overlap

Labels: gigs, Zervas and Pepper

Well, not quite twenty years, as it turns out this gig takes place a mere 7,281 days since I first saw The Frank And Walters, or 19.93 years if you want it that way. Sadly I haven't seen them as many times in between as I might like, but it's no real surprise that with their New York sojourn and the inevitable demands of putting food on the table our paths haven't crossed so frequently.

Support band Drawings For Paris (yes, another one of those names) ply a gentle trade in mature guitar-led pop with a moderately epic feel - they remind me of Salvation and that's never a bad thing in my book. Half a dozen tracks are downloadable from their website, and I'm especially fond of Here She Comes Again from their, er, "Salvation" ep!"
 
Moving on to the headliners, their story tells us something of where we've all been in the meantime. My first copy of Trains, Boats and Planes was on vinyl but I've moved on to CD versions of that and everything since, and the couple of weeks delay between the latest album Greenwich Mean Time becoming available in a digital format and the CDs being in their hands so they could stick them in the post even had me on the verge of reluctantly joining the modern world and buying the tracks in a digital format,daddio. And all the same, the album booklet being available for download in pdf format meant I could check out the lyrics to songs available as singles or in session versions before the CD itself popped into my eager, sweaty mitts.

This endless changing of the seasons is also heavily evident in the themes of this album, with artwork based around the elements of the clockwork mechanism and songs with titles like Twenty Years, The Clock and Trust In The Future all making that point clear.

Band stalwarts Paul Linehan and Ashley Keating are joined only by fresh-faced guitarist Rory Murphy, keyboardist Cian Corbett being unavailable for the evening. Trimmed down to a trio, old songs and new bounce along, energetically buoyed up on the ineffable humour that runs between Linehan and Keating like lightning runs down a conductor cable. When your drummer has a vocal mike almost exclusively so he can backchat his singer, it's a sign your band exists in a separate plane of its own internal dynamic.



Rory's broken guitar string leads into an improvised bout of Linehanisms, just as Paul's bass guitar strap coming loose towards the end of the set results in him completing most of This Is Not a Song supporting the weight of his bass on his knee despite the poor efforts at "helping" him by draping the strap over the strings on the fretboard.




This pretty much sums up the Frank and Walters - whatever happens, they just carry on, filling the world with beautiful, thoughtful sounds and apparently unaffected by changing fashions and sounding as good as they've ever done.

Twenty years and we're doing fine.

Twenty Years is track 11 on Greenwich Mean Time - buy it here.



setlist in full
Tony Cochrane
Trust In The Future
* broken guitar string debacle
Fashion Crisis Hits New York
Loneliness And Sweet Romance
Plenty Times
Little Dolls
Landslide
That's Life
Indie Love Song
The Model
The Parson
After All
Colours
This Is Not A Song
Michael

Labels: Drawings For Paris, gigs, The Frank And Walters

Once upon a time there was Janice Long and then John Peel on Radio1 in the evenings. This period pretty much pre-dates me listening to music in any meaningful way, having records of my own or having the slightest inkling that going to see bands in a live environment would be possible, never mind a commonplace part of my life.

Somewhere in the middle of all that stuff was plenty that I didn't really understand - well, it didn't have the same singalong immediacy as Neil Sedaka and all the other stuff Sir Jim'll was playing on Sounds of the Sixties which was the weekly musical input to my young life - but even though I was never a regular listener, Peel and Long (and Nightingale) brought me names that would stick in my mind.

Names and the odd tune, Annie repeatedly offering Napoleon XIV's They're Coming To Take Me Away and Barnes and Barnes' Fishheads on the sunday night request show, Camper van Beethoven's Take The Skinheads Bowling and the likes of Half Man Half Biscuit and Bogshed sneaked their way through into my consciousness. One of Peel and Long, I assume, also brought me This Island Earth's See That Glow and Jacobs Ladder by The Monochrome Set.

Fast forward a couple of lifetimes and I'm looking through a local venue's website for confirmation (and ticket price) of a show by one of my favourite bands and who should pop up out of nowhere? Apart from the 'we're climbing Jacob's ladder' line from the chorus I can recall nothing else beyond that I remembered that I liked it but nevertheless that residual memory was enough. True, I picked up a copy of Eligible Bachelors somewhere along the way, for 99p in the Virgin Smegmastore closing down sale, I think, but I hadn't even looked up Jacob's Ladder on youtube till the evening of the gig just before leaving the house.

So who on earth is going to go and see The Monochrome Set in 2012? At 8.30, there were four or five of us in the upstairs gig room but by showtime at 9.00 something like 60 people had crammed into the room, not bad on a wednesday night for a band who haven't exactly shared the ubiquity of Adele in recent times. There's a handful of diehard fans and a healthy swathe of the relatively youthful curious.

As for me, I thought they were great and I had a really good evening. There's a fair amount of Monochrome Set on youtube and I've looked at plenty of it since the gig. And I heartily recommend it if you want some slightly off-kilter pop music chook full of melodic and lyrical hooks.

Labels: gigs, The Monochrome Set

There's only so many ways you can have a go at 'I've seen this band I like a few times and now I've seen them once again and I still like them' before even writing it gets boring, so it's good when something reshapes that position ever so slightly. In a brief fit of extravagance I'd bought a few tickets and then had a couple of other gigs come up around the same time and suddenly I'm a bit busy.

With other stuff being fitted in around making it to the gig, at least the electronic communications possibilities of the modern world make it simple to catch up with expected stage times and avoid rushing only to sit around waiting for hours. In an uninteresting coincidence it's seventeen years to the day I first visited this venue, and though a couple of rooms have gone through slight changes of name over that time, and it turns out it's also the single venue I've visited the most (among two hundred and odd).

Something different to challenge my tastes is never a bad thing, and support act Louise Distras provides plenty to challenge me. Just her voice and a guitar make for a powerful combination, but sometimes the power gets in the way of the song; there's no denying the passion but when the voice goes beyond the mighty rasp of Bonnie Tyler at her most momentarily foghornish into a slightly unfocused roar it produces something that I'm not going to buy so I can sing along with it on my own. There's nothing wrong with what she's got to say for herself, it's just my middle-aged ears would prefer a slightly different delivery!

