I missed openers The JB Conspiracy, which is a shame. Main support Orange didn’t get a great reception, though. I saw most of their set and they were OK but nothing brilliant. No faulting the effort they put into the set, and it was a shame – frankly – to hear them being boo’d off stage. I wonder if the same thing happened when they opened for Bowling For Soup recently?
Despite the fact the band have been going for over 20 years, I’ve still never seen Reel Big Fish live. The closest I ever came was in Adelaide a couple of years back, but I couldn’t get hold of a ticket (full story in the fourth paragraph of this post on my travel blog). Funnily enough, I seem to remember more than one person saying they sucked live – and this was from fans.
Maybe they caught a duff gig as tonight’s show was excellent. Without wishing to insult either band, I’d pigeon-hole them as “Bowling For Soup with a brass section”. Both have infections songs and don’t take themselves too seriously. They’re energetic on stage, communicate with the audience and really know how to get a crowd bouncing.
Now, I only know a handful of RBF songs… and they opened with three of them. They also encored with the other, but thankfully they’re enjoyable enough to watch that you don’t really need to know all the words. In addition, they’re fairly well known for their cover versions which get dropped into the set here and there making them good value for the curious who don’t own an album.
A highlight, and something I gather is a regular feature, was the song “S.R.” of which they played 5 versions (I believe they have 10-12 up their sleeves). We got punk, country, death metal… all good!
Definitely glad I made the effort to see them this time around and I’ll be up for their next show, whenever it is.
I’ve started going through my old CDs now that I have them out of boxes and in a huge cupboard in the living room. While I’m pretty much mp3-only these days, I’ve a pretty huge collection and I can see me digging through and ripping some of the older ones. Amongst them are some classics I’d pretty much forgotten about so now and again I thought it would be nice to pop them up here. Some have memories that go with them, so do excuse me if I waffle.
As Hans would say, it’s my blog so I can write what I want!
First entry is the first release from a Hollywood band called Love/Hate entitled Blackout In The Red Room. To the best of my knowledge (without going to Wikipedia, in other words), they only released one other album – Wasted in America. [update: they had another five including a “best of”]
If memory serves, I got my first copy of this album – on vinyl – as part of a competition prize, probably at the Gateshead Garden Festival way back in the late 1980’s. I absolutely loved it. High tempo, sleazy, varied, shouty choruses… perfect.
I was also lucky enough to see the band at the Newcastle Riverside back in the days when it was a tiny venue, not the dance club or offices that it later became. This dinky place held around 500 (probably far less, really) and the gigs were rarely more than a tenner. This one was packed to the rafters and the band played pretty much the entire album plus a couple from the second album which hadn’t been released at the time. I recall the title track and a lovely ballad called “Don’t **** With Me”.
I believe the band are still going, with their last tour in 2009 including a UK leg that I didn’t know about (dammit). If the album’s still on sale, it’s definitely worth checking out. In the meantime, if you go to what I think is their official page (lovehate.com) there are links to all their songs in mp3 formats. Many of the links don’t work, but those for the first album certainly do.
[For the full set of pictures from the gig on Flickr, please follow this link]
Finally, the last concert of a five-gig-week. Again, Gillian couldn’t manage partly due to the whole pregnancy thing and again we couldn’t dispose of a spare ticket. Seriously, people – this was Napalm frickin’ Death! Given the length of the Brummie quartet’s set, this made it one of the most expensive gigs (per minute) that I think I’ve ever been to. Eek.
The last time I saw Napalm Death was in London at the Camden Underworld with Amy while she was at Veterinary College nearby. That night ended with me stage-diving for the first time in years (most venues won’t allow it any more – bloody ambulance-chasing lawyers and health & safety), helping a guy with a concussion focus before the ambulance arrived and Amy getting a bar job. Not a bad evening, all in all.
