I was rather pleased to be able to see the infrequently-touring GWAR, especially as I couldn’t make it to this year’s Download where they were also playing. The last time I saw them was in Manchester around 2003 (at a guess) and before that must have been the early 90’s at the laughingly-monikered “Middlesbrough Arena” (I’ve lived in houses with bigger bedrooms than that place). I gather it’s been 17 years since they played in Scotland at all, and the crowd were baying for blood.
Picked the right band, then.
However, before them was a half-decent set by Clutch that I’m still not sure if I liked or not. I gather they’ve got a bit of a hardcore following, but I don’t think I’ll ever get into them. Their first couple of songs were rather slow and dull until the singer strapped on a guitar and the tempo seemed to increase. Much better.
Thing is, they then finished with some rather experimental, weird-sounding guff somewhat reminiscent of David Bowie during the “I’m on ****-tons of drugs” phase. credit to them for having so much variety, but… no, not for me.
GWAR finally took the stage at 10pm and started their set by ripping Her Majesty The Queen‘s boobs off. It went downhill from there. In a good way.
I don’t know a single damn song by GWAR, but I wasn’t there for the music. I think I tried to listen to an album once, back before I saw them the first time, and I wasn’t too impressed. However, their stage show is worth the entry fee.
Gillian cowered at the back near the bar while I got covered head to toe in stage blood, squirted out of various ripped and torn carcasses. And an alien penis.
As you do.
It really is completely silly, but that’s the point. Loud music, ridiculous costumes, extreme violence and Lady Gaga being beaten to death with a giant sink plunger. I’m sure she’d approve.
Fortunately, curfew wasn’t at 11pm, so we did get an encore and the curtain dropped around 11:15. I don’t envy the cleaning crew their job, but have to thank the guys working the barrier who did a sterling piece of work in their soon-discarded plastic macs.
A brief review of this gig and a little late posting it due to being a) busy and b) ill. This is the second time I’ve had a chance to catch Buckcherry after their support slot under Disturbed in December at the SECC. It is the first time I’ve been to The Arches and it’s an OK venue though its unusual shape makes it a little awkward to get a decent view from far back. So I pushed my way to the front after they opened with “Dead”.
They’re definitely a good live band, with a great variety of tracks but fitting firmly into the category of “bouncy, singalong rock”. The set was virtually non-stop with only the briefest of stage walk-offs before a short encore. There was no complaints about variety, either, with tracks from all their albums as far as I could tell – I was a little bit tipsy.
My only complaint was the length of the set which was only slightly over an hour. I was expecting the usual ninety minutes and would have enjoyed the extra few songs it would have given, but not to worry. Hopefully next time!
In 1990 (maybe 1991), I bought my first ever single. On vinyl – that’s a 7″ black disc of grooved plastic for you youngsters who aren’t aware of the concept any more. That single was “Love Bomb Baby” by Tigertailz – Wales’ answer to the US glam metal phenomenon Poison.
In 2011, I finally got to see the band live. Well, half of them. Ace Finchum left his drumming position quite some time back, and Pepsi Tate (bass) sadly died almost four years ago. However, they were ably replaced by Robin Guy and Sarah Firebrand for this tour, joining founding member Jay Pepper and long-server Kim Hooker.
It was to be quite a short set, a little over an hour, but virtually non-stop. Opening with “Sick Sex” and passing through crowd-pleaser “Heaven” before finishing with an encore that included the aforementioned “Love Bomb Baby”. Hooker certainly still has that voice, despite the time that’s passed. Pepper looks like he’s never left the stage. Firebrand is one hot chick, and Guy looks like he’s been taking lessons from Nicko McBrain in “how to be a drummer stuck at the back of the stage, but still be a huge and obvious part of the band by arseing around and being entertaining”.
Sarah Firebrand (Image by Iain Purdie via Flickr)
If I had a problem it was that the sound was rather muddy, something that Gillian says is a known issue with the Cathouse. A shame, but it didn’t stop me singing along to the songs I knew and having a great time. The band were straight over to the merchandise area the moment they walked off stage and were more than happy to chat to fans, have their picture taken and so on. A genuinely nice bunch. Kim commented on my beard and how it rivals Jay’s. Apparently they’re touring on motorbikes and Jay’s often end up all over the place by the time they get to their destinations!
Credit also to the two support bands. Openers Rare Breed didn’t look old enough to shave, but it takes balls to get on stage at any live venue in front of someone else’s fans. They did a great set with a couple of perfectly acceptable covers as well as some of their own stuff. Good luck to them!
Spit Like This were entertaining enough and certainly had a fair bit of energy for the small stage. I actually own one of their t-shirts from a few years back. Nice to see them live at last, as well.
I first Saw Bowling For Soup at Download some years ago and thought they were rather good fun. When I saw they were playing Glasgow last year I rushed to get a ticket and wasn’t at all disappointed (Anni had told me they were great when she saw them in Cardiff back in 2007, I think). It turns out that Jaret and Erik do an acoustic show, and this is what I went to see this week at the Liquid Rooms in Edinburgh.
I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect, but it turned out to be excellent. Certainly a departure from what I’m used to, but one of the best gigs I’ve been to in some time precisely because of it.
Jaret and Ryan Hamilton (from Smile Smile) kicked things off as a duo called “People on Vacation”. They did a handful of nice songs then tootled off to be replaced by “Linus of Hollywood” who did a solo set, which was very well received.