New Model Army fit into a category something like 'bands I know I like but don't rush to buy every single album on release day', and the last time I saw them it was a trifle unsatisfactory, largely due to that particular venue I gather. This is a short flurry of only five gigs, and that alone makes it rather more of a special occasion than just another show in a long tour.


There are songs from the last couple of albums that I don't have, naturally, but there's more than enough familiar material to keep me engaged between the people on the shoulders of the people on the shoulders formation acrobatics displays.


Purity sounds immense, and the encore starting with Get Me out and finally ending with No Rest threatens to take the roof off the place. Today was a good day.

Setlist in full:
Island
No Greater Love
Christian Militia
Rumour & Rapture
See You in Hell
Today Is a Good Day
Disappeared
The Attack
States Radio
Autumn
Orange Tree Roads
Rivers
Knife
Purity
Ballad of Bodmin Pill
Whirlwind
---
Get Me Out
High
No Rest

'Sing Us A Song That We Know To Be True' is a line from Purity.

Labels: gigs, New Model Army

Just as with bus services, heavy rock leviathans may be few and far between and then several come along at once. Despite the original hopes of another recently seen band filling the support slot, there's a change of plan somewhere down the line and this is a new one on me.

Plead The Fifth come from LA and play the sort of pop-punk you'd associate with something like Green Day, but with a lead guitarist who looks like Dave Hill by way of Angus Young, a bass player who looks like a very young Tom Robinson by way of Robyn Hitchcock and a singer who seems to know what he's doing I guess they might turn out something remarkable. For me, anything in that area of sub-genre has to compete with the flawless China Drum and they hardly match them yet.

Legend is a word that has been devalued repeatedly in recent years, and yet every now and then something rolls into town that resets the bar at a level most others can only aspire to. The last time something rocked me sideways to this extent might be the first time I saw Y&T, the last time I saw The Posies or the first time I saw Europe - all of them acts of multi-decade longevity, and household names to people who know what they are talking about musicwise. And to that list I now add another band I wasn't a particular fan of and who largely for that reason managed to give me a colossally pleasant suprise of the stunning live music kind.

After the cartoon-based fun of the previous weekend, I'm amused that the intro clips tape includes Homer Simpson saying 'I'd rather listen to Cheap Trick' and then Apu repeating a couple of lines from Dream Police, and then with a voice announcing 'the best fucking band in the world', Cheap Trick take the stage.

Rick Nielsen strides on like an affable uncle who's way old enough to know better, and with his son Daxx on the drums and Tom Petersson on the bass, the line up is complete enough to start playing around the intro to Just Got Back before Robin Zander steps up to the mike just in time for his first vocal line. With the keyboard player slightly hidden, there's nevertheless a mighty depth and serious melodic weight to the live sound. For now, Nielsen is playing a mere six strings, but both zander and Petersson are playing twelve, double string rhythm guitar and treble string bass respectively.

With a glittering brocade embroidered jacket and a sheriff's star leather cap that fools nobody - and hey, my hair's going the same way - Zander looks every inch the Rock Star with a capital \M/ and with that voice it's only right. Tonight Tom Petersson is the coolest man in rock, with a smile wider than the Bristol Channel and a clear delight just at being on that stage.

It's Nielsen's show though, with a range of jerky gestures and mannerisms that kinda bring to mind Suggs' nutty boy antics with a touch more theatrical verve, he prowls and bounces around the stage, throws enough plectrums into the crowd to put local musician's supplies outlets out of business for a couple of years, oh and there's a total mastery of his ever-changing guitar too. Whether it's playing the solo with just his fretting hand or strumming along with a thumb before reaching for yet another from his mike stand of a thousand plectrums, it's pop-rock corker after hard rock smash after powerpop belter that has me bouncing around like I'm seventeen again.

There's a brief break in proceedings as the euro fan club main man gets called up on stage to say a few words, calling some woman up on the stage to join him - Nielsen 'get on your fucking knees, man' and as he goes to say his piece Zander gets involved, re-adjusting the mike stand to the appropriate height. It's not quite the loudest noise of the night as the now bride-to-be says 'yes' and has the proffered ring put on her finger, but it's close.

And then it's back to the business of rocking, caught in between a number of festival appearances across Europe this festival season, this might well turn out to be their most intimate appearance this side of the Atlantic this summer. In equal turns intimate and bombastic, tenderly touching and aggressive, and sonically perfect throughout, this is live music as it's meant to be, committed, complete, perfect.

Ordinarily, the day after the gig, that band's music disappears off my mp3 player to be replaced with the next lot. My small collection of Cheap Trick albums are all still on there.

Labels: Cheap Trick, gigs, Plead The Fifth

With a poorly timed release of the new album at the start of a week with a bank holiday monday with the gig on the sunday, I didn't get to listen to the new album till the wednesday evening and I can't say I'd had long enough with it to know it particularly well. Nevertheless I hit the motorway at exactly the right time to hit the traffic hold-ups at the end of the weekend, and naturally hit my own late arrival tension threshold.

In the venue car park at five minutes past stage time, it took another fifteen minutes to get from the car park to somewhere near my seat, including the enjoyable experience of hearing muffled songs from the stage making it through the venue walls and then walking right out of earshot to get to the front door. Man, I so love industrial concert venues like this.

All the same, I was singing (quietly, to myself) along with Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man) halfway round the car park, and Blue Collar Man which I caught the latter half of with my own eyes. The other couple of times I've seen Styx in recent years, I've been hugely impressed, and it's nice to see my favourite little and large combination since Fletcher and Defoe in the respective forms of JY and Tommy Shaw giving it their all. Miss America rocks hard, and for Come Sail Away the distinctive silhouette of Chuck Pannozzo appears before the lights come up, though I can't possibly go anywhere near Some Sail Away without hearing Cartman's version too. There's a brief pretend departure then an 'encore' of Renegade and while mildly disappointed to have missed part of their set, I'm still pleased to be there at all, and watch them do nothing released any later than 1978!

With a fifteen minute turnaround between bands, there's a brief stroll to see what the venue's actually like - a monster cinema foyer leading towards the arena pretty much sums it up - then it's back to find my right seat, or more or less. I couldn't say I'm a huge fan of Foreigner, and yes, that's partly because opportunities to see them over the years have been limited at best. Of course I've got a copy of 4, there's the vinyl LP of Foreigner Records (the early greatest hits) and that might be it, the fact I'm not even sure tells its own tale. I'm aware that Lou Gramm's health took him out of the picture some time ago, and with his voice being such a major part of the Foreigner sound (and his fantastic Midnight Blue single, something I do know I have), there's another replacement singer in the mix.

