overlap

Sometimes a gig feels a bit more like an obligation than a party, and having been sat on the ticket for weeks, it would have been a waste not to go. Eventually getting it together to get on the road at about doors, it wasn't a surprise to turn up and find the place already pretty full, and with a restricted view for all but those at the front or on the benches at the sides, it was more a question of finding suitable elbow room. Bailey & Bowles - I dunno who the Bowles character is, but Chip Bailey is familiar as the sometime percussion loon in Duke Special's band. Cutting an intriguing figure like Baldrick's minstrel brother, there's a reliance on traditional standards in what little of the set I see, and to be honest it would probably work a bit better if you were already five pints in to your night. The cover of Badfinger's No Matter What is a nice touch to end on though. Foreign Slippers is unclear whether it's the name of the duo act, or the frontwoman on her own. Either way, it's one for my questionable act names files. Coming on with a 'hat' made of more foliage than my long-haired cat picks up in a week of running around the hedges, she looks distinctive, and while I'm all for studied differentness, ultimately it's all about the songs. When she opens her mouth, it's something like Bic Runga's smooth power that comes out, but with a hint of Winehouse, and a boatload of excessive melisma. The cover of Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down could work as a stripped back acoustic country ballad, but when it's apparently underpinned by sampled drums it sort of misses the point. And that sums it up, really - it's technical excellence in need of a much more ruthless pruning of the material. Duke Special brings yet another onstage configuration of musicians, and shorn of the distractions of Chip Bailey's hyperactivity and Ben Son-Of-Roy's noodling woodwind interludes, it's a much more rocking line-up. Indeed, guitarist Paul Pilot increasingly sounds like Richard Hawley doing an impression of Neil Young, and that can only be a good thing. A lot of the new album gets aired, and the songs from the Hector Mann film series are a neat novelty, in both senses of the word. Particularly The Jockey Club, which rhymes day-trips with aviatrix, and is another track that I'll be looking forward to hearing again. Over ninety minutes, it's a decent enough selection of material, even if the increasing rock strengths of the band seem a little constrained by a venue that's a bit too intimate, but that's not a problem I expect to last a long time as the demand certainly exists for him and them to move into more suitable, bigger places.

Labels: Duke Special, gigs

From most of two thousand people listening and two thousand empty seats to a packed, sold out venue holding two hundred at the most in a matter of days. Then again, yesterday was Wembley so Duke Special (yep, them again!) must know their way around a variety of venues by now. And as I hoped, it also turned out to be a great opportunity to break Trinny and Susannah's preference for not combining black and colour, finally taking the jeans out though the weather meant that tights and boots was a far better plan than the shoes, even if they do go better. However, even the best laid plans, and so on... The previous night's gig saw me turning up fifteen minutes after doors, and still missing some of the first set. Tonight I made it for doors plus nearly an hour, to find that the venue still wasn't open, and that I had another hour and a half before DS were due on stage. In the circumstances, it has been known for me to not hang around - the walk round to this venue isn't a long one, but it's not without a little stress in the walking. After way too long spent aiming for Britney dressed as Whitney, it's probably true that I was marginally over-dressed, but it's a tricky thing to make work in these conditions, to be warm enough outside without melting inside. Lucky my improvised shawl/wrap made out of splitting a seam on last year's poncho was just the job. After killing some time listening to the radio in the car and giving my nails a second coat, I went back round in plenty of time to get the predictable reaction on the door, and at the bar. Nothing happened, the world didn't end. Lurking in the dark was comfortable enough, and eventually Pete came on to a rapturous reception. Only one of the first eight or so songs was included in the Crowded House set, and for all the delay and technical difficulties causing it, when we finally got going it was superb. Last gig I went to that got this delayed was in the same city, and produced the sort of debacle that means I'm not prepared to see that particular artist again, so I was wary how this might turn out. Again, I needn't have worried. For the next two hours we got what sometimes follows technical difficulties, and what comes at the end of a tour - more great songs than you could shake a whisk at, and a cosy atmosphere of celebration and enjoyment. Of course I had an extra angle for my own personal enjoyment of the night out, and by this point my typing skills are deserting me so I'll leave it at saying that this sort of venue is a great place to see Duke Special, though the chance is now gone while they are off the road for a bit, hopefully working on a new album. Particular highlights were the version of Chaka Khan's I Feel For You and the boys and girls split crowd work on I'm Gonna Love You Till You Love Me Back. Having now seen DS five times in the last fifteen months, there's no doubt I'll still be waiting for them when they come back.

