Fit For Moshing

The Damned, Rock City, Nottingham

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

35th Anniversary Tour

The Damned downgraded to the Rescue Rooms last year but they’re back at the much bigger Rock City tonight to celebrate their 35th Anniversary. The occasion certainly seems to have pulled in the punters, the place isn’t sold out but there’s not a lot of space to be had.

The chap in front of me is doing his 571st Damned gig or something like that. I recall it was a very impressive number, he’s clearly their biggest fan as is proven by the fact practically everyone comes up to shake his hand. This is my third Damned gig but who's counting.

Up on stage first is a lass called Viv Albertine who hails from the same era. She used to be in the Slits you know. Isn’t there a saying ‘old punks don't they just go acoustic’. Perhaps. Although I do understand that Albertine plays as part of a band sometimes but tonight she brings just herself, a guitar, a good (and often dirty) sense of humour and some catchy little seemingly autobiographical songs to the party. Songs for which she pulls back on her punk years and everything in between for lyrical inspiration, if not for the musical side.

It also has to be said she's aged well, taking a twenty odd year break from the music industry probably helped, and there’s a steady stream of 40+ (or should that be 50+) blokes shuffling closer to the front to check her out. Damn their failing eyesight.

I wouldn’t say she gives the most inspiring of performances but she makes for a thoroughly entertaining support.

After a blast of 633 Squadron Captain Sensible strolls on stage, up to the mic and imparts a sort of opening speech. Sadly there is to be no ‘Happy Talk’ but instead we’re going to get to hear two records that changed the face of music... starting with ‘Damned Damned Damned’, the band’s debut from 1977.

I’ve never been sure about this playing a whole album business but then I’m also not keen on bands who just play the same songs year after year. So here goes... Enter a dapper Mr Vanian and cue ‘Neat Neat Neat’

The Damned re-enact their debut album in around 35 minutes with barely a pause between tracks. Delivering a rapid fire sequence of eleven simple, stripped back numbers, just as punk intended music to be played, with many old skool punks trying to remember how to pogo and probably wishing they’d left their lambswool pullovers at home. Yes I did say eleven, they skipped over the Rat Scabies penned 'Stab Yor Back' for reasons unknown. Perhaps reasons of a petty feuding nature perhaps... but no one’s actually saying for sure.

‘Is she still going out with me?’ asks the Captain, as is perhaps the new way before ‘New Rose’. ‘I hope so because she's working on the merch stand tonight’. So hello to Mrs Sensible.

The Captain is a laugh all night, introducing songs with increasingly more tenuous links as we go along. In fact they all seem to be having a ball. Monty the keyboard player is doing air guitar among other things, for want of something to do. He’s certainly not going to get much keyboard practice in on this album, so he hollers along instead. He’s so into it he’s bought the t-shirt.

It’s a shame when they complete the album and go off for a short break, having kept the crowd pretty much hanging an inch off the floor for the last half an hour, even those in the lambswool pullovers.

Less than ten minutes later we're in 1980 and its shades all round for ‘Wait For The Blackout’. The Damned haven’t actually been that prolific album wise in their 35 years. In that time they have produced just ten, ‘The Black Album’ was their fourth and it anything, they seemed even more in their element on this than on ‘Damned Damned Damned’. Certainly Monty was much happier, actually having some notes to play.

This is the album where they moved on from punk into a darker more gothic sound. It’s not as powerful of course; just simply compelling and with great songs such as ‘Lively Arts’, the Captain singing ‘Silly Kids Games’, ’Drinking About My Baby’, apparently they’re nearly all failed relationship songs, then ‘Hit or Miss’ get things lively again.

The band seem to having as much fun as we are. When a glass lands on the stage during ‘Sick of This and That’ and John the Roadie comes on to mop up, the guys block his exit. Eventually he escapes through Sensible’s legs.

The best though is still to come. ‘The History Of The World’ is simply superb and then there’s ‘Therapy’ which I wouldn’t have expected to steal the show but it may well have done. Though if anyone can make sense of the Captain’s story behind the song then they’re a better man than me.

Then there’s a dramatic closing ‘Curtain Call’, complete with impressive laser light show... at a ‘punk’ concert! The album was released as a double album back in the days of vinyl, with this one song making up the whole of side three.

It's so long that various band members wander off stage, nip to Sainsbury’s and then reappear seemingly at will. There’s just Captain and Monty alone onstage at one point, huddled over their keyboards, producing a wild electronic soundscape as laser warfare breaks out all around them. How very avant-garde. Very good though. It’s all good. The first album was as well of course but it's the ‘The Black Album’ that stands out the most tonight.

And there’s more.

They return asking for requests, which results in them playing part of Deep Purple's ‘Black Night’ for no obvious reason, amidst lots of messing about. Ten minutes later they decide to play 'Disco Man'.

Then they round proceedings off with three from 1979's ‘Machine Gun Etiquette’. ‘Love Song’ of course, ‘Anti-Pope’ and then 'Smash It Up' or if we prefer 'Happy Talk'. Decisions decisions.

After a bit of the latter, the former, with Mr Superfan on stage. Jonno, long time Damned fan and friend of the band. Turns out he's a bit of a local legend too.

The gig finally draws to a close a good ten minutes after the 11pm curfew. A pleasant evening.

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Yuck, Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

2011-11-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

I’m impressed with the service tonight at the not-so-intimate-anymore-since-its-refit Rescue Rooms as the staff move a chap in a wheelchair right to the front and barrier him in. For his own safety I imagine, in case it gets lively. I’ve also got a good spot but again we have an annoyingly back lit stage which makes photography difficult but I’ll have a good stab.

Moments later two ‘Movember’ supporting chaps, of course that could be their permanent look, and two others who look like they haven’t started shaving yet take the stage. This is ‘Fanclub’, without the 'teenage'.

They embark on a noisy and promising start but when the vocals start they don't quite back up the promising guitar work. Most of their stuff then descends into the standard indie fare and they actually seem most inspired on their slower numbers and when the second guitarist joins in with the vocals.

They’re a quiet lot, who don't attempt to get any banter going with the crowd and that’s to the detriment of the atmosphere. After a little under 25 minutes they’re done and we await the headliners.

At 8.45 something Japanese, according to Shazam, heralds the arrival of Yuck. Who are straight out of the blocks, no messing, and into the rather wonderful ‘Holing out’.

Yuck are three-fifths British and were formed by two ex-members of the defunct Cajun Dance Party, who I had a bit of a soft spot for. Those two, Daniel Blumberg and Max Bloom, flank Mariko Doi who, oddly for a bass player, gets centre stage. She hails from Hiroshima and also probably gets to choose the intro music.

Then there’s Jonny Rogoff from New Jersey, a man with big big hair who powers most of the songs along adeptly from behind his drum kit.

There are just four of them tonight. Daniel's younger sister Ilana has presumably been left at home to do her homework. Sadly this means the delightful ‘Georgia’ lacks Ilana’s vocals tonight and it suffers for it.

Daniel Blumberg reckons they stayed every night in Nottingham on their last tour to save money. Returning even from Glasgow... really? That saved money? Is that the tour when they didn’t even play Nottingham because they cancelled to appear on Later With Jools? Or was that the tour when they played to ten people at Stealth? Well according to Max Bloom it was ten, the reviews tend to suggest around thirty but perhaps they were counting staff, road crew and the support band.

Those two chat a bit while Doi barely speaks and instead concentrates on some great Kim Deal-esk thudding baselines to add to the boys fuzzing guitars. We’re sort of back in the early 90s territory here. Rogoff speaks only to enlighten us to the fact that this is the first time in three shows that they haven’t blow up the PA. Yet.

In fact everything hangs together sublimely, from the acoustic delight of 'Suicide Policemen' to the distortion drenched sound of 'Get Away' in a set drawn from their so far only album and a few inspired extras. Those include the sort of a double A side ‘Milkshake’ and a new track ‘Soothe Me’, both of which appear on a new deluxe edition of the album, along with b-sides and such, that is just out.

The vocals briefly swap to Max Bloom for the tremendous ‘Operation’ before they sort of amble rather than sprint to the line with the slower numbers ‘Stutter’ and the closing 'Rubber', the latter being bathed in a sea of feedback before they leave us.

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The Mission, Academy, Leeds

2011-10-28T00:00:00.000-07:00

with special guests - Salvation and The Wonder Stuff

I’m feeling a bit retro at the moment, so The Mission’s 25th Anniversary Homecoming Show up in Leeds sounds ideal. I rush into the venue nice and early to see Salvation, another band of the same era and one not easily seen these days. According to the bands website they have played only two concerts since 1991. In 2004 at a Private Party, bizarrely in my home town of Nottingham, that I wasn’t invited to and in 2007 with The March Violets at the Violets own Leeds homecoming show.

They’re a little late coming on, so a chance to look around. I’m at the Leeds Academy, yes another one of those. Better known, back in the day, as the Town and Country Club and if you’re really old, before that the Coliseum. The place has been out of circulation for many a year, carrying on as a just nightclub, before it got Academy-ised in 2008. Now it’s being used again as a 2,300 gig venue, although with some of those up on the balcony.

Salvation are from Leeds and have had links with The Mission over the years, touring with them quite a bit back in the late 80's. I’m quickly transported back in time by ‘Diamond Child’, ‘She's an Island’, ‘All and More’ and ‘Thunderbird’. Cue jokes about Thunderbird wine. Is that stuff still available? All this accompanied by a gentle mosh for the attending over 40s.

Four of the five band members tonight date back to the heyday of the band, so it’s another reunion on stage this evening. To their credit they sound exactly the same as they did back then, right down to Danny Mass’s distinctive voice. The only thing that has changed is that they’ve got older. I mean we've all got a bit less hair these days but blimey. Danny had such a mop...

Then it’s great to hear the old favourite ‘Listen to Her Heart’ before they end a nine song set with ‘Why Lie?’

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Being nicely gothed out after that, it seems a bit unfitting to have the Wonder Stuff up next, who don't really fit the blueprint. No offence boys... and girl. Still I've never been an objector, and I don't think I've ever seen them live. They are billed as ‘very special guests’ tonight, Wayne Hussey and Miles Hunt are the best of mates and have toured together, so it’s an understandable choice.

They start well with ‘Red Berry Joy Town’ with Hunt taking the stage with a bottle of wine in hand. Their set is good and the band lots of fun. Miles Hunt and co clearly love what they’re doing and that comes over from the stage. The downside is the nutters in the mosh pit that they attract. It gets exceedingly lively and this is just the warm up act.