I needn't have worried - looking for all the world like Joey AORamone, Kelly Hansen hits all the notes smoothly while giving the full range of method frontman mike stand twirling, posing and even briefly disappearing into the crowd though thankfully without Bono-at-Live-Aid type embarrassments! Again the set is something of a vintage hits job - but then who could argue with this hour?

Double Vision
Head Games
Cold As Ice
Waiting For A Girl Like You
Feels Like The First Time
Urgent
I Want To Know What Love Is
Hot Blooded
Juke Box Hero

So often the gig and my experience of it is based on my relationship with the band, and some of those relationships, like any other, go through rocky patches. On the one hand, there's a part of me that would love to see them in any guise and line-up just to hear Neal Schon's guitar, and there's a part of me that feels somewhat troubled by the recent revolving lead vocalist slot. Equally I've now had the luxury of seeing Schon on guitar seven times, in three different bands and in five different line-ups and I'm pretty confident in what I can expect to see; a few pulled faces at moments of string-bending tension and little in the way of excitement, but then I love the solos in Faithfully to listen to, not because I want to see someone doing star jumps on a tightrope.

As a show, it's AORena rock by numbers and it does seem like just another gig. Four new tracks in 18 is about the right mix, Arnel's song City Of Hope suddenly makes a lot more sense with a background slideshow of his home city where I was on that day two years previously and where even with that passing familiarity I have no doubts how troubled that city is. It's one of the highlights for me in fact, to start to see Arnel in his own right - getting a new haircut helps too - instead of just the latest contestant in the ongoing Perry-oke role.

Deen sings Mother/Father and I'd love to see him sing more. There's a mighty confetti cannon either side of the stage for Any Way You Want It - I'm revisited by Homer Simpson singing along during that one - and the final encore track Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin' sees us running out into acres of car park to take our chances in the queue for the long drive home.

As an experience, I was mildly surprised to see so few eight year olds from the post-Glee generation in attendance though the x chromosome quote of the audience was a bit higher than some gigs I've been to, and yes there was a tiny bit of handbag envy going on. In summary, pretty much as expected but definitely still showing signs of life.

Separate Ways
Only The Young
Edge Of A Moment
Ask The Lonely
Send Her My Love
Resonate
Stone In Love
City Of Hope
Lights
Mother/Father - Deen vocal
Open Arms
Chain Of Love
Wheel In The Sky
Be Good To Yourself
Faithfully
Don't Stop Believin'
Any Way You Want It
------
Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'

Labels: Foreigner, gigs, Journey, Styx

The advent of modern technology means I can check the venue website before making the trip, and on one recent occasion it's just as well I did. Seeing that evening's gig marked 'postponed', my relief at sparing myself the drive evaporated when I read further and it became clear that it had only been postponed in the sense of moved up the road to another venue. Both venues are close enough I'd have parked in more or less the same place anyway, but all the same it's nice to know beforehand.

Approaching the door, I hear something that sounds rather familiar - somewhere between the rising dynamic of Talk To Me and the tempo of Telephone, both songs by Shy from 1987 - and as it turns out, there's a very good reason why. Despite the keyboard player's unhappiness with the sound, Serpentine sound fantastic with a guitarist playing exactly the sort of lead breaks I love, keyboards filling out the sound and a vest-wearing singer from Barnsley. It turns out that Serpentine had previously boasted lead vocals from Tony Mills, formerly of Shy and a dozen other bands, which kind of figures. For thirty minutes, it was like 1986 never ended, and for me that's about as high as praise gets when it comes to this area of music.

There's something slightly unsatisfactory in buying their first album when only the final track has vocals from the new/current singer, but I'm delighted at the prospect of tracking down their second album in due course as it promises to be an absolute cracker.

There's a rustle of alarm and anticipation in the hedgerows of the crowd for the next band, and for good reason. I only picked up on them from a 'this year's next big thing' list - a self-fulfilling experience, it turns out - in Classic Rock magazine, but once I'd read that article/interview/advertorial piece (deleting according to taste) and checked out a couple of tunes on youtube, I couldn't wait to track down the self-titled debut album by Houston when it was released in the UK.

In classic style, the band start noodling about on their instruments, launch into the first song and the singer arrives on stage a matter of seconds before his first vocal line. Arrives on stage in a boxer style silk dressing gown with his name on the back no less, and hitting the cultural reference to Eye Of The Tiger as he does so, starts singing. I didn't note the set list, I was too busy taking pictures and soaking up the experience of something I'd been waiting for for a couple of months taking place in front of me.

Some bands occasionally look a little bored on stage, or somehow distracted because it's just another gig, but this was A Show at an early enough stage in the career arc that those on the stage seemed to be enjoying it as much as the rest of us. Yes, a guitarist climbing on top of the stage-side amp isn't new, but it is mildly amusing in what amounts to the size of a larger than average sitting room! Among six people on stage, four of them are wearing headbands of dubious fashion-criminality, and apart from the one guitarist's Hendrix fantasies, this would be almost a perfect production line keyboard and vocal heavy AOR band of the sort Derek Oliver couldn't help but approve of.

There's a couple of nice touches afterwards as an eight year old at his first gig gets his picture taken with band members while wearing the singer's boxer robe, and exactly the sort of friendly accessibility that will take a band forwards from this level. Vocal iffyness due to consecutive nights on the road notwithstanding, I wasn't expecting they'd be quite this good.

The final band Crash Diet also come from another place in time - and it's one where they've clearly put the time in planning their show in detail. If Tigertailz had listened to tons of Hüsker Dü, Crash Diet is exactly what you'd get, and it's amusing and entertaining enough but after 40-odd minutes I'm back out and on my way home.

Labels: Crash Diet, gigs, Houston, Serpentine

It’s been a very long time since I was reliant purely on public transport to get to the gig, something like fourteen years at a guess, but needs must when nobody drives because the car’s off the road. Had I not already had the ticket on my pinboard, I would have found it very easy indeed not to bother, and I was still not 100% even after the online train ticket booking window had shut.

