overlap

If it's a monday night just before xmas, this must be Wolverhampton, with The Wildhearts, some bunch of Americans I'm barely familiar with and, crucially for my bothering to make the effort to get there, a classic Brit metal band getting back on stage for the first time in a while. The torrential rain on the M5 and the associated driving standards meant I didn't catch all of the first bunch, but I'm glad I saw what I did. Tragedy is an appropriate name for a Bee Gees cover band, but it'll be interesting to see where it takes them. From the back of the room I did half wonder if it was AntiProduct's Alex Kane as they have a certain visual similarity from a distance, though vocally they sound rather more like Love/Hate, or Skid Row, or several others of that particular ilk. Hayseed Dixie are a fantastic comedy tribute band, but I'm still not convinced covering just the one act has much longevity to offer. We'll see. Around the end of my regular reading of Kerrang! there was one name that kept coming up. Predictably praised by Ginger, it took a bit of effort to get to see A for the first time but it was worth the trouble. With a name that's great for finding in the record racks but terrible for tracking down in the information age, I watched them grow through several albums as far as hit singles and Top Of The Pops, and enjoyed every bit. Turns out I last saw them in 2002, which wasn't all that long before they sort of ran out of steam and found other things to do with their time. While Dan Carter may be busy with Radio One and other projects, John Mitchell has ably stepped into the breach playing bass. Otherwise we have a full complement of the Perry boys, and Mark Chapman on guitar. The Hi-fi Serious album in particular takes me back to a time in my life when all sorts of things were going on, and it’s especially good to hear Going Down again. Where Old Folks talks of people who are ‘almost thirty now’, for many of those the title of this post is now of greater relevance, coming from a b-side track on the House Under The Ground single called ‘40’, as even Jason complains that being thirty-nine he needs to catch his breath between songs. Of course he could save his breath by talking a bit less nonsense, but that’s all part of the appeal and I’m not sure anyone would have it any other way. Fantastic to see them again after all this time. That setlist in full: Rush Song/ Monkey Kong/Starbucks/Going Down/The Distance/Old Folks/Foghorn/Nothing Jason Perry in 'oh no, I look like a fat Sting!' shocker. It’s often the case that gigs which have some sort of difficulty to overcome attached to them turn out to be that little bit more special than something that’s just another thoroughly competent show. While not quite on the scale of the stunning atmosphere of the All About Eve show where Julianne’s voice was going and she managed just half a dozen songs, this was one such performance as Ginger’s voice was noticeably compromised by the effects of recent touring. It meant we got a lot more of CJ’s vocals turned up in the mix, and a surprisingly chirpy Ginger doing those songs he could manage without further damaging his throat. Someone That Won’t Let Me Go would have been enough for a really good gig, as to be honest I don’t listen to a lot of their back catalogue very often these days. And while there’s always a drawn out Caprice that I could happily live without, there’s also always a Just In Lust or a Red Light Green Light to rip through with plenty of goodwill to see it through rather than have the gig pulled. It was on my mind that I could happily leave after STWLMG, and as it turned up the third song in the set I could have been in for a relatively early night. As it turned out, I stayed right through to the bitter end, so much was I enjoying it. Probably the most enjoyable of the last half dozen or so times I’ve seen them, and definitely heightened by the struggle to keep Ginger’s voice going, and the welcome return of My Baby Is A Headfuck. Surprisingly excellent.