They lose me in the middle a bit, going shall we say a bit baggy and folksy at times. Having a fiddle in the band I suppose makes this inevitable but at least it quells the violent moshing.

Which returns for a lively finish of the all the favourites:- ‘Size Of A Cow’, ‘Don't Let Me Down Gently’, ‘Give, Give, Give Me, More, More, More’ etc. Which causes Hunt to question whether he’ll be in trouble with Mr Hussey for tiring out his audience.

Near the end Erica, the violinist, disappears to change out of her party frock (shame) and returns dressed as a skeleton. Ready for Halloween I assume but still a bit odd.

Personally I think they were given too much stage time but the promoters clearly though two supports with a good fanbase were required to sell out the venue. The alternative would have been perhaps a smaller venue? Because at the end of the day it’s all about the Mission and they’re up next.

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If you were a teenager in the eighties looking for an introduction to the world of live music in tight sweaty venues with all the trimmings that go with that you could not really have done better than discover the Mission. They seemed to be in Nottingham almost every other month throughout 1986-1988 and I had many a joyous evening at these fist pumping affairs. Time to dig out the old t-shirts, I’ve got a 1987 one but sadly not one going back to 1986.

I haven’t seen them live since 1990, when a move to bigger venues and the awful ‘Masque’ album tested my loyalty, as it did many others. The band itself started to implode at around the same time and that really should have been that but Wayne Hussey soldiered on with Mick Brown, the drummer, until they disbanded in 1993... before reforming a few years later and playing with differing line ups until finally calling it a day with a run of farewell shows at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in 2008.

Now it's the 25th anniversary, so there's money being waved around and money talks but Hussey has got original members Simon Hinkler and Craig Adams on board although sadly not Brown. Still it’s got me on board and what better place to rekindle the faith after 21 years than in Leeds where it all started.

What's more they seem to be up for it and it’s an absolutely fantastic opening, as the ‘Dambusters’ theme draws to a close and they open with the slow building, brooding ‘Beyond the Pale’ from their second album, ‘Children’. I think I'm the only one who would choose that as their favourite album. It feels like a proper album, whereas their first album was simply an accumulation of the stuff they’d been playing live. ‘Children’ had the feel that they’d actually sat down and written it. Sadly they only play two from it tonight.

Next up ‘Hands Across The Ocean’, which seems a bit out of place, taken from the ‘Grains of Sand’ album which was basically an album of tracks that hadn’t made the cut for the previous ‘Carved In Sand’ offering.

Thereafter, it’s pretty much early Mission classics all the way. ‘Serpent’s Kiss’ ignites the floor before ‘Naked & Savage’ calms things down again, a touch.

For saying they’ve had less than a month to rehearse and a new drummer (who was excellent), the band sound great, looked relaxed and the old magic was there to see.

‘Garden of Delight’ was as good as ever but I’ve never been a fan of the band playing ‘Severina’ without Julianne Regan who contributed so much vocally to the original.

Hussey reminisces about Leeds and not very fondly. He recalls shooting a video here, in the old Town & Country Club but also of his house being burgled every time he went off on tour. Hussey actually hails from Bristol, Hickler as it turns out is from Sheffield, leaving Adams as the only Leeds native but never mind. Great to see Hinkler really getting into the part, complete with a hat again, nice touch.

I forget how good ‘Butterfly on a Wheel’ sounds but remember how the appeal of ‘Stay With Me’ passed me by and still does. Before which Adams is persuaded to do the ‘Vigilante Man’, which I’ve never heard him do before. The guy really looks like he’s having a ball.

It good to hear ‘Wake’ included with Hinkler at the piano, a very early classic that always used to steal the shows and does again tonight.

Then it’s a not so satisfying ‘Wasteland’ remix followed by a thumpingly good ‘Crystal Ocean’ and finally ‘Deliverance’ which provides quite an ending. Adams and Hinkler leave the stage but Hussey remains to lead the audience in the singing. Then he goes too, leaving just Mike Kelly, the man drafted in to play the drums and thereby halving the average age of the band at the same time. He stays to the end, with the crowd still singing. Very effective and effecting.

After just twelve tracks their gone. As I’ve said, too many support bands. While we await the encore I ponder the fact that many of the audience still look good in basques etc well into their 40s and as for the women...

Hussey returns to play ‘Like A Child Again’ solo, a track that comes from that much maligned ‘Masque’ album and it sounds infinitely better acoustic than on record. With its ‘Like a Hurricane’ reference it leads into, what else but, ‘Like a Hurricane’. Then it’s a soaring (you have to use that word) ‘Tower of Strength’.

Then they’re gone again, returning for the classic that is ‘Blood Brother’ and the traditional cover of Iggy’s ‘1969’.

In all, a very good night. The only criticism would be that it was felt just like a Mission concert from twenty years ago, rather than an anniversary one... well, perhaps that’s no criticism at all.

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The Horrors, Rock City, Nottingham

2011-10-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

It’s all happening a bit early tonight, at 8.40 Southend's The Horrors quietly shuffle on to the stage at Rock City unaccompanied by any backing music. This is after a venue change from what was supposed to be an intimate Rescue Rooms night, due to them selling that out rather quicker than expected and it’s not far off being a sell out for a second time in the bigger venue.

Then we’re quickly in to ‘Changing The Rain’ off their new album ‘Skying’. It’s a rather ponderous track and sounds ever more so live but from there, things soon pick up. ‘Who Can Say’ from their award winning ‘Primary Colours’ album is much better. Livelier. The same album also probably producing the highlight of the set, a terrific ‘Scarlet Fields’. The new stuff is less impressive but ‘I Can See Through You’, ‘Still Life’ and particularly ‘Endless Blue’ are decent enough but lack the class and the punch of their predecessors.

Throughout, the band beaver away industriously behind a fog of thick smoke and assorted coloured lights. Faris Badwan says little, although he does mumble a few things that we don’t quite catch and introduces some of the tracks.

Then at 9.20 they’re done. 40 minutes and 8 tracks after hitting the stage they’re gone. Perhaps they were just the support... Actually, it’s really a bit pathetic; three albums to pick from and they can only muster the energy for eight tracks. If I’m making excuses for them, then maybe, just maybe, it’s because he’s been suffering from an infected throat, which caused the band to cancel a couple of the dates on this tour, but his voice seems fine tonight, so maybe not. Still, it was good while it lasted.

There then follows a longer than necessary break before the encore and I can't imagine why they need a lie down after that brief performance. That’s assuming we’re going to get an encore. Ah, I see we are.

The encore showcases what was great about ‘Primary Colours’. ‘Mirror's Image’ and ‘Three Decades’ back to back are a potent combination and go some way to alleviating the disappointment of the brevity of the main set, but then it all finishes as ponderously as it started. The band busily jam away to ‘Moving Further Away’, which to me is all intro and no song. It’s musical Horlicks. I'll sleep well. It’s also almost as long as the main set. Midway through it, as nothing much is happening on stage, someone chucks a full pint at the bass player and then Faris himself lights a firework centre stage but I’m still nodding off.

It sounds like a longer ‘Whole New Way’, one of the many tracks they've now discarded. There’s nothing from ‘Strange House’ tonight, unsurprising but still a shame. It would have been a test of how good they are to see how well they could weave say ‘Gloves’ or ‘Count In Fives’ in to the set. Tracks that would fit, at a shove.

The length of the encore means it’s just over an hours toil for the lads. Nice work if you can get it. Eleven tracks in all. On the ‘Primary Colours’ tour in 2010 they played fourteen songs when they came to Nottingham. So they're regressing, shaving three songs off their set list. So don’t arrive late when they next tour... or you’ll miss ‘em totally.

Somebody somewhere is giving them bad career advice. The mumbles from the crowd heading for the exits is mixed at best. It was very good in the middle though, while it lasted.

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The Subways, Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

2011-09-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Welsh five piece Straight Lines seem to be going down well with the crowd as, running a bit late, I push my way to the front at the Rescue Rooms. They also seem quite well known. There’s plenty of head bopping and even singing along. I’ve not come across them before and their punk/pop/hardcore blended sound could be described as sounding like everyone else’s but it wouldn’t be fair to say that on the few numbers I heard, so I won’t say it, I’ll just think it.

So to another band who could be accused of sounding like everyone else ‘The Subways’. I haven’t seen them for a while and I need to top up this year’s gig list, which is rather low, so I thought why not. They were rather good on the NME stage at the Leeds Fest in 2005, blimey that was a while ago. I saw them at Rock City a year later as well but now they’ve been downgraded a little to the Rescue Rooms. You may say the real reason I'm here is to get some photos of Charlotte Cooper, now a veteran at 25, but you’d be wrong of course.

Some things have changed. Rock City’s little brother ‘The Rig’ is now the ‘Black Cherry Lounge’ and the stage at Rescue Rooms now goes all the way across. Bigger. Tidier. Better? In a summer refit the steps have gone, the bar moved and balcony access is now no longer from some secret door at the back of the main bar where you had to utter ‘Phil sent me’ or something, to get in. The place now finally looks like a gig venue rather than an afterthought. They’ve even got real ale on the bar for crikes sake, heady days indeed.

So some things change but in a way it’s comforting that The Subways haven’t. The band bounce on stage to Gene Wilder’s ‘Pure Imagination’, then bounce their way through early single ‘Oh Yeah’ and basically don’t stop bouncing throughout the night.

Songs from their heavier second album ‘All or Nothing’ rub shoulders with the poppier sound of their debut ‘Young For Eternity’, in pretty much an even split of tracks between the two. In between they mix in a some tracks from their new album, released just yesterday, the style of which seems to fall somewhere between the two.

‘Young for Eternity’, ‘Obsession’, ‘Alright’ the songs tumbles out one after another, each one igniting the crowd and setting off a fresh wave of bouncing by crowd and band alike. It’s nice to see a crowd so up for a gig and a band too. The threesome give it their all from start to finish.

Isn’t there something great about threesomes, I mean three pieces. Concise, raw... limited yet eminently appealing.

Vocalist Billy Lunn tells us ‘Mary’ is about his mum and then goes off for another charge around the stage, passing bassist Charlotte Cooper on the way as she charges in the opposite direction, head banging, hair tossing with her bass guitar.