Dumping the bike outside the station, I just made the earlier train of the two options I had, and arrived at the other end with time to spare. A leisurely stroll across to the venue without looking at the clock meant I had something to go on for gauging what time to leave the show. Knowing that the venue curfew is after my train left is useful information gathering.

At the venue with the doors still shut, which is pretty unusual for me these days, I decided against joining the queue in favour of nipping up the road for chips from the kebab shop. Fine dining on the road!

Getting the rucksack of bike lights, waterproof, tools etc into the gig was fine on the proviso it was going in the cloakroom, and Sam Lloyd was in the middle of her first song by the time I got in front of the stage. Female vocal and acoustic guitar is a combination I like a lot, she’s a decent enough guitar player and her voice is quite strong but I can’t say her material really grabbed me.

Second support Mike Marlin is a five piece band named for the singer, frontman, raconteur, shambling wreck of a showman and a few other things besides. Located between Mark Lanegan’s growl and Guy Garvey’s genial landlord, MM is backed by a band where it varies from song to song whether the lead instrument is the bass, piano or guitar. "Interesting" risks sounding like criticism but it really isn’t meant that way. But doing anything particularly interesting in the modern popular music idiom is fairly remarkable, and I'd like to hear more.

Now, carrying on as a band when the line-up changes in terrible circumstances is a funny one at the best of times. When I saw the three piece version of Big Country a few years ago they were on storming form, so I was really curious about what this version would offer. The addition of Jamie 'Son Of Bruce' Watson on guitar means there’s now two skinny jeaned blokes bouncing around stage right, which adds a little depth to the guitar sound but isn’t a dramatic change.

Bringing in another singer, on the other hand can’t help but be a significant change. Bringing in another singer from more or less your generation is one way to go. Bringing in Mike Peters makes some sort of sense, even if I’m not sure how his distinctive voice will work, but with history in common he talks about Stuart Adamson repeatedly, as you might expect.

I love The Alarm (that’s Peters, Sharp, MacDonald, Twist - accept no substitutes, kids!) and I’ve seen Mike a dozen times in various guises, hell there’s even a tape of a highly personal dedication story and song that may yet emerge in certain company at some point so I don’t especially have an axe to grind. But while it’s noticeable how he takes to the role of frontman, all waving arms and shouting ‘come on!’ and this does get the crowd going, there’s a little bit trying too hard in talking about Stuart Adamson being passed over the heads of the crowd decades ago and then appearing in the pit shortly thereafter. I don’t know, it’s a difficult job and there is no replacing Stuart so maybe adding your own stamp to singing his songs is always going to be difficult. Personally I’d rather just listen to Peters sing, and on songs like Fragile Thing I’m not sure his voice has ever sounded better.

After fourteen songs, and with Tony Butler talking about the current relevance of Where The Rose Is Sown, it’s time to reclaim my rucksack and head for the station. Missing my train would leave me relying on there being one at 01.30 and getting home about 3am, so it’s with good reason I walk out with Wonderland ringing around the venue and delighted I did make the effort to get there. Even if the knock-on effects at a time when I’m already quite remarkably stressed and tired are something I can do without.

Labels: Big Country, gigs

Over and over and over and over, watching the same band many, many times can pale a little over the years. So it's often the what's new this time angle that is the interesting stuff, and this is no different: with the departure of Andres Karu from drumming duties - and given the transatlantic distance between one band member and the others, it's perfectly understandable that it becomes difficult to combine the rest of your life around that - there's a new face on the drum stool.

First man onto the stage, Fuzz Townsend is not an unfamiliar face to some of us, partially hidden behind shades and under a hat though his face is. As a veteran of Pop Will Eat Itself, Fuzz is rather closer to The Wonder Stuff's history, so it's going to be interesting to see how that changes things. With an hour-long set in the support slot for the tour, the stories are largely cut out as hit follows hit. The story about Kirsty MacColl that introduces Welcome To The Cheap Seats still brings a chill, Mother And I is still a welcome recent return to the set, and Sing The Absurd is dedicated to those of us who've survived all those years is preferable to a number of other possibilities.

Hammered down into the condensed set format, this is verging on a fantastically tight performance, perhaps at the crucial point of just easing into a new routine and before actually hitting cruising level. The little bit of ongoing adjustment of Fuzz to everyone else looks like it'll settle down further as time ticks on, but it's definitely a great time to see The Wonder Stuff all the same.

Celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the Levelling The Land album, headliners The Levellers split the two sides (remember that, kids?) of the album with a handful of associated b-side tracks, and the re-appearance of The Devil Went Down To Georgia is a pleasant surprise among them. With the balcony bouncing alarmingly and the wave of heat rising off a venue I've rarely seen this packed in all my previous visits - and this now my fourth most attended venue, it turns out - it's more a sensory experience than a spectacle to watch, and after Battle Of The Beanfield I made a sharp exit instead of hanging around to see what would happen in the encore, in the faint hope of getting home and not increasing my current sleep deficit by too much.

All that, and posters advertising a couple of gigs that I really want to see in the coming months that will drag me back out onto the motorway with the excitement of finally seeing a couple of acts that have been on my radar for variously a couple of months and a couple of decades. Here we go again.

Labels: gigs, Levellers, The Wonder Stuff

I know, you won't be the first to point out that postings have been a little bare on here in recent times.

There's a couple of reasons, partly it's down to being busy doing stuff rather than writing about stuff, partly down to the effect that has on the stuff I'm prepared to write about. But the most significant change came in January 2011, the first calendar month in which I've not been to a live gig since about August 2004. And there's been a good few bands broken up, reformed, lost members and been through other dramatic changes since then, so I'm in good company.

Having ended up back in full time employment and at a place where I'm perfectly happy, I'm combining the slow progress of getting my financial stability back, which isn't damaged by the closure of a few of my favourite venues, both locally and further afield. So if I'm being more selective about the tickets I buy and the distances I'll travel to use them, there's a pretty good reason for that.

Gigs in the meantime then; watching Emily Smith do Karine Polwart's Better Things at Richard Thompson's festival of political song last summer, I was delighted a few months ago to find she would be coming to my town, though it's a good job I didn't buy a ticket immediately as it turned out I couldn't make that gig as I was away. On the plus side, I did make the gig in another town even if emerging from Heathrow airport at 5pm on a friday night isn't the calmest planning for a gig that evening.

