stay-away exception like Journey*!

* next on tour in the UK in June 2011 with the mighty Styx

And it shows how all that stuff has stuck with me, that this revisit to someone I first saw on a stage far longer ago than he'd prefer I say in public is sandwiched between renewing my acquaintance with Chrome Molly earlier this year, and next week's trip to see Wolfsbane yet again. Old rockers never die, they just get a bit less hairy and wear stupid glasses...


The first three tracks are familiar ones - mp3 failure meant I hadn't reminded myself over the course of the day how the first album goes, but I had had it on at home the day before. As with Frobisher's Last Stand, there is more than a hint of Jellyfish's majestic pop-rock genius in some of the newer material. I'll be honest, I was hardly taking pictures at gigs back in the 80s, and with Willie Dowling modelling a fine pair of Elvis-type glasses I was working hard at getting a few decent pictures - I'm happy enough with what I got in the conditions.


Guy James has a remarkably strong voice when he briefly takes the mike on his own, and the rest of the band do a fine job of doing their jobs to allow Willie's star quality and songwriting mastery to come through. I'd have loved it no matter what they played, and I was delighted to visit a new venue and come away with change from £30 having paid to get in and bought the two Jackdaw4 CDs I didn't already have.

Barring THAT single and its lower profile follow up, I don't knowingly know anything by or about headliners Electric Six. But there's no denying a band with a few years under their collective belt in full cry, and the singer does a fantastic job of referring to where we are and confirming that he knows it isn't England. And in between the banter, there's a steely core of musicianship underpinning roughly what you'd get if you stuck the pop sensibilites of Sparks in a blender with the singular madness of Cardiacs and turned it up to eleven. Again I'm impressed beyond expectation, and while I'm not about to run out chasing the entire back catalogue, I'd happily recommend them to anyone who wants a bit of slightly off-kilter rocking excitement.

That said, there's only one highlight of the evening for me and that's chatting to Willie in a t-shirt that I think I'm right in remembering that he went out to the van to get for me on the last occasion I saw The Grip, many many years before. Mark Keen's been dead something like eighteen years now, I think, but I'm not one for forgetting, especially the band in search of whose ep I even made a trip to long gone London record shop Shades.

The Ballad Of Vera Daydream is now back on the mp3 player, and shows little sign of losing its appeal. We may all be old getting older (happily the quotable title of a b-side track from way back when) but the power to rock remains undiminished, if occasionally a little more creaky!

A seasonally themed gig is always going to be a bit hit and miss, especially if the timing is just before the whole party season gets into full swing. And so it is that this gig comes with a bunch of balloons, some tinsel and fairy lights.

Having missed the early doors by a combination of travelling back from the snow-laden hills and being in no hurry to see every second of every unfamiliar band, I nevertheless turned up in time to see all of Lucky Delucci. Joseph the singer seems an engagingly affable chap, and overall they come across rather like what you'd find lost in the middle ground between the classy synth pop of Captain and the more rounded prog leanings of Super Furry Animals. I made the effort to download the free track they have available and it's growing on me further by the listen, and definitely one for the don't-miss-their-next-support-slot file. Encouraging.

It's not unusual to find there's something I've come to late, but hooked on current blissful pop single December Boy, I was really looking forward to catching the final local appearance by The Loves. Naturally enough that single is a little out of character for the rest of their material, and the fine array of expletives and guitar riffs take you somewhere else entirely. The natural comparison is Jeffrey Lewis' 12 Crass Songs project, where Alice's counterpoint to Simon's singing takes a part that some might dismiss as the Manda Rin role, but it may be more the local influence of Helen Love that I detect coming through in the artful imperfection that means it sounds rather more raw and natural than the polish of December Boy. Guest roles played by various former Loves makes it a bit more like a final flourish, and that all adds to the one-off feel of the gig.

Headliners (and still my current favourite current pop band) are The School. You can probably judge for yourself how biased I am in their favour when I mention that Liz is doing the door and recognises me as I approach. Clad in Christmas jumpers and reindeer antlers, they run through a mix of festive classics and new tunes from The School's future second album though it's Stop That Boy that stays with me longest after the gig.