Billy's younger brother Josh bangs the drums. Legend has it that he was such a wild kid at home that his parents got him a drum kit to channel that wildness. I think he’s still got that drum kit because it’s kind of a mini set. The type they used so sell in the toy section in the back of the Argos catalogue, perhaps.

The new album ‘Money and Celebrity’, takes a pop at celebrity culture with tracks like current single ‘We Don't Need Money to Have a Good Time’ which provokes another a surge of energy from the crowd. As does the older ‘Shake! Shake!’ which goes down a storm with lots of, well, shaking.

The best moments are the older ones though, the slow building ‘I Want to Hear What You Have Got to Say’ being rolled into ‘Rock and Roll Queen’ was a clear highlight.

Billy and Charlotte stand some distance apart tonight on the somehow bigger Rescue Rooms stage, making it difficult to photograph them together. I’m sure this is the norm and not indicative of their eight year romance that ended sometime ago in marriage, to other people. Their relationship now appears cordial, friendly but also businesslike and lacks some of the on stage chemistry of before.

I was particularly surprised to hear that Billy had recently got hitched because he’s cheating on his missus already, tonight Billy is truly, madly, deeply in love with his audience. He urges them to get a ‘circle pit’ going to ‘Turnaround’. After a few false starts, due possibly to a lack of understanding (honestly, youngsters today), they finally get it going. Then after a resounding ‘With You’ they’re off without a word, which I thought was a tad rude.

They return for an encore that opens with ‘Kalifornia’ and continues into ‘At 1 am’ at which point something comes whizzing past my ear and lands on the stage. A bra, a very large bra, in fact a scarily large one. So large that I daren’t turnaround to speculate on the owner of such a huge garment. Clearly our freshly married man isn’t impressed either, as he kicks it into touch. Instead he strips off his own top and dives headlong into the crowd. They catch him and carry him aloft as the band close with ‘It's a Party’, a song about how awesome a party they have on tour.

Then down goes the Argos drum kit, in that most un-rock n roll of rock n roll gestures and the lights go up.

The Subways remain mostly unvaried but a more upbeat rock band you could not wish for. They also put more energy into tonight’s performance than a lot of bands put into a lifetime of touring. They’re a band clearly enjoying what they do. Though I still think they may need to move on a touch to survive, if they get time amongst married life of course.

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The Bluetones, Academy 2, Sheffield

2011-09-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight we’re in the intimate surroundings of the upstairs room at the Sheffield Academy, complete with a reassuringly sticky floor, as is so often the case in these places. It’s nicely full which is good to see.

Now I must confess that I’m coming a bit late to the party on this one. So late in fact that everyone else has got their coat and is making for the exit, including the band, who announced in March that this will be their farewell tour.

They are of course ‘The Bluetones’, purveyors of thirteen Top 40 singles and three Top 10 albums. All some time ago. Yet they have continued to tour to a loyal but sadly decreasing fan base. I’ve been remiss in never seeing them prior to Splendour this year, despite being an admirer of their early successes. I feel that tonight many others are returning after too many years of absence and if you neglect something it falls apart. Which appears to have been the cause of the demise of the Bluetones. Even the playing the classic album trick, with ‘Expecting To Fly’ didn't do the job. So, now as a parting gesture, we get this final tour.

First though we have Pugwash, shiver me timbers, but they have little in common with the cartoon Captain. I bet they’ve heard that sort of pun a few times but if you pick the name, you get the comments.

They fit the bill as a warm up act for their comedy element as well as for their music. They’re entertaining and easily strike up a good banter with the crowd. The Lindisfarne loving (apparently) Irish outfit have a bit of Liverpudlian thrown in, on bass guitar, actually sound incredibly like Elbow at times. Well until they dig back into their catalogue where the older stuff is more rocking. Lead man Thomas Walsh, for it his baby and has been since 1999, even seems to be going for the Guy Garvey look, e.g. physique or perhaps he had it first.

He’s also not adverse to a bit of name dropping, e.g. ‘Ben (Folds) popped in to do keyboards on this one’ or ‘here’s one I recorded with Neil Hannon’, when apparently they toured as ‘The Duckworth Lewis Method’. Still they’re good, affable and talented not that I’d buy any of their records. I’m just not sure when the right mood to play them would be.

Half an hour later, “breaking up is so very hard to do...” blares through the PA, “just tell me that we're through...”. The Walker Brothers playing “Make It Easy On Yourself”, this as Mark Morriss tells us is ‘the beginning of the end’. Cue boos. He scowls at the booing, we’re not here to boo, we’re here to celebrate the career of the Bluetones.

They open with a couple of album tracks, ‘Unpainted Arizona’ and ‘Zorro’ or as Mark describes them an ‘opening of openings’ as he adds ‘Surrendered’, the opening track from album number five. Odd idea but clever. So let’s spoil it, be pedantic and point out that ‘Unpainted Arizona’ was track number two on ‘Return to the Last Chance Saloon’.

From here the pace is gradually hiked, starting with ‘Fast Boy’, who we’re told is the man who once sold him weed. There after we get the same professional and polished performance that seduced me (belatedly) at Splendour.

Mark Morriss’s vocals blend with the intricate guitar playing of Adam Devlin, together with drummer Ed Chesters and Mark’s younger brother Scott on bass.

Mark is always entertaining to listen to, even when commenting on Sheffield’s road system. Now after sixteen years of coming here on tour, they’ve finally finished it, as the band split up. This acts as his intro to the automobile inspired car ‘Autophilia or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love My Car’. Unfortunately the parking charges seem to be paying for those improvements. Ouch, as my wallet would say later.

‘Cut Some Rug’ needed no introduction and didn’t get one but Richard Payne, the fifth member for nearly four years did, as he comes over from Australia to rejoin them for this final tour and to treat us to keyboard on the like of ‘Tiger Lily’ from their third album ‘Science & Nature’.

They seamlessly move from one of their oldest tracks, the excellent ‘Bluetonic’ to one of the newest, last year’s ‘A New Athens’ from the album of the same name, with ease and without dropping the quality. Then we’re into a run of singles ‘After Hours’, ‘Keep The Home Fires Burning’, ‘Solomon Bites The Worm’, ‘Marblehead Johnson’ from back when, he says, they were fashionable.

So what words of wisdom have the boys got to offer after sixteen years...? ‘We've learnt many things after years on the road so here’s another song about drinking...’ Cue ‘Carry Me Home’, a recent single that shows that they still had it to the end. Then moving swiftly from ‘a single that didn't sell enough to one that sold too many’ ‘Slight Return’, a track they’ve struggled to throw off the shackles from ever since and Mark always seemed slightly irked that they have to play it.

Then closing with possibly the band’s favourite and mine too, ‘Never Going Nowhere’ and then they go off, promising to return swiftly but in the interim leaving us with an empty stage so that we can contemplate what it will be like from now on, forever. No more Bluetones.

The mandolin, ‘hard to play and look cool’ comes out with one of those blowy keyboard things, A Melodica is it? for a quirky encore of ‘Slack Jaw’ and ‘Vostock of Love’ the B-side to ‘Autophilia’, and that they claim is ‘one of the best we've done’. Not totally convinced about that. Then it’s the traditional close of ‘If...’ before they go off for a second time, leaving us to wonder if that really is it.

Not if the crowd have anything to do with it, impressively picking up the ‘na na na na na’ from ‘If...’ and hurling them back at the empty stage.

So the band return again, in dressing gowns and clutching bunches of flowers to play something that has ‘always been requested of them’... seriously? A hilariously light-hearted but still excellent cover of KC and The Sunshine Band’s ‘Give It Up’. An ‘I was there’ moment I think.

They finally close the night quietly and with little fuss courtesy of an obscure moment from their debut ‘Expecting to Fly’. The track called ‘A Parting Gesture’ is an appropriate way to go. Then with four final final words from Mark, "We were The Bluetones...", they are gone... forever. Well, call me a sceptic, until they reform of course.

The Bluetones Farewell Tour runs until the 27th September, catch them while you can.

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Splendour, Wollaton Park, Nottingham

2011-07-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I went to a music festival on Wollaton Park and this is the first time I’ve paid. Those freebies were the Heineken festivals of the late eighties and early nineties, halcyon days. Later the historic hall looked down up on the City in the Park and Distortion festivals and now we have Splendour. An odd and slightly off putting name for a music festival if you ask me.

The whole thing is organised by Nottingham City Council and ran by DHP Concerts, the music mafia of Nottingham, owners of Rock City, The Rescue Rooms, The Bodega, Stealth etc etc. They own Nottingham. This one day festival is now in its fourth year, although it did originally run over two days in 2008 and it’s the first edition to sell out.

Today Wollaton Park is awash with sunshine and it is interesting to sit on the grass, listen to the music and study the various ingenious methods people have used to smuggle alcohol in, which with prices at £3.75 a pint and with no half measures available, there’s plenty of incentive to do.

The winners of the ‘Future Sound of Nottingham’ competition, The Money, get to open the main stage. They then walk away with another award, that for best trousers courtesy of both their singer and their guitarist, especially their guitarist.

After which we wander over to the Jägermeister Stage where Royal Gala are belting out what can probably be described as world music. Not my thing, so we head up to the courtyard stage wondering if they really did name themselves after a type of apple.

We are briefly delayed en route by Nottingham City Council trying to sell us a Flexible Fitness membership. It's good to see them giving it some publicity for once, but we’re already members so we get out of that particular hard sell easily. Up in the court yard we miss Jake Bugg. Who seems to have finished very early.

So we head back down the hill and into the real ale tent, which is very impressive with a large selection of beers, sadly at the aforementioned £3.75 a pint and with what appears to be only one barrel of each, which clearly with a reported 20,000 here today isn’t going to last long. I make a mental note to pop back soonish.

With a pint in hand we settle in for Sam Duckworth on the main stage. He is the man behind Get Cape Wear Cape Fly and I really enjoy his acoustic set, although you can’t help thinking he would have been a better fit on the Jägermeister, while perhaps the world music of those apple folk might have gone down better over here.

There are some impressive T shirts out today. Modern ones - Foos, Blink 182 etc. Old ones - Ramones, Husker Du, Bauhaus. There’s one that might be an ‘Echo Park’ era Feeder one, damn late 90’s poverty, probably the reason I never got one. I’d hate to put the blame for that on the girl I’d not long met and who is beside me today. Wouldn't dare.

Out of all of them, the award for best t-shirt goes to a chap wearing one from the 1979 Leigh Rock Festival, although it's brand new, so he probably just bought it off ebay. I'll tell you more about Leigh another day.