Making it to my hotel with moments to spare, I arrived at the venue in time to miss just the first song. She's an engaging performer, the inter-play between her and the husband is amusing and there's plenty to be said for someone doing something traditional with a modern twist. That said, I'm not entirely convinced by the material when it sometimes needs the story explaining beforehand and also includes repeated requests to join in on a chorus where the lines to accompany are complicated enough to escape the short-term memory immediately.

The early start with no support meant that by a quarter to ten I was strolling the streets in search of a chip shop, after a week some way further north though that's another story. I returned to my hotel to catch a little sleep, to watch the telly and catch up on some emails.

Phew, rock n roll!

Labels: Emily Smith, gigs

With two gigs I wanted to see on the one night, one of which was a band for whom this was the first tour in many years and who I hadn't seen in sixteen years, and one of which was a band I've been trying to see for a little while and who don't pass this way very often, I was left with a tricky decision.

Much as Indiscreet is an almost perfect album of its kind, the new FM album didn't quite jump out of the speakers and grab me, apart from the track that sounds just like Bryan Adams, so I jumped the other way.

A couple of years ago I was on the M4, heading for a gig in London I think, and Simon Mayo on the radio started talking about a band whose name was familiar. 'Oh yeah, that's the band with the guy called Lips in', I thought, remembering all those hours spent poring over articles in a too tiny font size in Kerrang! Mayo went on to chat with Lips and the film-maker who were doing promo work for a film that was shortly to be released in cinemas in the UK.

Despite the suggestions that it was a Spinal Tap type work of fiction, and despite the cringeworthy nature of at least half of Spheeris' 'Decline Of Western Civilisation - The Metal Years', my residual memories meant I knew it was for real, and the brief chat with Lips and Sacha meant I knew this was a film I had to see.

If I make it to the cinema twice a year that's a pretty busy film-going year for me, but I was delighted to see my local arts cinema was showing the film in question, a heady mix of despair and pathos, followed by catastrophe and letdown, with a side order of failure leavened with frustration and an inescapable layer of hope. I don't believe I've ever been to see a film where the end credits are received with a spontaneous round of applause, but that's what sort of film it is. If you have even the slightest appreciation of metal and you haven't already seen it, you should and if you don't enjoy it then I'll refund your cinema ticket myself.

So, decision made, I bought my ticket for what was supposed to be a two band bill in the upstairs baby venue, effectively the upstairs bar which holds 350. With an early start time on the ticket, I didn't want to be too late getting in and yet I still walked in through the front door to hear some rocking already going on. And quickly found myself in front of the main stage, the full venue which holds more like 1200. Ok, so the balcony wasn't open, but it's reassuring to see any band selling out and getting bumped up to the bigger stage, and if you've seen the film you'll know how much.

Despite appearances, four guys all looking a little bit too close to a Rocking R*ss*ll Br*nd for anyone's comfort were doing their thing. Listening to them on myspace as I write this, Dark Horse are roughly what you'd get if Gaz from Supergrass (it's the singer's voice) had a Black Rose-era Thin Lizzy covers band which cut right down on the twin solos. As a fairly local band, they had a small following of mates and hangers-on, and I can see why; I'll be trying to catch them again soon if I get the chance.

When I last wrote that I didn't want to leave it quite so long before the next time I saw Girlschool, I wasn't necessarily expecting it to come round quite so quickly, or in this way. Their appearing on this bill clinched the idea that not seeing FM this time was something I could live with, and I was fairly close to the front. Despite drummer Denise Dufort's brief technical difficulties as we got going, this was a fuller set than last time's half hour, a full fifty-odd minutes. In addition to introducing I Spy (on which he and Iommi collaborated) with a dedication to Ronnie James Dio, they even did Yeah Right, which is an absolute corker of a track and made my night.

And then the headliners, what can you say about Anvil? I have a vague wonder if the crowd might be be this full in a couple of years time when the film's impact has dulled a little, but I'm hardly surprised Lips seemed genuinely moved to see so many people there when they hadn't "played this town since about 1983". So, a guy in his sixth decade playing a Flying V with a vibrator, what's more metal than that? What you see on the film is what you get, Lips is the real deal and Anvil is a band everyone should see once in their lives. If you've seen the film, you'll understand you probably owe him that too!

Nicko McBrain, gurn your heart out!

Labels: Anvil, Dark Horse, gigs, Girlschool

Having not been to the big city in a year or so, I was tempted to go to Tom Robinson's 60th birthday gig a few weeks ago, but when I realised I could see him in an abbreviated format as part of Richard Thompson's Meltdown 'An Evening Of Political Song', I was sold. Not least because I could take advantage of a half price concession ticket.

Ok, so I'm no longer signing on, but my new half-job isn't exactly going to keep me in hot and cold running champagne, and though half a job is of course better than no job, and the work part of it is fine so I just need to hold my nerve for a number of months in the hope it will turn into a whole job. At the half-rate it pays significantly less than the Joseph Rowntree Trust reckon you need you live on, so I'm hardly aping the extravagance of MPs' expenses here.

An ever-revolving onstage line-up is always going to be both mildly disjointed as a spectacle and refreshingly varied as a chance to see a lot of people in one place. And as ever, views will differ of what is the best or most interesting bit; Dorian Lynskey's view is here though it's hugely over-enthusiastic about that version of 'Next'. After SAHB, why ever bother?

I'd never seen Martin Carthy or Norma Waterson before, so that was something I was looking forward to, and indeed Norma's solo vocal run through Coal Not Dole had my spine tingling and the hairs on the back of my neck standing up. It doesn't happen all that often these days, but a repeat experience came with Emily Smith's version of Karine Polwart's Better Things in the second half of the show.

To be fair I wasn't expecting that much of Boris Grebenshikov, despite having one of his singles from decades ago but he was much better than I expected. The other highlight for me was being within five metres of Harry Shearer. Maybe for a singer he's a great bass player, but his MC-ing the evening was excellent, and he is the voice of a significant set of characters in The Simpsons, and rather more than that he is the lukewarm water of Derek Smalls.

Labels: Eliza Carthy, Emily Smith, gigs, Jez Lowe, Martin Carthy, Neil Hannon, Norma Waterson, Richard Thompson, Tom Robinson

If you listed the ingredients of the sort of music I love most, you'd start with harmony vocals and guitar solos. Then you'd probably add singalong tunefulness, and a healthy sense of a band not taking itself too seriously. And if you look at that from a different angle, you'd see I've just described Teenage Fanclub.