Not the best gig ever in the history of the world, but a perfectly decent seasonal antidote to the drama of the Frozen UK, and probably my major concession to the season of mandatory jollity. Hurrah!

Sometimes a gig is an obligation, and sometimes a gig is a long-awaited pleasure. But it's not so often that a gig is a life-affirming experience at a level above and outside the music. With a number of outstanding obligations out of the way, this was a gig I'd been looking forward to, wondering about and considering my options in equal measure. Having not taken a handbag out somewhere in some time, I'd tried to get some stuff out of the way in plenty of time, and by the time I'd done my make up I was only a bit later in leaving than I ordinarily would be. Cue a couple of laps of the block looking for the odd parking space that hadn't already been taken. Ended up in a space three foot longer than my car, simple enough, even in those heels.

Walked round to the venue to be met by a wall of bodies just inside the door and enough assembled body heat to feel the make up sliding down my face almost immediately. No point fighting my way through this dense a crowd to the bar, and happily it wasn't long before the band took the stage, rolling through some instrumental work while Edwyn Collins was helped onto his stool at centre stage. Listening to a recent radio session means I'm familiar with three of the newer songs, with the understandably recurring themes of losing one's place in the world and losing control of one's circumstances.

The new album Losing Sleep features a number of collaborations from various names you might recognise, and that aspect chimes with the joyous spectacle where everyone in the room wishes Edwyn well, and this is anything but a sympathy gig. While the stroke means guitar playing is no longer much of an option, he still has his voice, in more than one sense. Backed by ex-Pistol Paul Cook on drums, Boz Boorer on bass and the younger pair of guitarists, it's a pretty tight unit that propels the evening musically while Edwyn's clearly in control of his vocal performance, from recent tracks like What Is My Role? (see that theme I mentioned?) all the way back through to Rip It Up and Blue Boy.

I've been in gigs where the atmosphere has been sombre after people close to the band have have died, and where the atmosphere has been taut due to events in the world outside, but the best comparison I have to offer is the time I saw All About Eve and Julianne's voice was going; she was clearly doing her best, all the crowd were clearly aware of how hard she was trying, encouraging her on and on her side, and willing her to pull it off. As it happened, Julianne's voice gave out after half a dozen songs and the rescheduled gig a month later was nowhere near as special even at three or four times the length.

But where that was a one-off, this was more a proper return to the stage doing normal gigs, and as such I think everyone was delighted to see how Edwyn's coming along, to be a part of an event celebrating his ongoing recovery (both medically and of his musical activities) and to enjoy a fine selection of songs new and old, in roughly that order of importance.

All that and home at the sensible hour of not long after 11.30, Springsteen multi-hour sets probably being a bit beyond what anyone wants to see Edwyn put himself through right now. It's more than enough that the gig happened at all, and while Neil Hannon was arguably a better show, this was undoubtedly a better experience of human warmth and supportiveness.

A few days into the new album, I'm really enjoying the different colours that the input of others' brings to it and more than anything it's just refreshing to listen to straightforward pop music with proper guitar solos to the fore - rock on, Edwyn!

Next up in the line of gigs where the ticket got bought when there was nothing else on around the time and that then changed.

Ok, I'll declare an interest. From my perspective, the only good thing about drum and bass is the Cable t-shirt stating 'DRUM AND BASS [tiny font] guitar and vocals', and I've no idea that drum and bass is even what you'd call this particular nonsense. Given it is music effectively reduced to the bass and a bit of drums, ie with all the interesting bits taken out or turned down far enough to be inaudible, it is an adequate description if not a perfect piece of genre pigeonholing.

On the plus side, I've never seen a drummer start putting his drums in the van while the rest of the band blithely carry on playing, and it is a suitably edifying spectacle to watch someone packing up his Mac laptop and coiling the associated cables while his mate continues apparently 'feeling the groove' or whatever the appropriate term is. In short, utter rubbish.

I had half a plan for things to go slightly differently, but time and weather got in the way so I was really glad I didn't get there any earlier and have to stand there through all of that, and I can understand the appeal of a practically non-existent support when a lot of effort has gone into the stage set.