Again I try hard to like Nottingham’s Swimming but still find them a bit dull. Swimming unlike Sam D are not very communicative with the crowd, perhaps they’re just a bit knackered after having just finished a UK tour with Killing Joke, I imagine the after show parties were pretty intense. They also try a lot of new material out on us, which isn’t really what festivals are about.

We preselect our evening meal while they’re on, from the same curry stall that fed us at Summer Sundae last year.

The two key stages are alternating half hour slots but there does seem to be some overlap and we appear to be ‘The Last To Know’, ha ha, that Del Amitri are up on main or rather Justin Currie, who is now solo. He’s best described as looking weathered but no matter, we dally for a while and listen to his mix of new solo material and Del Amitri hits.

Then we wonder off to see Romance, who are one of many bands today with an un-googleable name, so it’s a fight to find anything out about them. Romance... The Money... you try it, as for The Virgin Mary, don’t get me started.

There is a band called Romance from Seattle but these folk aren’t from Seattle. Although they still can’t pronounce Nottingham, despite this being their second visit here in three months - they were at Dot to Dot, so they must be from down south, deepest Cockneyshire. Their songs have catchy names like ‘Burn Like Fire’ and the ‘River Runs Red’. A lot of them also sound like covers but don't appear to be. One sounds a dead ringer for the Manic’s ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ but isn't. Another sounds stunningly like something by the Cult but again isn’t. That’s probably not so surprising when you find out they opened on the Cult’s last tour.

Romance also win an award and that is for most over used cliché in the form of a bass player. Yep, female, black stockings, denim shorts, a dark bob topped off with a pout and the obligatory deep red lipstick. We’ll call her Samantha, for that is her name. All she needs to do is one of those backwards hair flicks.

Yep, there we go. So so clichéd but so good to see it back, if it’s ever been away. It has to be said that lead singer Jamie does a pretty mean hair flick himself.

Did I get a close up of the bass player you ask. Of course.

They clear the field but I really like them. More please.

Or has everyone headed over to Cast. We have a decision to make. Cast or a comedian called Monkhouse, who isn’t any relation to the late great Bob, I don’t think but then I don’t know my comedy. Clearly though he'll still have a lot to live up to. Cast win.

Cast don't seem to have aged at all or changed even and John Power along with the rest of the original line up pull a big crowd to the main stage. They have a few new ones to play us as well as plenty from the last 15 years. The trio of ‘Walkaway’, ‘Alright’ and ‘Free Me’ finish a pretty good set.

Time for another pint, or not. All the beer has gone by 4pm! Shocking. I'm guessing but I think this must be the first time they’ve tried a real ale tent. Seriously up the beer order next year guys.

The ungoogleable Virgin Mary prove to be more bloody than virginal, time for that curry I think. After which we wander back up to the courtyard and see a comedian called Wes Zahruk, who doesn’t have any jokes just comedic behaviour or should that be just downright weird behaviour. He can do things with vacuum cleaners and sink plungers that I really don’t want to tell you about.

Then I'm hastened quickly past Cecile Grey, who is dull but cute.

Which is something that could also be said of Eliza Doolittle. I concentrate on the cute part via the big screen while my partner joins a bladder testing toilet queue. Seriously up the portaloo order next year guys. By the time my partner reemerges I’ve gone off even the cute idea, we skip the rest of Eliza.

Instead West Bridgford's Dog Is Dead, who seem to get an invite to play here every year. This is their third appearance in four years and they’ve now got a record deal to brag about. They also pull a huge and vocal crowd. Fair play to them but they sound like Friendly Fires to me. Time for a sit down and to discuss tactics for the finale.

After alternating bands all day the organisers have decided to pitch Blondie head to head with the Bluetones. We’re heard more than a few grumbles about this, as couples seem split over who to see. We too want to see both. We decide to get an early spot for Blondie, watch fifteen minutes or so before moving over to the Bluetones and hence bag a good spot for Feeder, which is the main reason we’re here before legging it whilst the Scissor Sisters are on.

As ‘Union City Blue’ drifts across the field towards us we realise Blondie have scuppered this plan by coming on a full fifteen minutes early, which is so un-rock n roll. Somehow we squeeze in down the front to the side of the stage and watch Debbie Harry pirouette to ‘Atomic’ in some strange blue tutu outfit.

In the end they do us a favour by starting early, by the time new track ‘Mother’ rings out we’ve seen enough and now we can see all of the Bluetones set. Which is doubly fortunate because they proved to be the best act of the night.

Hounslow’s finest have announced that they are to split and have scheduled a final tour for the autumn. I have never seen them live, despite loving their early stuff, ‘Expecting to Fly’ was one of the best albums of 1996. It’s really remiss of me, so at least I put one wrong to right tonight.

They are excellent from the opening ‘Bluetonic’ to the closing ‘If...’ via ‘Slight Return’ of course, many people’s favourite and Mark Morris’s personal favourite ‘Never Going Nowhere’. I’m with Mark. Also excellent is the heavily requested (by the folks next to me anyway) ‘Carnt Be Trusted’ (from ‘Expecting to Fly’), and then there’s ‘Marblehead Johnson’ and many others. Great stuff.

Morris in particular is very humble and appreciative of our attendance. As they say, they realise we have a choice between which ‘has beens’ to see and they don’t come any bigger in the ‘has been’ stakes that the legendary Blondie. The 'tones' even parody Debbie Harry and co with a bit of excellent improvisation by their drummer and guitarist as they make a stab at the intro to ‘Heart of Glass’.

If anything the word ‘Splendour’ fits this band better than any other tonight. Terrific stuff. This will be their last visit to Nottingham but some of those farewell dates in other cities are looking very attractive.

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So to Feeder, who have no trouble at all in pulling a big crowd but then the Scissors Sisters aren’t due on yet but I can’t imagine there being much crossover fan wise. I thought perhaps tonight Feeder would concentrate on the hits and quite looked forward to that but no they still blend old and new together and do so quite nicely, playing five tracks off the now year old Renegades album.

It’s a manic gig, the crowd are lively or just pissed up and we have to move out of the mosh a bit whilst still maintaining our near front row view. Despite the crowd being up for it, they don’t quite take the hint when Grant tries a teasing intro to ‘Buck Rogers’. If they don’t want it mate, don’t play it, play ‘My Perfect Day’ instead I dream.

Highlights... I don’t know. It’s always good to hear ‘White Lines’, they don’t always play that. Of the classics, some suit the open air better than others. ‘Come Back Around’ for instance comes across rather tamely where as ‘Just The Way I'm Feeling’ is a perfect fit.

I guess somebody had to dedicate something to Amy Winehouse tonight and its Feeder who do it but dedicating ‘High’ could be taken one of two ways. He could be being a little tongue in cheek but then again the song was chosen by Jon Lee’s (former Feeder drummer) parents to be played at his funeral, so perhaps not.

‘High’ actually should be the perfect festival tune but it’s sadly not quite well known enough to get a mega sing-along going. The traditional closing ‘Just A Day’ though, goes down well everywhere.

They’re good, as ever, but too brief. Despite headlining the Jägermeister stage they only get an hour and no encore, while the Scissor Sisters gyrate in their... whatever they were wearing... jumps suits and bin bags? for another hour and a quarter. I was hoping to give Jake Shears and co a miss but Feeder finish too early. Even so a quick glance at the big screen is enough. Off home.

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The Icicle Works, Academy 2, Birmingham

2011-05-07T00:00:00.000-07:00

Its 6pm doors tonight at Academy 2 but there’s no support band. WTF. So it’s a bit of a drag waiting for the main band to come on, to say the least. There are only so many pints of Tuborg you can stomach while you wait e.g. one. Merchandising doesn’t keep us occupied for long. Sadly there’s no tour t-shirt, a special would have been nice because tonight it’s the 30th Anniversary Tour for The Icicle Works.

We were kind of here for the 25th, although the ‘here’ we had to go to was only as far as Nottingham’s Rescue Rooms on that occasion. That was the first time Ian McNabb had toured under the Icicle Works name for 15 years, then after a string of dates in 2006 and 2007 he retired it again. The purists (like me) were a bit miffed that original members Chris Layhe and Chris Sharrock weren’t involved but we had to lump it. Sharrock, to be fair, has been a bit busy and is currently spending his time with one of the Gallaghers in Beady Eye.

The line-up that takes the stage tonight, the last of just four dates celebrating their anniversary, is the same as that 2006 version: - bassist Roy Corkill, keyboard player Richard Naiff and the drumstick twirling ‘Dodgy’ drummer Matthew Priest.

They open with ‘When It All Comes Down’ a single only release from 1985, the extended version. If they're all as long as this, we might be here all night. McNabb confirms that possibility when he announces there’s no curfew tonight, so they can play as long as they like, and I see the colour drain out of my partners face. She prefers her gigs short and punchy, plus she’s got an early start for a half marathon tomorrow. Cheer up, this one’s your favourite, it’s ‘Evangeline’.

A nostalgic trawl through the band’s back catalogue follows: - ‘Little Girl Lost’, ‘Seven Horses’, ‘Rapids’ then what he describes as Scouse country rock ‘Who Do You Want For Your Love?’. Third LP side 1 track 5 he tells us, from a day when albums had sides.

McNabb’s voice still sounds great on all of these and he’s certainly giving it his all. He’s already dripping with sweat, yet he won't give up that army jacket. Which changes colour before our eyes, track by track, getting darker and darker as it gets wetter.

The title track from the fourth album ‘Blind’, the last the original trio recorded, follows with its ‘there's an actor in the White House’ lyric. He probably meant Reagan but he sings it as if it’s still relevant.

‘Melanie Still Hurts’ from ‘Permanent Damage’ recorded after the original line up broke up, is a run through his ex-girlfriends. Julie, Jackie, Carol - check. Sarah, Karen, Michelle - check. Though, he quips that, at only three minutes and forty seconds it only take us up to 1985.

Then there's the heavier 'Shit Creek' which I just don't get and never did. ’Starry Blue Eyed Wonder’ is as good as ever and then, an hour in, if you’re old school you settle in for some indulgence, if you’re not you’re in some trouble. Seven of the next nine tracks come from their self titled debut album. The audience is split, half are ecstatic, the other half are looking at their watches. L is texting furiously and I don’t think it’s a review the Sunday Times is going to print.