With five years gone by since the Man Made album, it's certainly not before time that a new album 'Shadows' and the chance to see them again has had me uncommonly excited for a couple of months. Support band Veronica Falls have the slightly ragged guitar of early Teenage Fanclub, and hints of promising melody are slightly buried in the live mix. Maybe I should have listened to the tracks on their myspace a couple more times, I don't know, but I've stood through plenty worse openers and I'll be happy to see them again if they pass my way. But from the second the headliners launch into Start Again, there's only one band on my mind.

Maybe I've just been unlucky but three of my last four gigs have been blighted by unremitting dullards demanding their choice of song, to the ocasional displeasure of the turn. In this case, Norman's affability in shrugging it off is a change for the better, but I could have done without it all the same. And then Raymond rips into yet another guitar line that's half Neil Young and half purest pop, and the idiots are wiped away again for a bit.

After this much time away, and with a back catalogue that means they could do a four hour set of classic after classic, it would be a fine gig just for them being there. But in Baby Lee, and even in When I Still Have Thee which appears to be highly influenced by Nanci Griffith's 'Don't Forget About Me', they have new songs fully worth their place in the set, as Dave's pedal steel augments the perfect combination of guitars and vocals.

The world's a better place for Teenage Fanclub.

* 'It's too late to start again' is from the song on Teenage Fanclub's Grand Prix album called, surprisingly enough, Start Again. I disagree.

Labels: gigs, Teenage Fanclub

Having blown out two gigs for which I had tickets, one in favour of enjoying the election spectacle unfolding on the telly and one where the cost of transport to use the ticket would still have been more than another ticket for the show added later but closer to home, I'm back in the game with two gigs in three nights.

Sometimes it's the slightly less familiar that makes things a lot more interesting.

Duke Special's latest release is a three album special based around some interesting works of art, variously from the silver screen, the stage and classic literature. With so much new material on show, the only familiar tunes aired are a cover of Elton John's I'm Still Standing and his own Digging An Early Grave. Although I've had the new triple set some weeks, it's fair to say it mostly didn't leap out at me as the most fun I've ever had. Ben SonOfRoy Castle's comedy antics in a pair of glasses that make him look like a young Griff Rhys Jones notwithstanding.

My schedule has for some weeks had marked on it a band I never saw in the olden days, and who I never expected to see live. I've a couple of their singles, but that's it, and they haven't done live shows in twenty years, so I was quite excited to see what the modern rejuvenated version of We've Got a Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It might have to offer.

In a venue I haven't visited in a bit over three years, I'm reminded what the alternative to the slick and reliable yet curiously unexciting Academy circuit is, in the shape of a late start by support act Fitness Club Fiasco; a four-piece doing electronic pop somewhere between Blink's synth rhythms and Captain's male-female vocal mix - took a little while to get going but I quite warmed to them in the end.

A no hurry changeover saw the current five woman line-up of Fuzzbox take the stage after a slight delay, and then wait for a few more mintues for Sarah's bass set up to come to life. By which time we'd forgotten the intro tape, Maggie had talked a load of rubbish, and so we started all over again. International Rescue wasn't the liveliest start, but it really got going with Rules And Regulations, though the shambolic intro comedy banter kept going throughout. While it's obvious that Vix is a fantastic performer in her own right, it's when Maggie comes out from behind her keyboard and together they form the most effective front pairing to come out of the Midlands since Clint and Graham from PWEI. See the original vintage video for Love Is The Slug for the half-arsed "choreographed" footwork spectacle we were treated to, and how well Vix and Maggie work together.






 <<== Maggie
                      Jo and Vix ==>>







While the crowd have a whale of a time, it's obvious that from Jo's pink Kramer on one side to Sarah's highly improbable heels on the other, there's just as much fun being had on stage as there is watching. And if a twenty year reunion for the fun of it didn't turn out like this, there would be something wrong, but tonight you can stand down International Rescue as they are doing absolutely fine on their own. Fantastic.

* There Must Be More To Life is part of the hook from Fuzzbox smash Rules And Regulations

Labels: Fitness Club Fiasco, Fuzzbox, gigs, We've Got a Fuzzbox And We're Gonna Use It

Yeah, I know. But I've got plenty of stuff to be getting on with that's more important to be getting on with than to be writing about. I've been to a number of gigs where I've half-written stuff and not got round to completing it, and I'm not apologising for spending that time on the never-ending search for a job instead. I'm aware that when my late father got made redundant in his early or mid forties, that was the end of something for him that was more than just the end of a job, and I'm fortunate that I have had the option to keep doing the other stuff I've been doing with my life for the last few years without an income, and that state won't last forever. Several months into joblessness, I'm aware that life goes on, and confident that someone will fall for my faultless interview technique (ahem!) sooner or later, but I do need to keep working on that more than on this. Normal service will be resumed sooner than later, I hope, but I'm in no position to make guarantees right now.

Of the few new albums and few gigs I've had this year, every time I've come out of the gig and put one particular album on. It's Chumbawamba's new one, ABCDEFG. On saturday I had the happy convenience of a home game coinciding with the only Chumbawamba gig I could make it to on this tour, albeit a gig that took me a little further from home. Arriving ten minutes after ticket time, I wasn't expecting the old 'wait for a gap in the performance before being allowed into the auditorium' game. Coming in in the dark, it was easier to sit on the stairs than try to find a seat while I couldn't see.

The support was O'Hooley and Tidow, an unwieldy combination of surnames and a twin vocal, one keyboard act sitting somewhere between operatic comedy folk-pop and the Indigo Girls. Going into it without expectations, I was easily won over with their charm, good humour and ability to laugh at themselves, and hope to see them again.

Now, Chumbawamba are an easy target. They are an act with one hit, as they sing themselves in Torturing James Hetfield. But they are also a fine musical act, a fantastic set of songwriting talents, and above all these days they are a combination of minimal instrumental backing and multiple vocals. And here's why I've gone back to ABCDEFG so often; writing an album of songs about music could go wrong in many ways, and it could hardly go this right. And yet The Devil's Interval is a storming attack on superstition couched in pastoral melodies. And yet Singing Out The Days is a poignant expression of anti-war sentiment straight out of the trenches. And yet Ratatatay is a beautiful rendition of a story I first heard years ago, of George Melly getting himself out of a sticky situation by the power of singing the absurd. And yet Wagner At The Opera is a great reminder of how history is a contemporary issue, because there are lessons we should never forget.