Emerging from a giant silver funnel in silvery clothes, the band are soon joined by Alison Goldfrapp in a black cape that appears to have the tape from half a dozen VHS cassettes sewn onto it in loops, making her unmistakeably the focal point of the place.

Polite notices on the walls inform the crowd that 'the artist has requested that patrons refrain from all typpes [sic] of photography and video' and surprisingly for such a visual show, people mostly comply, although the security are pretty hot on looking for the electronic glow of LEDs and LCDs being raised in the air and demanding they be put away.

Alison's band are pretty tight, with the smilingest drummer I've seen in a while, and indeed I'd have to think hard to work out who was the last female drummer I saw that wasn't Denise Dufort. You've got to love a clear perspex bass guitar, and who doesn't love seeing one and at times two keytars - that's those keyboards worn on a strap and played like a guitar?

You'll note I still haven't mentioned how the band sound. I liked the idea that the recent album was rather more 80s flavoured, and Alison Goldfrapp is clearly one of those interesting characters that deserve a bit of support just for not belonging to the identikit dance routine and skipload of melisma acts that plague the discerning listener in the modern age. I'm open to something new every now and then, but I'm not rushing out to buy anything and I wouldn't rush to go that far to see this gig again. But there are half a dozen singles and songs I recognise, and for all that most are rather more into it than me, I can see the captivation in a singer who is clearly wrapped up in the performance rather than the act.

In the cold light of day, I'm probably prepared to stick with my initial reaction, that Goldfrapp combines the singular conviction of Kate Bush with an able band made up of the survivors of a fight between Heaven 17 and space-ABBA, beamed straight out of 1986. That it is a spectacle worth seeing is unquestionable, but whether it comes with a set of tunes I'll be singing along with this time next year or even this time next week is rather more in doubt.

The last two years have been noticeably leaner on the gigs front, largely due to changing financial circumstances but also because there just haven’t been that many gigs where I’ve felt I absolutely have to be there, and somewhere along the way I’m noticing that irresistible impulse to get to the gig has been supplanted by some of the other stuff I get up to. If you’d told me a few years ago that having spent the money on the ticket, just not going would ever be an option that appeared in some way reasonable, I’d have laughed.

I booked this ticket in a moment of celebration of returning to full time employment and via a blink and you’ll miss it tip-off on f*ceb**k that an extra handful of tickets had been made available. Which meant that as sober reality has returned and I’ve been weighing up what comes next, I’d even considered that if it were that popular a gig maybe I’d be better off reclaiming the cost of the ticket by flogging it on.

You’ll gather I wasn’t spectacularly keen, then, to see in his own right someone I saw back in the early summer, much as I was impressed with those two songs he did, but I lived to be very glad I made the effort.

Having the missus as your support act is an understandable move - it keeps Steve Earle behaving when he’s on tour, for example - but it’s also an invitation to moans of nepotism and worse. In this case there’s really no reason for any of that. Cathy Davey’s rich creamy voice is pitched somewhere between Cerys Matthews at her most breathy and Katell Keineg, and while it’s a tricky gig to accompany yourself on an electric guitar, it mostly works fairly well. There’s a bit too much voice as instrument stuff for my liking, but what do you expect from a voice sometimes fighting to be heard over an electric guitar? File under ‘I’d happily borrow the album off someone to get a proper listen but I’m not rushing out to spend the money on it myself’, and that’s as much a comment on my ageing and jaded attitude as it is on Cathy.

In bowler hat and suit, pipe in mouth and briefcase in hand, Neil Hannon cuts a striking figure as he strides on to the stage, tips his hat to the crowd and then spends ninety minutes combining piano pop literacy with frequent humorous asides towards a crowd nestled comfortably in the palm of his hand. I saw the amplified Divine Comedy band a while back and that reminded me how many great pop singles I knew, but this is just Neil and understandably it comes over as a far more singular act.