We get a convoluted introduction to ‘Reaping The Rich Harvest’ in which McNabb confesses he has no idea what the song is about but assures us it sounds good. This causes confusion amongst the rest of the band, as this is not the next song on the set list. Yet, having given the song such a build up, they have to revise the order

Richard Naiff's piano and keyboard playing was a delight all night, as was his recorder playing on ‘Lover's Day’. Then the dark and brooding ‘What She Did To My Mind’, pretty outstanding despite its four false endings and it’s followed by 'Up Here In The North Of England'. McNabb's view of north/south divide circa 1986. Tonight, he decides that Birmingham is more north than south.

Then after a trio of excellent cuts from that first album, the two hour set is finally ended with 'Birds Fly (Whisper To A Scream)'

They come out for an encore with McNabb still in the same sodden jacket for a rocking 'Understanding Jane' but he must be feeling the heat because he’s removed his shades. Then they go off again. How quaint. No one splits their encores anymore. How eighties.

They’re soon back again, as is the jacket, for ‘Love Is A Wonderful Colour’ who some x-person off x-factor called Rhydian has just covered and the closing ‘Hollow Horse’.

To be honest it was probably 4 or 5 tracks too long but the ones I would have axed wouldn't have been the ones to go. It was so good to hear old album tracks like ‘As The Dragonfly Flies’ and ‘Factory In The Desert’.

I imagine now its back to Ian McNabb solo shows, at least until the 35th anniversary.

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Hard-Fi, Bodega Social Club, Nottingham

2011-04-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

We’re back at one of my favourite venues tonight, The Bodega Social Club. Built in 1901 by The Bodega Wine Company and now the self styled ‘coolest bar in Nottingham’, famed for catching successful bands on the cusp of super-stardom or in tonight’s case... giving a low-key airing to new material from the band Hard-Fi or perhaps they’re returning to something approaching their true level... time will tell.

The last time Hard-Fi were in Nottingham was December 2007 and it was to play the Arena, which surprised me. I didn’t know they were that popular. Ok it was only half full but that's still 4000 people, tonight they play to less than 300. Not that I'm complaining, as I've said the Bodega is one of my favourite venues.

To be fair to them, their fan base probably hasn’t collapsed; this is a 'secret show' which wasn’t even mentioned on the Bodega's website until yesterday. I got to know about it because they are one of a multitude of bands I get email from.

There’s no support and the band emerge at around 8.30 to the strains of Ennio Morricone to tell us what they’ve been up to for the last three years. Which is... ‘nothing really’ as lead singer Richard Archer admits. So Rich, just what did happen to that album you promised us for 2009?

‘Tied Up Too Tight’ from their debut album ‘Stars Of CCTV’ kicks off the night as the boys attempt to ‘sharpen ourselves up and get match fit’, presumably for a more substantial tour later in the year.

‘Nothing’ isn’t what the entire band have been up because Ross the guitarist has been training to be a hairdresser... Ah, so the money from 'Once Upon a Time in the West' has run out then. Welcome back. Looks like Ross has a ring on a significant finger as well. If he’s got a wife burning the cheque book at both ends then there’s no wonder they’re back to ‘working for the cash machine’.

Archer tells us that ‘we're gonna play some new songs, so you’re gonna have to roll with us’ before playing a couple for us. With no big Arena style screen to distract the punters, the focus really is on the band tonight to show us what they’ve come up with.

Well, there’s clearly not going to be any great change of musical direction because neither ‘Bring It On’ nor ‘Lovesong’ are big departures from what they’ve done before but both seem acceptable indie rock, although obviously it’s hard to judge on one listen.

Tonight is one of just three dates they announced last month, Bristol and Brighton being the others, with tickets only a tenner. They have since added a London date next month. So why Nottingham and why the Bodega? Archer explains they played perhaps their second or third ever gig here. That’s cool, I like that. A band revisiting an early venue of theirs.

They are chatty throughout, particularly Archer, but it’s mostly of the ‘are you alright Nottingham’ variety. ‘We need the practice’, he concedes, perhaps he means with the banter as well.

Oldies ‘Can't Get Along (Without You)’ and ‘We Need Love’ lead us into the new ‘Stay Alive’. Which starts off a bit more dance orientated and passes me by a bit until the guitars come in but it never reaches any great heights.

The band remain heavily reliant on backing tracks and all the keyboards come pre-recorded on tape, unless one of those equipment boxes is housing a secret fifth member. In fact all the old tracks are so perfectly reproduced I begin to wonder what else is on tape but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and just say they were very proficient. Even if I wasn’t sure Archer was playing that blow keyboard thing for the intro to the breadline anthem ‘Cash Machine’.

‘Good For Nothing’ is to be their comeback single. It’s not the most instant of their new stuff but still has some promise. Their biggest hit ‘Suburban Knights’ follows and gets the Bodega jumping. Not that I’ve every really understood the popularity of what I think is one of their weakest singles.

So far they’ve not played anything, old or new, with the Clash-like reggae-ishness that they used to dabble in, that is until we get to ‘Sweat’ which is quite funky, for want of a better word.

By aiming this gig at their mailing list they know they’ve not got to win anyone over tonight but still yet another new track perhaps stretches things a little bit. That’s eleven tracks so far and six of them new ones. Someone calls out for the title track of ‘Stars Of CCTV’ without success and we get ‘Fire in the House’ instead. Which turns out to be my favourite newbie of the night. Darkly mysterious and brooding.

‘Hard To Beat’, which closes the set, remains, well ‘hard to beat’ and is a storming way to finish, with the now lively Bodega lapping it up.

Bands either come back very quickly for an encore at the Bodega or take ages. This, I imagine, depends on whether they decide to return to the dressing room, which is on the floor below or just loiter at the top of what are a fairly fearsome set of stairs. Hard-Fi take their time but when they do emerge it is with an interesting choice for the start of the encore.

‘Television’ enables Archer to demonstrate his guitar prowess for the first time tonight as he does the intro solo and it probably provides the best moment of the night. Then to close, we get a frenzied ‘Living For The Weekend’, which sounds reassuringly messy tonight, proving that they’re not as polished or as taped as they look at times. It’s a song about dead end jobs, which begs the question, what’s it to be Ross? Hairdresser or rock star?

An entertaining evening but I’m not sure I’ve heard anything here that’s going to propel them back to Arena-dom. Still, they’ll be hoping that despite their affection for the Bodega that this won’t be their destination the next time they drop into Nottingham.

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British Sea Power, Rugby Library

2011-03-04T00:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight I battle with Rugby’s car parks. They’re all full. It must all be happening tonight. The cars are parked ten deep around my destination. Yep, Asda next door is really busy tonight. Who the hell does their weekly shop on a Friday night? Not me, there's culture to be had this evening, I'm off to the library.

British Sea Power have played some rather weird places, in fact earlier this week they played on a boat outside the Houses Of Parliament, in aid of renewable energy. Tonight they are live in Rugby’s Library, an event intended to highlight the over keenness of councils to close libraries. It has been organised in collaboration with the ‘Get It Loud In Libraries’ project.

Security was crap, there are no actual tickets and I got in with a printed email of my booking. If I'd know, I'd have printed a few more off and sold them outside. Then I could have afforded a t-shirt because I’ve not had time to visit the hole in the wall.

I have expected the gig to be taking part in some annex or meeting room but no, it’s slap bang in the centre of the library which is pleasantly small and intimate.

Although the book shelves do restrict the number of potential viewing points somewhat. What's worse is that if you try to nip down an isle to uncover some secret route to the front you find your way blocked by a pile of the band's discarded equipment boxes.

Having explored all down one side of the room and decided that although the view from the poetry section was ok it wasn’t great, I decided to try the other side. In the end I get a really good spot. If you know Rugby library, I was just ahead of the Hindi reference section not far from the magazine racks, which were stage left.

During all my jostling for position the support band are playing. ‘Life In Film’ are another perfectly adequate guitar based indie band, with plenty of lively, jingling tunes. Better than most in fact. I shall certainly keep a look out for them.

It was interesting to see what the acoustics would be like, as I imagine it’s not something that libraries are known for. I mean you're not supposed to make much noise are you. ‘Life In Film’ make plenty and the acoustics seem surprisingly good. The stage too is reasonably high and there’s no barriers between the band and crowd, just a ‘bad sound area’ marked out on the floor which I think you’re supposed to keep out of. So all set for a good gig then. Although no foliage or flags adorn the stage tonight. Damn library rules. There’s also no alcohol only a coffee machine, even the band’s own Zeus beer isn’t available until afterwards. If the crowd are all on maxpax coffee it could get very lively indeed.

There’s not much of a break between bands for once and then after a brief welcome chat by our hosts, it is suggested that we have some music. The band take the stage and oblige, launching into their most recent protest song 'Who's In Control', the opening track from their latest ‘Valhalla Dancehall’ album. An appropriate choice with its lyric ‘I'm a big fan of the local library, I just read a book but that's another story...’ and matching t-shirt.

The crowd seemed a tad subdued to start with, perhaps keeping in line with the location but the show gradually picks up momentum helped by a ferocious 'Apologies to Insect Life' and lively newies such as ‘We Are Sound’ and a particularly impressive ‘Stunde Null’.

‘Lights Out For Darker Skies’ is always quality but it’s especially good tonight. Then the brothers do their traditional mid set swap and Yan hands over vocals to Hamilton. Who delivers the quartet of ‘No Lucifer’, ‘The Land Beyond’, ‘Once More Now’ and the tremendous ‘Mongk II’. Now no disrespect to Yan but I always look forward to Hamilton’s segment. He really does seem to get a lot of the best tunes.

I haven’t seen them on this current tour before and it’s great to see a load of not played enough classics reappear in a reshaped set, such as Hamilton’s ‘The Land Beyond’. One of three from the often largely ignored 'Open Season' album, from which Yan, once he returns to lead vocals, spoils us indeed with both 'Oh Larsen B', everyone’s fave ice shelf, which is massive and 'It Ended On An Oily Stage'.

Those come after a hugely impressive ‘Zeus’, at which points the library starts to get more lively than it probably ought to and a group of girls rush the ‘bad sound line’. ‘Thin Black Sail’ doesn’t calm things down at all. All we need now is Noble to go off on one of his usual climbing sprees atop the Modern History section but disappointingly and probably wisely, it doesn’t happen. I have visions of library shelves coming crashing down. He does refer us to an interesting section on ferrets but shows no inclination to climb up there to show us personally.