With a very short set change, and in between having their photos take at the side of the stage with umpteen fans, half of Bowling For Soup grabbed their guitars and ploughed through a set lasting nigh on two hours. This was partly due to a very accommodating venue. The gig was, apparently, meant to end at 10pm, but they ran on until just after half past. Thanks to Liquid Rooms for that! I guess they were still coining it in over the bar…
I don’t think a hit was left untouched, and the acoustic versions were suitably different in places to warrant a separate album, in my opinion. The crowd were singing along from the start and the banter was as good as you’d expect from BfS. Any shout was responded to in good humour, the between-song dialogue genuinely funny and it was obvious you were watching two long-standing friends doing what they dreamed of doing when they were kids.
They even managed to squeeze in a version of “Dance Song” from the current album (soon to be outdated by a new release in three weeks). So we have an acoustic version of a rock song parodying a dance song. Cool.
The icing on the cake was the two guys in front of me trying to pull the two girls next to them… who ended up getting off with each other.
A great night with a great band in a great venue with a great crowd. Roll on October and the full band coming back for another tour!
A rather unusual pairing and an unusual week for me in that I didn’t go to the cinema. Instead, I caught two live performances – both part of the Glasgow Comedy Festival.
The simple way to find out if anyone knows this pair of disgusting, tasteless, swearing southerners is to point them to the YouTube video for “London Underground”. As well as that minor online hit, the pair (Adam Kay and Suman Biswas) have done a handful of albums and a live DVD, the proceeds from all of which go towards the Macmillan Cancer Nurses charity.
They’re excellent to see live, but only if your sense of humour finds the gutter to be familiar territory. Fortunately, Gill and I both still think farts are amusing so it made for a good evening. I had seen them at the Edinburgh Fringe a few months ago, and the set wasn’t hugely different. However, the two guys perform so well and the material is so damn funny I just didn’t care.
Half the fun was watching my other half convulse in laughter to songs she’d send her kids to bed early with no dinner for if they came home singing them. It’s great to see an audience genuinely enjoy a live performance so much and I don’t think anyone leaving felt they’d not had their money’s worth.
The Hitch-Hikers’s Guide to the Galaxy – live on stage
“Life? Don’t talk to me about life.”
There have been a handful of stage adaptations of Douglas Adams‘ most famous work, and they’ve met with varying degrees of success. I was informed of this one by ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha’s Dave Haddock, and we caught up for a beer with a fellow ZZ9-er before walking to the Kingshorn Theatre (a converted church) for a bum-numbing 2 1/2 hour performance.
The show is only for the comedy festival and put on by the Strathclyde University drama and radio societies. In the interests of reducing stress in those reading this review who may have a connection with the performance, I will first of all state that I really enjoyed it. Any and all faults I pick up in the following paragraphs are minor! It’s very rare that I get to see something on stage where I’m so familiar with the source material.
While there are several versions of the Guide, the radio one has been used for this show and it’s a very close adaptation with only some brief editing of content to shorten the running time slightly. Indeed, the show is split into 6 parts (with an interval between 3 and 4) with the “can our heroes escape?” and “last week, we left our heroes…” speeches intact.
The cast numbers around 15 people, including those doing live special effects. Almost everyone has at least two parts, including the narrator who also voices a tannoy system at one point. I’m afraid I didn’t get any names, but I think the Guide/narrator is unusual in that the part is played by a woman. In the original radio series, LPs, TV series and movie the part has always been played by a man.
Our narrator, I discovered in the bar afterwards when  met her, is a real fan of the series and was actually very nervous as she’d spotted our little crew in the audience. Obviously, we’d know if she cocked up. So she freaked a bit and was berating herself over a drink for stumbling over a few lines. She really didn’t need to as she did incredibly well. For the majority of the show, if I’m correct, she wasn’t even referring to her script (which all of the actors carry with them). Impressive given the volume of dialogue.
The show is unusual in its presentation. It’s partly like watching a radio show being edited in that everyone has that script in their hand, and plays multiple parts. It’s like a traditional play in that they do wear costumes (basic ones) and perform physically. There are also very few props (a stick, some chairs and the scripts themselves). It also works very well and is hugely enjoyable to watch, although on occasion the background sound did make it a little hard to heard the actors.
It did seem that the later acts (“fits”) weren’t as well rehearsed as earlier ones, and there were a couple of lines fluffed. In fairness, it’s nigh on three hours of work and the scenes where things weren’t completely perfect were generally full of complex dialogue or involved a fair bit of action as well.
If I had to pick out individual performances, I’d have to focus on those who played Ford (absolutely superb), Arthur (never once looked at his script), Marvin (amongst other parts, but he was brilliant as the paranoid android), Slartibartfast (probably the most consistently good actor of the group over all his parts from Slarti to the captain of the B Ark by way of Milliways’ waiter and ending as a caveman), and the Guide herself. This isn’t to belittle the others at all. A superb cast and all deserve full credit.
They were all a joy to talk to in the bar afterwards, as well. I wish them all the best of luck with the rest of the performances and highly recommend anyone with an interest in HHG to grab a ticket if they can make it. You can pick them up from TicketSoup. It’s a bugger to find them on there so here’s a direct link.