And in a nutshell, that's what Chumbawamba is in 2010, a comprehensive resource of melodies informing the lively mind of things it shouldn't have missed along the way. With the clocks going forward for BST, I got home at nearly half past two and I don't regret a second of the disruption.

* 'Sometimes A Melody Is Louder Than A Shout' is a line from Voices That's All, track 2 on ABCDEFG

Labels: Chumbawamba, gigs, O'Hooley and Tidow

New venues sometimes make me slightly nervous, whether it's a city I'm not familiar with or somewhere new to park the car, there's always the slight possibility of it going wrong. With something over 200 venues under my sizeable belt, I've mostly got used to it and on this occasion it turns out straightforward enough once I've done a lap around the block including a diversion round a building site, and the pleasant guy on the door has told me where it's safe to park. All the same I can read dire warnings of clamping on the wall and it'll be a couple of songs before I relax into forgetting that.

And to be fair, that's probably what I need. I've had a couple of difficult weeks, a couple of job interviews that have meant I've seen a few 3AMs running over interview question and answer cobblers in my head, and despite that and filling in half a printer ink cartridge's worth of forms, nothing came out of it all. So that's plenty of work and not a small amount of lost sleep for nothing, though this week has been a bit brighter, and I've started casting my net a bit wider and throwing my CV at all manner of unsuitable things. If nothing else I have the small consolation of wasting the time of certain recruitment agents as much as they waste mine!

It's only a dozen gigs since I last saw Miles and Erica, supporting The Proclaimers. Last time I saw a setlist from subsequent shows, it promised a rather more varied selection of songs and last night was to be no exception.

The support act sort of passed me by, nothing wrong with it and nothing to identify or commend it much either. Not unusually for an acoustic gig, we were treated to a couple of people who thought going to a loud environment to have a shouted conversation over something everyone else was trying to listen to. More than one person got politely requested by more than one other person to shut the hell up, and it does always put bit of a dampener on a gig, being unavoidably distracted by idiots.

Nevertheless, this was a fantastically well put together set featuring a few songs I've not listened to in ages, and the odd new story as well as some familiar favourites. I'm a little set in my ways these days, and it usually takes something truly outstanding to really affect me; nevertheless there's a shiver up my spine at the newly-bearded Miles telling the meeting Kirsty MacColl story prior to Welcome To The Cheap Seats, even though I've heard it before. And it's not the particular relevance of that song either, nor is it just that Kirsty is someone I had the privilege of seeing perform several times, but it's small consolation she remains unforgotten and rightly so. Unfaithful and Inside You sound great in that stripped down two-piece format, and Cartoon Boyfriend is another unexpected addition to a gig that turned out a hell of a lot better than it threatened to do when the conversation posse first got going. We didn't quite get as far as getting ready for a fistfight, but it's the sort of thing that it would only take a tiny bit more booze and testosterone to turn undesirably unpleasant. Instead it turned into a very good night though!

* Better Get Ready For A Fistfight is a song from The Wonder Stuff's Escape From Rubbish Island album

That setlist in full:
Send Me Onions
Not In My Plans
DWI
Fill Her Up And Foot Down
The Cake
Oars In The Water
The Sum Of Us
The Test
Plans In The Sky
Welcome To The Cheap Seats
Piece Of Sky
Sing The Absurd
Room 512
Unfaithful
Inside You
Circlesquare
Cartoon Boyfriend
Here Comes Everyone

Labels: Erica Nockalls, gigs, Miles Hunt

So the last part of my pre-xmas activities saw me enjoying the facilities of another Birmingham hotel, but as it was the first day the nation really got going on the snow-chaos nonsense, the streets were fairly treacherous. That and the lack of proper preparation which meant I had neither ticket to go anywhere interesting nor company. So while my catsuit made its first appearance in public, it was all a tiny bit disappointingly uneventful. The following day saw me heading north on the M1, taking four or five hours to cover the hour or so needed to reach Sheffield. Not because the snow was problematic, but simply because I had time to kill. Pulling into Sheffield was both reassuringly familiar and a little strange, because I hadn't been there for some time. The previous night's uneventfulness was more than made up for by having my exhaust drop off, with a recognisable clunk-clunk-clunk audible somewhere under a sound more like a jet engine as I limped the few hundred yards to a sensible parking place. I found my way to the venue in plenty of time, and headed off for a brief wander round the city centre before returning to find I hadn't made it onto the guest list as promised. Yeah, I know, shit happens, but another £17 to get in merely soaked up some of the savings made by my unextravagance the night before. Wolfsbane were on excellent form, we had The Troggs' Wild Thing added to the set and I had a quick chat with Blaze ('did you get in on the guest list ok..?'), Jase and Steve before the Quireboys started up again. The place was rammed, I stole a poster off the wall and after getting on for an hour decided it was time to be heading home again. One of the security staff, all of whom had been pleasant and as helpful as they could about the guest list snafu, asked if I was leaving already, and I couldn't face giving a full explanation of the journey that awaited me. In the bitter cold, and with the remains of the exhaust tethered out of the way with a cable tie, I pulled out of central Sheffield and headed for the motorway south, making only the one stop for petrol when I was about an hour from home. So despite the dire warnings of extreme weather, and with the sensible use of my earplugs almost all the way, I proved that even with the added noise I can still do a 200 mile drive home in one go, petrol stop excluded. Thought I'm glad I started it at 10.30 rather than 11.30pm There aren't many bands I'd contemplate that sort of thing for, and indeed I'd decided against doing the trip to London in the week before, but Wolfsbane will always remain my first love in british metal, and where better than Sheffield for the last show if it turns out there aren't any more. Though given how much fun they appeared to be having, I'm hopeful there will be.