Recent single 'Living Is So Easy' leads us into a final sequence of ‘Waving Flags’, ‘Great Skua’, ‘Carrion’ and ‘All In It’. I think my hearing collapses during ‘Carrion’. The gig certainly wasn't quiet. I was standing right in front of the left speaker and as the band go off I realise that I've already got a hissing noise in my left ear and there’s still the encore to come.

The set list had Open Season's ‘Like A Honeycomb’ down as part of a three song encore which would just have completed my night but sadly things were running late. I had no idea what the curfew was on a library but I think we found it. Ours at home is 7.30, so we did well and we did get a twenty song main set. What we do get is a typically rousing ‘Spirit Of St. Louis’ to close.

BSP have had their problems of late and had to cancel their European Tour for financial reasons, whether this is low ticket sales or low album sales or something else I’m not sure but they’re certainly popular tonight and have pretty much sold out all their UK dates. Tonight, I thought they were exceptional. I nip out, find a cash point and get that t-shirt. For which you can get a discount with your library card.

Next up for the band... Jodrell Bank apparently.

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Feeder, The Assembly, Leamington Spa

2011-02-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight, Feeder for the second time in four days. We’re in Leamington Spa, which is a very pleasant old town. So nice in fact, that it makes you wonder why they let the students invade. The venue is called ‘The Assembly’, which opened its doors as a concert venue only in 2008 after a multi-million pound redevelopment that was designed by Lawrence Llewellyn-Bowen but we won't hold that against it.

Originally built in 1926, and called The Bath Assembly Hall, it was the place to go for your Foxtrot, your Waltz or your Quickstep. I only half know what they are, I read it on their website. It was later renamed ‘The Palais de Danseand’ and claims to have invented ‘The Palais Glide’. Now I’ve heard of that.

Like a lot of old dance halls and theatres it had most recently been a bingo hall. It’s good to see it now being put to better use, although it seems very quiet tonight compared with Rock City on Monday, although also sold out.

Love Amongst Ruin are first to take to the salubrious Art-Deco surroundings. Love Amongst Ruin were founded by Steve Hewitt, former drummer and songwriter with Placebo. He has teamed up with Julian Cope’s former right hand man Donald Ross Skinner, so this five-piece has something going for it already and interest for me.

The results, however, are nothing like Placebo or Cope’s music for that matter. Their sound is quite heavy, the songs quite sad or perhaps it’s just that Hewitt has a sad anguished sort of face.

Their cover of Thin Lizzy's ‘Got To Give It Up’ is dedicated to the deceased Lynott and Moore and no longer to ‘an ex-friend of mine’ he tells us. Oooh is that a dig at his former band? He was sacked from Placebo. That it is their best moment perhaps isn't surprising.

Hewitt refers to ‘the mighty Feeder’ after every song. I’m not sure if he’s trying to be ironic or not. I mean Placebo were pretty big themselves.

Then when they finish with a track called ‘Home’ I wonder if there could be some kind of weird symmetry about to happen here...

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And so it proves as Feeder tonight open with ‘Home’. 'Home' makes a good opener. In fact I would go as far to say it sounds better there. Then I realise I owe apologises to ‘Insomnia’, which I dissed a bit on Monday. It was deadly tonight.

A change of opener isn’t the only flirtation with the set list tonight. Shock horror. Feeder shuffle set list. A bit. ‘This Town’ and ‘Sentimental’ swap positions, which is daring stuff for Feeder. Who says they don’t vary the set list enough? Oh yeah. It was me wasn’t it.

Grant aborts ‘Feeling A Moment’ and then restarts it. Not totally sure why, it sounded ok first time to me.

‘Renegades’ is again ace but then I reckon the sound is really good here, better than Rock City even but my partner disagree. So perhaps it’s just me. It’s a good venue though with a really high stage.

There are shouts again from the crowd for ‘Turn’, maybe one day.

Of the singles, ‘Seven Days In The Sun’ again stands out. ‘Buck Rogers’, which precedes it, again gets worked over by its bigger brasher ‘Echo Park’ brother.

There’s good news in that ‘White Lines’ is back; it has been missed and is the best of the ‘Renegades’ stuff tonight. Then Grant announces ‘one for the old school....’ which is only ‘High’, of course.

The encore remains the same. I reckon ‘Tumble And Fall’ is in to show off Damon’s drumming. He does do a great intro to it. He is again resplendent in shorts and something that looks like a dog collar but not much else.

At the end after another cracking rendition of ‘Breed’, my partner catches a plectrum and I, finally, after 25 years of trying, get a drum stick. What a pair of groupies.

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Feeder, Rock City, Nottingham

2011-02-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

Is there something going on between Morning Parade and Feeder. The only other time I’ve seen Morning Parade is supporting Feeder (playing as Renegades) in Sheffield last year. The Essex boys, lead by a man called Sparrow, Steve Sparrow, seem to have honed their sound since then and have become the ‘next big thing’ or one of them. Probably the kiss of death really.

They have a range of styles but seem to have cut back on the keyboards a touch and the guitars are a bit more prominent tonight, although some of their tracks do still border on dance rhythms. Technically they are a very capable band but for a new band they come over as perhaps a bit too polished. Lacking in rough edges if you like, this oddly makes them less interesting.

Their new single ‘A&E’ is a good example; it’s powerful and catchy but still lacking in a certain something. They’re certainly not sparing in the effort they put in but after forty minutes of them, it feels like overkill and I’m ready for the main event.

Enthused by the re-emergence of 'Yesterday Went Too Soon' and latterly 'My Perfect Day' on the last tour before Christmas, together with Taka twittering that some 'Silent Cry' stuff could appear on this tour and also Grant appearing to be up for playing something like 'Turn' after it got requested last year, once they'd practiced it, made this a tour not to be missed. So tickets were purchased for two gigs, my home town Nottingham and for Son's university abode of Leamington. So, all set up for disappointment then.

Feeder are without doubt a brilliant live band, one of the best, but also, sadly, one of the most predictable. So it actually kind of looked promising when a roadie came out a few minutes before showtime and started manually altering the setlist with a pencil. Indecision in the ranks? Perhaps they'd suddenly remembered something and were about to revive one of the many underperformed classics they have buried in their hugely impressive back catalogue.

As the ‘The Good, The Bad And The Ugly’ fades out we soon find out what the alteration was. Fears 'Barking Dogs' may have barked its last are unfounded as it is reinstated as the show opener after giving way to ‘Home’ for most of the tour dates so far. This, in fact, transpires as a bonus for the Nottingham public, as ‘Home’, a particular favourite of mine, still appears later in the set.

'Insomnia' is next, still a belter, although I thought a little off colour tonight. Perhaps it needs a holiday. They could always play one of the other belters from the same album.

Did I mention Feeder were a bit predictable... The first ten tracks arrive in exactly the same order as this did during the last tour back in October. So no freshening up there then. Five of those are ‘Renegades’ tracks, tracks which continue to sound great live, and the crowd do seem to appreciate them. There are no substitutions for ‘Silent Cry’ tracks, which would have made no difference to the majority of the crowd who probably haven't got either album.

Buried in amongst them are some of the hits from the ‘Comfort In Sound’ and ‘Pushing The Senses’ eras, odd bed fellows amongst the likes of ‘This Town’, for which Taka’s heavy bass reverberates across the floor towards us.

We do have a change behind the drum kit. Karl Brazil has gone AWOL, or rather he’s on tour with James Blunt, who apparently gets first call and probably, no offence guys, pays more. His replacement is session drummer, Damon Wilson and he's seems to mean business with his shirt off from the start. In fact, if anything, he possibly tries too hard at times. I just hope he’s got a good supply of the free water, like we have. Saves paying £4 a pint.

'Seven Days In The Sun' finally breaks the familiar sequence and makes it into the main set, which means at least the encore has been refreshed. Grant likes his teasing intros and seems to be introducing them to most tracks these days... ‘Buck Rogers’... ‘Renegades’... ‘Seven Days’ has one of the best. ‘Come Back Around’ follows and deserves a mention for sounding particularly awesome tonight.

The only ‘Renegades’ track to go out is 'White Lines', back in comes 'We Can't Rewind', which must surely be a family favourite or something. It’s the only old non-single they seem to play.

'High' which often flits in and out of the sets, is in on this tour. I’ve not actually heard ‘High’ for ages, so it’s good to hear it tonight.

The refreshed encore kicks off with (holds head in hands) ‘Tumble And Fall’. An oldie, true but not an inspired one. Then, nicely, a new track called 'Borders'. Which sounds, ironically, kind of 'Silent Cry' era-ish if you ask me...

The obligatory ‘Just A Day’ is followed by a terrific cover of Nirvana’s ‘Breed’. Obviously a personal favourite of Mr Nicholas’s but still obviously not a patch on how a certain underperformed classic from the first album used to close sets.

So no 'Yesterday Went Too Soon' or 'My Perfect Day' then but still a nine out of ten gig, with brownie points included for a decent t-shirt. Not enough bands do a tour t-shirt complete with dates these days, so that was enthusiastically purchased. See you in Leamington and, Grant, you know what you have to do for a ten.

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HMV, Vinyl And Record Clubs

2011-01-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

Last week we had HMV complaining they’re on their uppers, now this week we have record clubs trying to re-launch vinyl.

Personally I have no sympathy for HMV. They spent all my record buying youth (so we’re going back anything up to 30 years) trying to shut down the little independent shops and when they’d managed it, in the end with help from the internet, they decided to stop selling records and sell computer games, DVDs and all manner of electronic equipment instead. Well, they don’t sell anything not in current top 40, and even then they place them in some bizarre random order or in a bizarre categorisation that nobody understands, confining the simplicity of an A-Z filing system to history. I just walk in... walk out... go on line these days. Hopeless.

Virgin were never any better of course. Now they expect sympathy. Ha. No chance. Personally, I think there is still a place on the high street for decent record shops, e.g. not HMV, who were just trying to sell to the general public, who weren't interested, rather than people like me. It is now a niche Market and if their absence creates space for someone else then it’s all to the good.

As for vinyl though. I embraced the CD wholeheartedly when it came out but now... I think it’s a product stuck in the middle of two worlds. It is neither something you want to play nor something you want to own. Not when mp3s are easier to play and dare I say it, vinyl is better to own. They will, like tape cassettes before them, probably only survive until they’re no longer required for in-car entertainment. Personally, I would love to go back to buying vinyl. Go back to flipping through racks of the stuff, something that CD’s aren’t good for.