This time round, I missed the two support acts and got there in good time for Napalm Death to hit the (small) stage. Ivory Blacks is one of the smallest venues in Glasgow with a capacity of, I believe, 283. It was well on the way to that by my estimation. I collected the obligatory pint, wandered comfortably to the barrier at the front of the stage and awaited the noise.
It’s hard to believe they’ve been going since 1981. And also that they feature precisely none of the founding members. What is always guaranteed is a good show.
Image by Iain Purdie via Flickr
Barney is a great guy and – like Ginger on Thursday night – more than happy to have some banter with the crowd. He’s also a bit of a politico. Imagine Mark Thomas only with metal to back him up. The tracks they ran through covered the entire history of the band, though perhaps didn’t hit every single album. I confess to not being a huge expert on them.
I did recognise a handful of songs, though, including one of the best cover versions you’ll hear live – the ever-present “Nazi Punks **** Off“, originally by the Dead Kennedys. If you can’t follow the chorus to that beauty, then you’re as well giving up now and buying the latest Justin Bieber album. Then killing yourself.
Another two covers of bands I’d never heard of rounded out the disappointingly short hour-long set. For the duration of the aural battering, the crowd was free to surf and stagedive, “security” for this handled by one poor bugger in a white shirt who didn’t complain once – not even when he took an accidental foot to the face. In other words, an excellent venue. The sound was great and it’s a venue that really suits a band like Napalm Death.
Still, £16+ per ticket is quite a sum for a small gig that only lasts an hour.
Three big bands, one expensive ticket… and in my view a very upside-down bill with the best band of the night opening and the weakest closing.
I missed Steel Panther a year or so ago when they played the Garage. I found out about the gig the day after they were on. Gutted. We predominantly got tickets for this shindig because they were on the bill despite it working out at over £50 per person with the booking fees. Of course, with the opening slot they only got about 40 minutes to play. And, of course, we were running late courtesy of traffic on the Squinty Bridge being rubbish for absolutely no reason and a huge queue to pick up pre-ordered tickets.
As a result, we caught maybe 30 minutes of the set. Thankfully a) what we saw was excellent and b) they’re headlining their own show at the Academy in March for which we’ve already got tickets. A large number of people were definitely there to see them (in particular the guy dressed up in a “Shocker” costume) and I think they’ve made themselves a lot of fans from this tour, too.
Let’s give them credit. They’re taking the piss out of the rock and roll lifestyle that the likes of Crue led during the 80’s and 90’s. However, they’re doing it with imagination and great musical talent, plus a desire to put on a genuinely fun show. I’m really looking forward to the gig next year.
After a surprisingly short set change, Motley Crue exploded (quite literally) onto stage with fireworks going off as the curtain dropped. I was on my way back from the bar with some overpriced soft drinks as the lot went off and I’m glad I didn’t drop anything.
Now, I’ve seen Crue twice before. The first time was at Graspop a few years back where they headlined… and were awful. Marina and I gave up after maybe three songs of flat-vocals and badly-tuned instruments. I then caught them at Sonisphere (I think) last year where there was definitely some improvement.
Image by Iain Purdie via Flickr
Tonight they put on the kind of show you’d expect from a band who’ve been doing this for so long. They’re definitely not as young as they once were, but – like Steel Panther before them – they gave it everything. For those who’ve seen them live before, there were no real surprised. Indoor fireworks, flames, explosions and part of a roller coaster stolen from an amusement park somewhere which has had Tommy Lee‘s drum kit welded to it.
One of the highlights was a blink-and-you’d-miss-it appearance by Justin Bieber… as one of the photographs displayed on the huge backdrop during “Girls, Girls, Girls“. A cheap shot, but who cares.
Although they’re not one of my favourite bands, and I really wasn’t expecting much from them Motley Crue did themselves proud and certainly entertained a sizeable crowd for ninety minutes. I reckon their stage set along accounted for 50% of the ticket price.