Labels: Duke Special, gigs, make up

Some gigs stand out a mile off, and this was one. As long ago as late June it was first announced that there were some dates scheduled for later in the year, and I was excited to get my hands on a ticket almost as soon as they went on sale. But that wasn't the only thing that caught my imagination. It's been on my mind for a while that it might turn out to be a decent first opportunity to wear my pink jeans until a better opportunity turned up later, but it was still interesting to see how it would have been. My feeling was right on the minimal door attention, and the handbag search ritual would have been a formality. Turning up not long after doors I had plenty of time to consider this further, as well as count up the number of seats with the venue set up that way. Around four thousand people would be interesting territory, but hiding in plain sight in a big crowd is a decent tactic, and in a crowd composed largely of parents with a few kids, there's a reasonable expectation of sensible behaviour, in a way there might not be among a more extremely focused crowd. For openers, Duke Special were their usual selves but a tiny bit lost on a half-audience mostly unfamiliar with their stuff, and constrained by circumstances to an abbreviated set to get out of the headline act's way. Their difficulties mirrored what mine might have been, as I was joined by the blokes seated next to me. At least two of whom spent way too long moaning about the band when they'd have been better staying in the bar if they were determined not to enjoy themselves. And the sort of behaviour they might have put my way in other circumstances is predictably the sort of thing I'm keen to avoid. No big deal, but being right about seated venues having their own hazards is reassuring too. Pete Wilson of Duke Special - best seen in smaller venues, while you still can. Fifteen or so years ago I had the pleasure of seeing headline act Crowded House three times. Once supported by the fabulous Voice of the Beehive, once closing a huge outdoor festival, and once at the absolute height of their fame, which ranks in my top ten gigs ever. With the sad death of Paul Hester, I wasn't sure what to expect this time around. Hester was a great drummer, but also a great character, and a reliable source of japes and gags, the sort of chemistry thing you don't easily replace even with a superior musician. New drummer Matt Sherrod is a good solid drummer, and does nothing out of place. Neil and Nick turn out a load of the sort of ad lib nonsense that I remember Hester for, and rather than a strictly choreographed script, it's a very organic feeling performance. One of the disadvantages of the more sedate audience I mentioned earlier is that characteristic combination of not-yet-Alzheimers, in which the first bars of most tracks produce the unfathomable reaction that goes "Oooh, I recognise this one, so I'm going to ruin the first thirty seconds of it by clapping to show everyone that I recognise it." Fussy complaints aside, they were excellent, especially Mark Hart's electric twelve string guitar playing, and his vocal harmonies with Neil. A two hour set meant there was plenty of value for money, and pretty much everyone should have gone happy.

Labels: Crowded House, Duke Special, gigs

Three gigs in three nights earlier this week means I'm neither caught
up with my blog nor my sleep, but with another very late night ahead
tonight I do need to try and clear the decks.

I saw Evan Dando doing a set of Lemonheads songs solo acoustic at a
festival a few years ago, and he was fantastic, but I'd never seen any
incarnation of The Lemonheads as a band. Drummers seem to be
particularly attracting my attention at the moment, and that's without
ever mentioning the great simplicity and economy in Ian Paice's
drumming from a couple of weeks ago. In this case it's Devon Ashley
who speeds up and slows down in perfect timing with Evan several times
a song, and while nothing outstanding or extra special, this was a
perfectly good gig.

My expectation was that I might be almost on my own going to see Duke
Special, but either quality has a way of getting through to people, or
I'm even more out of touch with the musical zeitgeist than I thought.
Either way it was a pleasant surprise to find the place close to full.

Beth Rowley's support slot was remarkable, and for someone like me who
doesn't often get much closer to the blues than the blues-rock of Free
or Bad Company to be this impressed with someone doing what might
vaguely be described as vocal-led blues torch singing tends to suggest
it was a bit out of the ordinary. Stunning voice.

For my third Duke Special show in under a year, I mostly knew what to
expect. In the drummer category you have the very special Chip Bailey
who is undoubtedly capable of filling a stage all on his own. Looking
like a cross between Bill Bailey and Wurzel Gummidge is possibly not a
calculated move suitable for the manufactured boy bands of our time,
but all adds to the ramshackle, slightly unhinged charm in his case.

One of the things I particularly like is the way Pete Wilson's Belfast
accent creeps through in certain places in the songs - we have enough
identical sounding midlantic or eshtry voices as it is, and it's a
refreshing change to get something different. Rowley comes back out
for a couple of duet pieces towards the end of a great show, and
there's a sense that this is a band really hitting its stride now.
Worth catching while you can still see the whites of their eyes
anyway.

There are a couple of pictures of Evan and Devon, and half a dozen
shots from Duke Special now on flickr, and there's still an extra busy
day to catch up on between this lot and what awaits me tonight, of
which undoubtedly more in a day or two.

Labels: Beth Rowley, Chip Bailey, Duke Special, Evan Dando, Lemonheads, Peter Wilson