overlap

Posting in anger is posssibly not always the best idea, but it is the most honest! Before heading out, I'd re-read what I wrote when I saw Y&T just under a year ago: it still rang true, and I was looking forward to celebrating my 600th gig with something special. Support band Glyder come from Ireland, have two guitar players, and a bass playing lead singer. What do you expect them to sound like already? Given there's a picture of them with Philomena Lynott on their website, are you feeling confident about that? You should. I'm in two minds, having listened to what they've got on myspace. Weather The Storm is fantastic, and it sounds a lot like The Sun Goes Down. Pretty Useless People is twin lead boogie out of exactly the same mould as Black Rose. In person the lead singer comes over rather more like what you'd get if you put a hefty proportion of Lynott's voice into Alan Lancaster's body, but there's a bit more to it than that. On balance, I need to listen to more of their stuff, and I expect I will, but I can say I'm hoping to like them. Despite the fact no support band ever needs to waste five minutes of their set with drum solo, no matter how skilled the drummer. One of the great things about watching Y&T is how much every one of them looks like someone having a good time on stage. Dave Meniketti remains a genius guitar player, half the unfamiliar songs (Keep On Believing and Don't Wanna Lose You especially) are still easy to sing along with on first hearing, and a very hot room produces the sort of sweating this summer has sorely lacked. Mean Streak is fantastic, Midnight In Tokyo rumbles along like a rock leviathan, Summertime Girls is equal parts cheesy pop and guitar anthem, and I think I was getting a few decent results out of the camera. Earlier on, Y&T's set was introduced by Kim Hooker, and with the night ticking on, there was plenty enough fooling around between the songs already without it being excessive. Dave called Kim back up to the stage, and over the course of an awful lot of 'I'm gonna tell you something' and Dave talking about what fun they'd had with Tigertailz opening for them last year, we ended up wasting long enough to do a couple more songs before eventually getting the assembled Tigertailz racing their way through a shambolic though eventually entertaining version of Ace Of Spades. The variety of voices suggesting they might want to stop messing about and get on with doing something, anything, before they finally started Ace Of Spades is a reasonable guide to how much what should have been a corking gig was heading towards feeling like intruding on a private party, and with that in mind I stayed for Rescue Me and then walked out. I'm not in the habit of leaving gigs early - I count four, possibly five in six hundred, and I'm still a big fan of Meniketti's songwriting, singing and guitar playing. But I might think a bit harder about exactly where I choose to see them next time around.

Labels: Dave Meniketti, gigs, Glyder, Tigertailz, Y and T

Every once in a while something comes up that has me wondering how I missed it for so long. Thinking about it on the way home, I'm sure the video for Summertime Girls was shown on No Limits twenty-odd years ago, but that never really grabbed my attention. But I did listen a bit harder when Bruce Dicko played Forever on his Radio2 show a few weeks ago, partly because I was aware this gig was scheduled. Other than that, I've no recollection of ever knowingly listening to Y&T except that in my archives I have a tape of them live at Reading in 1982, which I must have listened to at the time and not got desperately enthused by. Last week I turned the tracks on that tape to mp3s, listened to them a few times, and having missed out on the Firefest tickets, plumped for the Y&T gig instead. This afternoon I had a good scout around youtube to see what else I could find, but still set off to the gig in the fairly novel position of not really knowing what I was expecting. Half an hour of Tigertailz' support slot was about right, and for various reasons I'm unsure where they go from here. I've always enjoyed their humour, and the fact they come from somewhere that isn't London, California or New York but somewhere all their own. I'll leave it at saying that I wish them well. When a band comes on stage and the bass player looks like an Easter Island statue in Steve Harris' haircut, with nothing above the waist but a velvet waistcoat and jewellery, you know exactly where you stand. And it's possibly not somewhere especially fashionable, but it's also somewhere that fashionable doesn't really matter. They open fire with, er, Open Fire, move on to Hungry For Rock and it's all roaring vocal and shred heaven from there on. Dave Meniketti combines lead guitar and lead vocal, which is something you really don't see very often, and it's great to watch the seamless way he switches between both without the need for hot and cold running vocal coaches anointing his vocal cords with soothing honey concoctions. I take that to be a sign of someone who's more than paid his dues, and knows exactly what he's doing. The bit where the audience get to choose a couple of songs brings us Go For The Throat and This Time, and there's something both unpredictable and reassuring about how Dave drags the band through stuff that hadn't been rehearsed and wasn't on the setlist. Of the six tracks from 1982 on that tape, Y&T played all six. And more or less everything else you could ever want. Ninety minutes in and we still hadn't had Rescue Me, I Believe In You or Forever - that's value for money, and then some. Top night out, and I've got some shopping to do! But if they're passing your way, I can heartily recommend checking it out.

Labels: gigs, Meniketti, rock, Y and T