And so to the headliners. Def Leppard have been going for about as long as Crue and, during the Hysteria heyday, apparently went through an equivalent amount of drugs, booze and women as did their American counterparts. They had a comeback at Download last year which received rave reviews with an energetic performance. Sadly, tonight, I don’t think they pulled that off.
Image by Iain Purdie via Flickr
The set was fine. Every song was a hit, but it was obvious even before they took to the stage that they weren’t the band of choice from the three on the bill. The crowd had visibly thinned as soon as Crue departed and those that were left began trickling out less than a third of the way through the Steel City’s finest’s set. In honesty, we only stayed as we begrudged paying over £50 per ticket only to leave early. That and Gillian and Wendi were busy perving the guitarist.
In all honesty, though, we were all bored. After half an hour or so, we were checking our watches and I was spending more time on Tweetdeck than I was on watching the show. They weren’t that great to start with, but following on from two such good acts just made it worse for them.
I just wish I’d seen Def Leppard about 20 years ago when I was really into them. This just wasn’t the right time to catch their show. For the die-hard I’m sure it was a great performance, but for those who were just there to see the rest of the bill it was somewhat disappointing.
Full marks to Joe Elliott, though, who battled his way through a sore throat. This meant the high notes just weren’t going to be hit but it’s better than cancelling. One note to the band, though. If you’re playing a city split by royalist sectarianism such as Glasgow… don’t emblazon your stage with Union flags when you walk off before your encore. There was a notable section of the crowd booing them as a result. Sad – but even sadder that it wasn’t surprising when it happened.
And time for the annual Ginger gig. Well, bi-annual seeing as he did an acoustic set in Glasgow about 6 months ago that I missed. This year’s shindig was moved from the Garage to the smaller G2 which is a shame, but it’s still not bad and meant the crowd could definitely be described as “intimate”.
We caught the tail end of one of the support bands and they weren’t much cop. A lot of effort, but just nothing that great. Sorry to whoever they were.
Last December, the gig was pure Wildhearts numbers. I knew every one and it was fantastic. This year… I didn’t even recognise the first couple of songs at all. I assume they’re from Ginger’s current band, though I’m not sure if the musicians on stage with him were part of that. Let’s face it – historically he’s not had the greatest records at keeping a band together! I think I recognised the bassist from last year though.
Eventually, Ginger wiped off some rather obscure facepaint and the band launched into “I Wanna Go Where The People Go“, a nice bouncy number that I could finally get into. The set was a mix of predominantly older material with a few more recent tracks. I overheard a couple of guys after the gig. One was telling his mate that he had the recent albums and had listened to them a couple of times, that they weren’t bad but that they weren’t a patch on the old stuff which he’d enjoyed the most. Pretty much what I was thinking.
Ginger, however, is such a good entertainer because his between-song banter is so good. He’s very much “one of the lads”. Rather than preaching about record executives and how the government shouldn’t be involved in US foreign policy like some bands, he just informs everyone that the “hurricane” they braved to get the the venue was “well, a bit **** really”. Then launching into a song about Hurricane Bawbag that the band had written than afternoon.
He spent a large portion of the show singing into a microphone adorned with a pair of y-fronts thrown from the audience, which apparently had a phone number written on them. Such is the nature of a Ginger gig!
The rest of the band were pretty good apart from the rather strange woman who took up one of the microphones. The sound wasn’t great, so it’s hard to tell if she was there for harmonies or what. Regardless, she looked pretty and everything, but also looked ridiculously out of place. You know the way someone looks when they’re just not really sure what to do? Like a competition winner dragged out of a crowd to stand next to one of their heroes? That’s the impression she gave. Strange.
The gig finished a little earlier than I think the band had expected as they were informed of the Garage’s early curfew after they went on stage. A shame as it obviously meant missing a good number of classic tracks out. Amongst them “Geordie in Wonderland”. I’m gutted that my favourite – and a regular int he set – had to be skipped just so flipping students could get a couple more cheap drinks in.
Life goes on. As does Ginger. And I’m sure he’ll be back next year – hurricane or not!