Physically vinyl is the best thing to have, bands used to really bother with the artwork and it was a decent size to do the artwork justice, but these days you also need the digital version. So bands need to start chucking the digital version in free with the vinyl. Crucially that would get me back in record shops because I'm not entrusting the post office to deliver vinyl.

These record clubs though, where groups of music fans sit in silence with the lights dimmed listening to vinyl, not being allowed to talk or text. That sounds a bit weird. Is this really how these artistes intended you to listen to their music? No, of course not. Otherwise why would they bother taking their music out on tour and play it in front of a thousand or more noisy fans in a sweatbox of a venue. If you’re not at a gig, you’re jumping and singing your way around the house to it. Well I am. When no one else is in.

The View, The Venue, Derby

2010-12-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

My last gig before Christmas and at the excellent Venue in Derby again. Three bands tonight. First up, Control. Who from their accent must have come down from Scotland with The View. They’re ok, although their lead singer seems to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder and seems a bit miffed about the lack of feedback from the small crowd. It’s early and they’re third band on the bill, what does he expect. Their indie-verging-on-punk sound is good though and their cover of ‘20th Century Boy’ is more than competent.

‘Love In The Asylum’ was, as I recall, a poem by Dylan Thomas. Whether this has any bearing on the name of the next band I have no idea but I think we can safely say it hasn’t influenced their sound. They too are good and better than Control, more accessible too. Almost at once the crowd seems into them, as everyone mutters ‘Kings of Leon clones’. Yep there’s a definite resemblance but on closer listen it’s not their actual sound, just Dan Dunne’s vocals. He could easily pass himself off as Caleb Fallowill in a very dark room, there is no physical resemblance. Their music though makes for a pleasant half hour.

After they’ve finished and the roadies have done their stuff, I check my watch and it’s already 9.45. Oh dear. Now we're worried. The later The View come on the drunker Kyle Falconer is likely to be. Then we watch the roadies load up the stage up with alcohol. Not looking good.

When they appear, the band are upright and looking 'up for it' in a sober looking sort of way. As they open with the ska-punk of ‘Wasteland’ they’re sounding good too. After which they launch in to what appears to be a love song, a new track called ‘Grace’ I believe. Blimey, sober times indeed.

The ante is upped by the excellent ‘5 Rebeccas’ with the band exhibiting far more energy than a strangely restrained crowd and it takes the following ‘Wasted Little DJs’ to get the audience fired up. The fire though soon goes out and newbie ‘Tragic Magic’ is met with muted applause and ‘Realisation’ off ‘Which Bitch?’ doesn’t seem to get any recognition at all.

Kyle and Kieren have by now swapped places and instruments, staying that way for ‘One Off Pretender’, played for the first time on this tour, and then sharing vocals on the oddly popular ‘Skag Trendy’.

The crowd meanwhile remain very subdued, not much dancing, hardly any beer throwing and certainly no crowd surfing. Has the View’s bubble burst or is it just a poor crowd? The band perhaps don’t help by playing no less than six new numbers and the unfamiliar songs stall the momentum when it does threaten to get going. If that’s the reason, it would be a shame, because I for one like hearing bands play new material and the View’s new stuff seems to be pretty inspired, decent songs with big choruses. In fact I would take them in preference to some of their odder older moments.

The band themselves seem to have moved on a touch. They are a tighter unit tonight, so much less ramshackle than of old. More mature perhaps. You simply don't feel it's going to fall apart any second. Perhaps that’s to the detriment... They’re note perfect most of the time and what’s this? Keyboards? When did that happen? And they’re definitely going a bit soft, ‘this is another one about a girl’ I think he tells us, although translation from Scottish to English often isn’t easy, and I think it’s called ‘Girl’. So it does what it says on the tin.

As Kyle announces that their new album is due in March, he doesn’t seem happy with the crowd, assuming he can see them through his fringe. He attempts to get a bit of banter going but it doesn't happen. This isn’t a banter friendly crowd, it's not really an anything crowd but also we can't decipher his Dundee accent. In fact we can barely catch more than a word at a time. So it doesn't happen. He's not happy about that. Cue a very inappropriate new song called 'Happy'. Which rather ironically turns out to be an infectious, corker of a track.

The crowd are so muted you forgot what is still to come and when ‘Superstar Tradesman’ arrives it’s almost a shock and it finally stokes the crowd a bit.

Then they’re bravely straight into a couple more new tracks. Although one of them, ‘Sunday’, is available for nothing from their website and it sounds excellent live. Then perhaps to emphasize their new found maturity Kyle reaches for a mug rather than a bottle. A mug? Get that. It could be coffee, although I suppose just as easily it could be full of a spirit. Who knows? Either way he’s still not enamoured with one of the least appreciative crowds I’ve seen in some time.

Despite finishing off with a storming ‘Shock Horror’ and the brief ‘Typical Time’, the band seem to have no intention of returning for an encore.

Finally there are cries of 'The View, The View, The View are on fire' but it’s too late. Bet they won’t be rushing back to play for us again in Derby. Tonight the View, whilst perhaps not totally aflame were certainly smouldering away nicely, unfortunately Derby wasn’t.

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Human League, Civic Hall, Wolverhampton

2010-12-04T00:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight, a bit of an 80’s night. The Human League at the Civic Hall.

Support comes from ‘(We Are) Performance’, a three piece from Manchester, who make a great sound. Although I keep looking around for their fourth member, the one who is bashing out all the amazing synth tunes. This is because they consist only of a suave looking singer, who’s good; a girl with a guitar who only strums about three notes (not that that’s a criticism, many a successful career has been founded on less) and an electronics whizz complete his MacBook but even he only seems to play a few electric drum gadgets. That's it. Music is so easy-peasy. When you have it all taped or sequenced.

Still, as I said, they’re very good, well they sound good. They’re also very in keeping with The Human League, who have pulled a sizeable crowd tonight. Rather worryingly though, I might be the youngest one here. Possibly. The combined age of the front row is terrifying. No crowd surfing please gents, not with those walking sticks.

The League take the stage and open with a new track from their forthcoming album ‘Credo’. The track ‘Electric Shock’ seems very well received. Perhaps it’s the hooded monk on vocals that swings it for them. Then the monk removes his hood and blimey, it’s Phil Oakey. The winner of the prize for the most dubious outfit worn on stage at a Human League gig and it’s not an easy one to win, competition is fierce.

Then we’re straight into a run of classics. I can happily report that Phil still can’t hit those high notes in ‘Open Your Heart’ but he never has been able to and it's never bothered him or us. ‘Mirror Man’ follows and then ‘Heart Like A Wheel’ introduced as one of former member Jo Callis’s anti-war songs and that is aptly followed by something in a similar refrain, ‘The Lebanon’. Which brings their frustrated guitarist, Nic Burke, to the fore. It’s good to see he’s still with them and hasn't jumped ship to AC-DC, where I think possibly his heart lies.

As the hits keep coming, ‘Louise’ followed by a couple from Dare, ‘Love Action’ and ‘Sound Of The Crowd’, it’s all very good but I do feel a bit duped. I was intrigued to come because this tour was supposed to be in support of their new album but that is not now out until March. So again tonight we generally get a greatest hits set, which is obviously what the masses want to hear but I wanted to hear what they’d been up to in the studio. Their last album ‘Secrets’ was very good indeed and hugely underrated.

Then came two old oldies. No disrespect to the girls, who went for a breather at this point (we're all getting to that sort of age), but ‘Being Boiled’ was absolutely ace, it sounded great and had the best light show of the night. ‘Empire State Human’, which followed, wasn’t too far behind either, with Phil playing a guitar strap keyboard.

The girls returned after a wardrobe change for the new single ‘Night People’ with its incredibly cheesy lyrics. The song isn’t bad but it seemed a lot of the crowd were perplexed by it and what it was doing ruining their night of nostalgia.

Then another one they probably didn’t know, ‘All I Ever Wanted’, from 'Secrets'. There was no doubting that everyone knew the closing threesome of ‘(Keep Feeling) Fascination’, ‘Tell Me When’ and ‘Don't You Want Me’ though.

‘Seconds’ was a bit of a surprise as the encore with Phil back in monk mode and again no girls. It was also stupendously good. No offence girls. Then they’re back, with another outfit for the closing ‘cover’ of ‘Together In Electric Dreams’.

All good stuff. I would have preferred to hear more songs from ‘Credo’, but that would have upset the masses. Maybe next time.

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Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Rock City, Nottingham

2010-12-03T00:00:00.000-08:00

Rock City haven’t got the stage times up for tonight’s concert but their website indicates three bands tonight so by getting there around 7.30 we expect to miss Dark Horses but we should be in time for the Duke Spirit, who I’m keen to see.

Not so. Leila Moss is just finishing up with their last track as we arrive. Only two bands tonight and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on at 8.00. Oh well, at least not long to wait. Thankfully the band have made it up from last night’s show in Portsmouth. I had a feeling a bit of weather wouldn’t stop them.

The gig is billed as part of Rock City's 30th Anniversary Celebrations, not that this means much. Most of their gigs this month seem to be. It’s still something worth celebrating though.

It’s also landmark time for BRMC. They will be performing their 1000th live concert at the Brixton Academy on December 11th, which makes this their 994th.

They are indeed on at 8.00 and play through for a full two hours. The sound isn’t great tonight and the band are beset by a few technical problems. After the opening ‘666 Conducer’, Peter Hayes’s amp appears to pack up. As they sort it. Robert Been picks up an acoustic guitar and breaks into an unscheduled rendition of ‘Sympathetic Noose’ off their acoustic diversion album ‘Howl’. Hayes’ meanwhile lights up a cigarette. Naughty.

Been doesn’t quite finish ‘Sympathetic Noose’ before the amp is sorted and the boys are back to full volume and power with ‘Stop’. About time. They never play that for me, until now.

When I say ‘the boys’, that is slightly incorrect. Shock Horror. Black Rebel now have a girl drummer. It was their drummer, Nick Jago, who kept drifting in and out of the band. Seems he’s currently out and his place has been taken by Leah Shapiro, who has worked with the Raveonettes. Of course, it's the done thing these days. It used to be bass players, and still is to a certain extent, but now its drummers.

Overall it’s a good solid show with a nice selection of old stuff blended with the new from this year’s ‘Beat the Devil's Tattoo’ album, which sounds much better live than on record, with 'Bad Blood' and ‘Half-State’ as good as anything they've done.