Labels: A, gigs, The Wildhearts, Tragedy

That was fun then. There's a distance threshold that governs what I consider practical travel, and whether time off work is required. Getting to the end of the year and having annual leave to use up or lose makes this sort of thing a bit easier, and leaves room to be a bit more ambitious too. * Monday - work, and up the road to Wolverhampton to see Damone (too much 'we are Damone from the United States, let me hear you say 'yeah'', not enough of the serious business of writing songs) opening the Wildhearts pre-Christmas tour. Further to the one-off excitement in September, Wolfsbane got signed up to do five shows with The Wildhearts, and while some people missed September's show, this one was a) the first since then and b) the closest to a local show, so Wolverhampton was sold out and rammed with excitable people in fifteen year old Wolfsbane t-shirts. They were as good as they ever were back in the day, and internet consensus seems to be that they were even better than The Wildhearts, who I'd agree didn't have the best show of all time. Nice. Motorway roadworks and other shenanigans meant I got home about half past two. Not so nice. * Tuesday - work, and a relatively late trip to Bristol, and back to the same venue I'd been less than a week before with my nearly matching pink jeans and handbag. I saw support band New Generation Superstars at that show in Tamworth in September,and while they have a name that ups the ante somewhat, they are not quite there yet. Like a junior version of The Almighty, but just missing that little bit of memorableness in their songwriting, I like them and I'd happily watch them again but they've got nothing I'd rush to track down to listen to repeatedly just yet. Headline band Love/Hate I also saw a long time ago, but this is the third time in the last couple of years I've seen a different reformed line-up, with three of the original four members making this the most genuine version. Skid twitches like his bass guitar lead is a high pressure firehose that he's struggling to keep under control, and spends most of the show with a bleeding forehead from headbutting the mike. Joey is solid as ever on the drums. And Jizzy is the same wired frontman of legend, with the sort of brooding presence that lesser singers (and I'm looking directly at you, Hutchence and Gahan) couldn't hope to match in their wildest dreams. Great stuff and a relatively pleasant 'early' night. * Wednesday - no work, but a fun afternoon heading north, and east. Checked in at the hotel in downtown Stockport in time to make it to the venue just before doors. Hotels, and even the b&b type of accommodation, are an exotic novelty to me, and the sort of thing that elevates this above and beyond the norm. I wouldn't have made this trip without the lure of Wolfsbane, that's absolutely certain. Damone are largely as before, but with the sound not quite as good. Wolfsbane were even better than monday and I once again found myself a couple of people from the front, though I got bounced out of there within a couple of songs of The Wildhearts' set. I don't know if it's coincidence, but I'm struggling to recall seeing any gigs which weren't in some way troubled in Manchester. There's an inevitability of jumping up and down at this sort of thing, but all the same there are a couple of over-exuberant and over-lubricated kids that contribute to several different confrontational flare-ups that could have got nasty, and having seen the mighty Wolfsbane I left before the Wildhearts' encore and was back in the hotel in time to catch up a little on my sleep backlog. * Thursday - having removed the ice from the car, I took my time crossing the south-eastern edge of Cheshire and back down the M6, and still made the consumer paradise that is Merry Hill just after lunch time. And spent five hours enjoying the sport of shopping, coming away with a dress I'd liked the look of last time but which was now even further reduced, a pair of shoes, jeans, a couple of tops and few seasonal gifts that weren't for me too. Down the road to Stourbridge, where the venue is just around the corner from a Domino's so I pushed the boat out and had pizza in my car before going in to a venue that was borderline empty, and the first venue I have ever seen using a gas-fired space heater to try to warm the place up. Wouldn't have made the journey on its own for this either, but it made the hotel seem worthwhile and gave me something to do with the time other than just go home and watch Eastenders or something similarly educational! Support act Timothy Parkes is an interesting if slightly intense character, and his songs are perhaps a little rambling for my taste, but his guitar playing is very intricate and tight. Miles Hunt and Erica Nockalls close their half-year of touring with a decent set that is happily based around more solo stuff than Stuff stuff, home for about one thirty I think this time. * Friday - off to London, on what is forecast to be the most challenging traffic day of the season, but which turns out to be nothing like as much trouble as it might have done. There's a queue up the side of the Astoria, where I first saw The Wildhearts suporting Wolfsbane a full seventeen years (and a few days) ago, and my partner-in-metal for this show turns up in good time. Damone, well, you know. Someone's been up in the loft, or busy rooting thorugh a lock-up garage somewhere, as the stage is crowned with a Wolfsbane banner of a certain vintage. This is perhaps the best of the three, no doubt partly due to the fact that nobody knows if this will be the last ever set they play, and while I've got a number of stills and some video from the other gigs, mostly I'm stood watching and enjoying and soaking it all up this time. It speaks for itself that Wolfsbane, who've only done six shows in the last thirteen years, still rank as fourth in the bands I've seen most stakes, and indeed some people might think that putting another thousand miles on the car for a total of less than two hours of Wolfsbane would be something they might not go for themselves. And from my perspective it was well worth it. We watched The Wildhearts from the balcony, where I've never been before, and the end of tour spirit and their very short new xmas song lifts this one to the best of my week too, probably. Out into the fog, and home for about 3.30 - 'tis the season to be having a rest now!

Labels: gigs, Love/Hate, Miles Hunt, shopping, The Wildhearts, Wolfsbane

Poor tour planning sees The Wildhearts coming to my city on the same night that I've already had my ticket for another gig for months, so it's a short trip up the road and a reminder that making an early start on driving over is a necessity for almost every gig there these days. Last time I was over there was a special gig for very other reasons, and this is almost as much obligation or habit as something promising new and exciting delights. With the new album released the day before and having not had time to let it fully grow on me, anything is possible. * G U Medicine, the first support band have nothing all that special to commend them, beyond being remarkably loud, but they're out of the way soon enough. * Sign, remarkably poor name for a band. The lead vocals are a slightly strained mix of Klaus Meine of the Scorpions and Jon Deverill, but there's something else in there that I can't quite pick out. "Hello, we are Sign and we come from Iceland, and yeah we live in snow houses and shit..." Suddenly it all makes sense! They play a little over half an hour and are clearly having a ball, and the other thing they remind me of becomes clear when they do a cover of Skid Row's Youth Gone Wild - you can see how the roaring/screaming vocal style has more than a hint of Seb. A band that I end up liking because they amuse me rather than one that has me rushing to buy the whole catalogue, though I may well nick a tune or two off their myspace. * The Wildhearts then - turns out they've been through about fifteen different line-ups now, and though I've seen them more times than that over the years, I've probably only seen about half of those line-ups, and I'm also not completely up to date quite who's the latest recruit to the revolving line-up. And if I had been paying attention I might have known to try and get a couple of pictures of new bassist Scott Sorry for the amusement value of the fact he has his surname tattooed in inch high letters across his throat. No, quite. It's a substantially more hits-based set than it might have been for a band with a shiny new album freshly released, and it's a cracker. I don't listen to them much from one gig to another these days, so it's really nice to be reminded what cracking rock-pop stormers songs like TV Tan and Vanilla Radio, Sick Of Drugs and I Wanna Go Where The People Go are. Scott Sorry fits in fine, Ritch being back on the drums makes a thunderous racket, and both CJ and Ginger look like they are entirely happy to be there, which bodes well for the tour being completed with this line-up at least, but nothing can be taken for granted with this bunch. And if this wasn't an extra super special show, I was particularly interested in messing about with the camera and reasonably pleased with the results, and the sensible curfew that saw me out and in the 24 hour supermarket at ten to eleven, and home just before midnight.

Labels: Ginger, The Wildhearts