While some of the lines are clearly polished and practised, there’s still plenty of tiny surprises, just as when requests for My Lovely Horse are flatly refused with a repeated point blank ‘No!’, even to the point of protesting too much, as he goes into some other song. And then immediately follows that song with My Lovely Horse. The jaunty brightness of Becoming More Like Alfie is a particular highlight at the up tempo end of the scale, with his vocalising of the guitar solo and especially the hammering on section. Likewise the closest Hannon comes to overtly political in The Complete Banker is part anthem of despair and part call for insurrection.

There are plenty of moments of crowd involvement, with alternating male/female choruses of the Marseillaise fading in and out of The Frog Princess, and at times it’s the first time a gig I’ve been at has turned into something approaching a participatory choral event since whichever is the last I saw out of Chumbawamba, Show Of Hands and the Oysterband.

I’m delighted I overcame my poor excuse-making for an hour and a half of such outstanding entertainment, compelling from start to finish.

You don't need to read too much of what I write on here to understand that as much as I'm looking forwards to the next gig, I'm often looking backwards to it as well; and so it is that a moderate trip across the country and a short leg up the M1 sees me camping at an outdoor musical event for the first time in several years.

Most festivals these days come with three figure ticket prices and a variety of corporate branding operations. So when you turn off the nearest dual carriageway and find a distinct lack of those helpful yellow AA signs for event directions, it might raise the odd question in the mind of anyone who hasn't done their own research to know where they were supposed to be going. Turning off the road up a farm track brings me to a cordon to get my car searched for glass, and then another stop to hand over the cash for my weekend ticket, parking and camping - a bargain at £50 the lot.

A quick wander towards the area with the stages in the rain, and it's back to put up the tent in a brief interlude between small bouts of weather, and then to put the kettle on for a cup of tea - hey, rock n roll!

Perched almost on top of a hill, overlooking the rest of the site means I can hear what's going on on the main stage well enough not to miss anything yet softly enough to be able to ignore it if I want.

Friday's bill had a number of things new to me, and a couple I especially wanted to see again; with Anti-Product not appearing due to the lack of Alex being in the country, it was really only Magnum closing the show had caught my attention and I'd seen them relatively recently anyway. It was the same set as the last tour, and they were perfectly fine, but the best bit was the confirmation the new album is on its way. The Visitation is out in the new year, and tickets for the associated tour in April 2011 are already on sale. From some time after the event, I most remember the Therapy?-esque Trucker Diablo, and Clive The Doctor (of And The Medics fame) as a great value MC throughout.

Waking to the more impressive/familiar/anticipated line-up on the second day, I was pleased to see the rain more or less holding off. Leicester youngsters Arms Of Atlas showed some of the commitment to performance and energy of bands a generation or two older, one of whom was really my main reason for being there. I'll come back to that.

New Generation Superstars still evoke The Almighty in being a band I want to like, and a band I mostly enjoy when our paths cross but who just don't have that little extra something to make me buy their recorded material. Dinnertime takes me away from the next couple of bands, missing not very much, and then I'm back down the front for the mighty noise of Jason and the Scorchers. I love JatS, and I'm delighted to find there's a new album to buy at the gig and get signed by Jason and Warner afterwards. New song Days Of Wine And Roses is a perfect follow-on to Jason and The Wildhearts' One Less Heartache, and on its own it makes the whole travel and expenditure of the weekend worth it.

Jason Ringenberg


Marky Ramone's Blitzkrieg deliver 32 songs packed with Ramone-ness, and the added bonus of a real live Ramone, and what could possibly be wrong with that?

Closing headliner Glenn Hughes has an outstanding voice, but it's the DP track Stormbringer that gets me most excited, and after that the rest of the material just isn't doing it for me.

Nevertheless, I would be going home the following morning anything but disappointed as I'd earlier been treated to my first live onstage sighting of Leicester's finest, metal titans Chrome Molly in closing on twenty-two years, including my first personal dedication of a song in a little while. Not a new experience with this band, mind, frontman Steve Hawkins having done exactly the same back in Ferbruary 1988. When we were all a little younger, a little thinner and a little hairier.

that Chrome Molly set in full
Cut Loose
Steel Against The Sky
Supercharge
Tie Your Mother Down
Shooting Me Down
Stop Love!
Take Me I'm Yours
Panama

Steve Hawkins, 2010 version