Labels: gigs, Quireboys, Wolfsbane

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

A couple of years ago I was on about the delights of seeing Wolfsbane again after all these years and what's more Christmas-like than getting that same gift you wanted all over again? It certainly felt like a seasonal gift when the tour was announced back in the summer. The first show of the tour supporting the Quireboys was the one most conveniently close, and it was fantastic to be stood close to the stage in a t-shirt that's closing on 22 years old, watching the four of them rip through some of the stupidest metal songs ever written, with a tongue in both cheeks. Where the shows with the Wildhearts had had slightly truncated sets of barely 45 minutes, the Quireboys graciously gave them a full hour so we got a few treats that weren't aired last time around. Nobody ever gets exactly the set they want, but what I'd have picked for myself would have been pretty close to this little lot. Steel/You Load Me Down/Loco/Totally Nude/Money To Burn/Ezy/Kathy Wilson/I Like It Hot/Temple Of Rock/Manhunt/Paint The Town Red The pop-metal hit single that never was, I Like It Hot, is preceded by a rant about the Copenhagen climate summit being entirely Wolfsbane's doing due to their liking it hot and responsibility for global warming, which gives you something of a feel for the spectacle of fantastic nonsense that Blaze dishes out. I had a brief chat with Nico from the Blaze Bayley band while waiting for a chance to chat with the guys and buy 'the new Wolfsbane album made out of bits of old Wolfsbane albums', and just for a few minutes it was like 1989 all over again. "I saw Wolfsbane all over again, and I liked it." Two days later it was up the M5 for more of the same, and rather closer to their Midlands origins. This was a splendid show, and one of the highlights was Jase ushering his daughter to the side of the stage to watch the Quireboys and seeing the delights of rock n roll clearly passed on to the next generation. With the added bonus of Shakin' sneaking into the set, I think this was the best gig I caught out of this particular return of Wolfsbane's shows.

Labels: Blaze Bayley, gigs, Jase Edwards, Jase the Ace, Jeff Hateley, Steve Danger, Wolfsbane

"Mersey lights shine, bright in the distance Same as they did for us then" 'Spirit Of 76', The Alarm Having missed two reunion shows in the early summer when I was out of the UK, a final opportunity to make the third and final ever (so they say) reunion show of a band I loved was not to be missed. And especially when it came with the sort of crazy return to a past life aspect that was unavoidable. I used to live somewhere that the Mersey lights were visible from my window on a clear night, as it happens. After a number of happy hours on the M6 in the rain, around half past six found me in the monster T*sco that I used to frequent but haven’t been inside in the better part of twenty years. Getting into its car park took me past a hockey pitch I’d played on twenty-one years previously, and my route into the city centre was interrupted by the aftermath of a rear end shunt: with the police brushing broken glass out of the road and the ambulance still on the scene, I did a u-turn and followed a distant auto-pilot on my improvised diversion. A series of "So this should bring me out at... yes, then this right should take me to..." and so on left me parking up on the edge of the city centre, and perfectly placed for a minor detour past a building I first visited twenty-two years ago, the square where I used to sit on the bench reading letters and so on. You get the idea. Retracing long-forgotten steps into the heart of the city, past one of my favourite old venues which seems now to have shifted purely into drama theatre mode, and a quick loop around pedestrian shopping streets where I once saw Little Angels open a computer game shop followed before heading to the venue itself. "A sign stands over the door It says 'four lads who shook the world'" 'Spirit Of 76', The Alarm Living in a proper northern city back in the day was a remarkable change to my childhood in a provincial southern town, and changed my life in many ways. Stood once again on Mathew Street and going to a gig in the modern Cavern (a venue I haven’t blah blah etc) in the midst of the sort of saturday night on the town finery that I don’t usually see much of these days, the previous hour or two was in parts breath-takingly bizarre, in parts a sort of homecoming, in parts a totally mindblowing experience. And by the time I’d had a quick look around the corner to see the Eleanor Rigby statue was till there, I’d soaked up enough of that familiar local accent to start to settle in, it was time to get down those steps. And find the non-venue bar part of the venue full of what I think was largely a Spanish party having a whale of a time to the Beatles song singer on the stage. This sort of tourist trap honeypot has rather more in common with my seaside provenance than the rest of the locality, just to add further spice to my already frazzled state of mind. In short, if you’d asked me a few years ago whether I expected to see not just one but two of my favourite yet long defunct bands in the space of a week when I was in my forties, I’d have said you were out of your mind. Nevertheless, it happened. Playing to someone else’s crowd isn’t easy, playing to a third of that and having another third come in while you are playing is something else. Richard O’Flynn does a great job of keeping his delicate Ken Stringfellow gone folk lilt going throughout without being distracted. That sort of higher register, plenty of capo thing was a great start to the evening. I must hear more! Colin Clarke’s illustrious past in Rain passed me by entirely, and this set comes across as either a little nervy or perhaps a tiny bit ill-prepared, but listening to his few tracks on myspace sounds more promising. And so to the big event, Pele. I saw Pele half a dozen times in the early to mid 90s, stalkers might have found me as one of singer/songwriter Ian Prowse’s many friends on facebook for some time now, and his subsequent band Amsterdam have played an awful lot of Pele songs along the way, so it’s not like they completely disappeared. All the same, to get a specifically Pele gig at the start of the second decade (depending to mathematical taste!) of the new millennium was a special treat. The non-appearance of Nico on fiddle meant Amsterdam fiddle-player Anna Jenkins stepped in at a late stage, so it wasn’t the authentic classic line-up, but to be honest it was just great to hear those songs being battered through one after another in a sweaty underground bunker with too many people too close to my personal space. With Ian forgetting the words halfway through Oh Lord, this was not the sort of polished nonsense with split second timing you’d find at a big name stadium gig, but it was exactly the sort of raucous party that Pele gigs always used to be, and all the better for that. I could have hung around to say hello to the band afterwards, but with hours of driving in front of me it just wasn’t necessary. But if anyone wonders where the AFCB RED ARMY graffito on the backdrop comes from, that’s a question I can answer! So that was Pele, that was Liverpool, that was me and that was finding out I can do a 200 mile drive home in one hit, getting in not long after 3am. Setlist --- Don’t Worship Me Monkey Scream Hey America Fireworks Swinging From A Tree Megalomania A King’s Ransom Oh Lord Policemen Land Of The Free Understanding Sadness It’s A War Of Nerve Name And Number Fair Blows the Wind For France Raid The Palace --- Fat Black Heart Hot Housed Pain Of A Drinking Song

Labels: gigs, Pele