BRMC could easily survive on their no frills roof rattling numbers but instead, they deliver a good mix of slow and fast numbers. An old classic, ‘Whatever Happened to My Rock 'n' Roll (Punk Song)’, probably as old as Hayes’ shirt which has seen better days, gives way to an acoustic segment in the middle of the set.

At least Hayes’ shirt is black. Been takes off his leather jacket to reveal a very unusual site at BRMC gig, a white t-shirt. All his black ones must be in the wash.

The slow numbers include an unexpected cover of The Pogues ‘Dirty Old Town’ done solo by Been. An interesting choice to say the least. Then Hayes takes up the acoustic baton with ‘Complicated Situation’ and ‘The Toll’. It’s quite striking that a band known mainly for their wall of sound are still lifting a lot of stuff off ‘Howl’, showing how good that album actually was. Perhaps not everyone agrees though. Some of the crowd talk through the acoustic numbers; in fact it’s probably the most chattering I’ve ever heard at a gig. Shame on those people.

Later Been even sits at the piano for another mellow moment, ‘Long Way Down’, before they return to the heavier stuff with Baby 81's awesome ‘Berlin’ and ‘Conscience Killer’ off the new record before they end by giving us a right pummelling with an oldie, ‘Six Barrel Shotgun’.

The amp seemed to go again at start of the encore during ‘Spread Your Love’. Time for another smoke eh Peter? Soon sorted though, which leads us into a fairly slow and moody finish with a double header of the brooding extravagance of ‘Shadows Keeper’ and finally ‘Open Invitation’.

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We Are Scientists, Rock City, Nottingham

2010-11-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

With a door time of 6.30 we miss the opening band of three, Rewards. I didn’t even now we had three bands tonight.

We do catch second up, London’s Goldheart Assembly. Who were once supposed to be one of those happening bands but I don’t think much happened. Something might happen tonight though as they drag an oil drum on stage... The band have been known to use unusual objects as musical instruments and tonight appears to be no exception. Perhaps the fact that the bands two lead vocalists are both ex-zookeepers at Whipsnade Zoo accounts for such eccentricity or maybe not.

They start off a bit messily, with guitarist John Herbert on vocals, using the oil drum and I can’t really make head nor tail of their first two tracks. Track three though is mellower and much better with the bass player, James Dale, taking over vocals, which he seems to do from here on in. From there they kind of kicked on into a sort of more standard indie style and were rather good.

So to another hugely interesting set from We Are Scientists. Keith Murray and Chris Cain are two of the nicest guys you’ll ever see up on stage and rather appropriately they now have a song about ‘Nice Guys’ to open with. It’s probably not autobiographical, when Keith Murray singing ‘Nice guys finish last’ he can’t possibly be talking about himself and it doesn’t stop him complaining about the snow. Though I’m sure they have snow in America too. Perhaps he’s worried about it snowing in Rock City; it certainly seems cold enough in here tonight.

‘Chick Lit’ stokes an already lively crowd before ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ makes things really kick off. The oldies are still the favourites. So much so everyone susses the intro to ‘This Scene Is Dead’ even if Keith does try to disguise it a bit.

They roll ‘Inaction’ into it, a trick they do a few times, making up for the time lost to the inevitable stage banter which comes between most songs. Keith casually swigging on a beer, Chris appears to be on juice. The pair of them have a very good rapport with each other, honed through plenty of live shows, and with their audience. It’s clear they love what they do. Then Keith throws his beer at the drummer and... ‘It's A Hit’.

‘Impatience’ is eventful. First some random girl dances across stage and then Keith breaks a string. He gets tangled in his shoulder strap as he attempts a guitar change and it’s to his credit that he manages it without missing a single word of the lyrics.

For ‘Textbook’ Keith leaves the guitar duties to Aaron Pfenning of 'Rewards', who we missed earlier. I think Rewards is basically just him, although random dancing girl might also have something to do with it but I’m not sure. He’s one half of the band Chairlift, who I vaguely know of. I guess we should have been here earlier if we wanted to know everything.

Once he is guitar-less Keith climbs the crowd barrier so that he can get closer to his public, well mainly the adoring female ones. Of which there appear to be many. In fact later, as we do our usual post-gig debrief, my partner only really talks about Keith's bare midriff.

‘The Great Escape’ is as popular and proficient as ever, but also many of the new tracks from 'Barbara' are well received. Particularly 'I Don't Bite', lead single 'Rules Don't Stop' and the excellent ‘Jack & Ginger’. What their material lacks in variety they make up for with the sheer energy with which they deliver it live.

For the closing ‘After Hours’ Goldheart Assembly return to the stage accompanied by their oil drum, Aaron from Rewards and the random dancing girl for the usual communal sing-along. The Scientists always seem to bond with their support bands.

The encore of ‘Dinosaurs’ and ‘Cash Cow’ completes a short but very sweet gig, only just over the hour mark including encore.

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The National, Warwick Arts Centre

2010-11-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

Tonight we’re in the salubrious surroundings of the Warwick Arts Theatre on Warwick University’s campus to see The National. Last time we were here was a few months ago and among the acts on the stage was the Principal of the University thanking us for leaving our Son in his care for the next three years.

Support tonight’s comes from a band called Phosphorescent. The band is mainly a chap called Matthew Houck who performs with an ever changing group of musicians.

They were ok, worth a listen. In fact at first they were pretty impressive but they soon settled down and their alt-country/folk songs all became a bit samey, one paced. Houck himself has a strong, if slightly irritating voice and you can’t criticize his band for not giving their all because to a man they certainly did. In particular their keyboard player, whose face I never saw, but they were a blur of movement throughout. Their last track mixed things up a bit and started out a bit livelier before it too settling down into a similar comforting plod to the rest of their stuff. Probably just not my thing because they had plenty of admirers tonight.

Rewind to 2005 and my first trip to the Leeds Festival. It wasn't too big a wrench to desert the Queens Of The Stone Age on the main stage, not to my liking, to head to what was then the 'Carling Stage' for the breakthrough acts. A band from Brooklyn called The National were on there entertaining a small crowd. Warming up for the delights to come, mainly Saul Williams, Charlotte Hatherley and Ladytron... as I recall. I had been quite taken with some of the tracks on their second album, 2003's 'Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers' and at Leeds they were excellent. Playing a surprisingly up-tempo set which I later discovered was mainly drawn from their new album at that time 'Alligator'. That was five years ago.

Now two critically acclaimed albums later, 2007’s 'Boxer' and now 'High Violet', one of the albums of this year, they are playing venues such as the Warwick Arts Theatre and it’s far busier than the Carling tent was.

After an entry accompanied by Neil Young’s ‘On The Beach’, it’s with ‘Boxer’ they start and ‘Start A War’. Vocalist Matt Berninger stumbling around like a punk drunk fighter and telling the crowd off for whistling at him. He’s joking, I think, and all the band are in high spirits throughout the night, with the Dessner brothers, Aaron and Bryce on guitars, verbally sparring with Berninger between songs. The National are a very family friendly affair because completing the line up are another set of brothers, Scott and Bryan Devendorf. Bryan somehow smashing a cymbal during ‘Mistaken for Strangers’.

There’s also an additional two members touring with them, adding among other things trumpet and trombone to many tracks. Which are very evident on beefed up rendition of ‘Slow Show’, an often requested wedding song... so they tell us.

'High Violet' may be close on album of the year but it’s actually ‘Boxer’ that provides the most stand out moments tonight. The two I’ve just mentioned plus a very lively ‘Squalor Victoria’, a fantastic ‘Apartment Story’, what they describe as one of their many songs about social anxiety, and the closing ‘Fake Empire’.

They tell us a lot of stuff about their songs. ‘Afraid of Everyone’ is about how f***ed up American politics is. Whilst ‘Conversation 16’ turns out to be about marriage and not they say about cannibalism. I didn’t actually think it was...

They are excellent, if a tad too polished at times. What annoys most is that throughout the night they are fighting off requests for oldies. To be honest I didn’t expect much, if any, really old stuff because I didn’t think anyone would know it but the knowledgeable crowd tonight proved me wrong with their repeated requests. So why not give in and play some? They won’t. Claiming they have a set list to adhere to and anyway Berninger claims to not know the words... Then they do play ‘Available’ and a bit of ‘Cardinal Song’ off ‘Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers’ but it’s mainly a case of showcasing the quality of their last two releases. We get all but one of 'High Violet' and seven tracks from 'Boxer'.

'Alligator' is only plundered twice, first for a corking ‘Abel’ with Berninger screaming the chorus down the microphone at us and then for ‘Mr November’ in the encore, when he does similar.

The highlight from the new album for me is the utter misery that is ‘Sorrow’. Love it.

Finally they give into a request and say they will break band protocol for a guy near the front and insert a song into the set. It’s the excellent ‘Green Gloves’ but hardly an oldie and it’s not inserted, as it replaces a much older track ‘Lucky You’ from the ‘Sad Songs’ era, which is criminally binned.

Berninger croons his way through ‘Runaway’ to start the encore before fierce versions of ‘Mr. November’ and ‘Terrible Love’. They close though with an epic, attention grabbing, totally unplugged version of ‘Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks’. Which was just superb.

Aaron Dessner and Berninger start the song stood on speaker stacks close to the crowd before Berninger journeys deeper into the throng, standing on the crash barrier being held up by a fan and leading the audience in an acoustic sing-along. Terrific stuff.

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Interpol, Rock City, Nottingham

2010-11-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

My partner's only here for the blood, that is Florida’s Surfer Blood. After that I might have to keep her awake through the ninety minutes of the morose majesty of Interpol.

There has been quite a bit of internet chatter about Surfer Blood and they are certainly different from tonight’s headliners. For a start singer John Paul Pitts is attired a touch like a public schoolboy but they also sound totally different.

They launch energetically into their first track 'Fast Jabroni'. That is as energetically as a five piece crammed into such a limited amount of stage space can. It's a good song and they appear at their best when they are playing simple up-tempo guitar driven pop songs like that, rather than the few slower numbers they throw in.

However a few songs do veer off successfully into different styles and show they’re capable of mixing it up a touch, such as on ‘Twin Peaks’ where there’s all sorts of things going on. Their best known moment so far though is the annoyingly catchy anthem that is 'Swim', which closes their very short set.

The band are pleasant enough in a quirky sort of way but are just one of several bands doing this sort of thing at the moment. What other bands don’t have perhaps is a keyboard player with such impressive hair along with a set of maracas and other cool things that he keeps in a bag of tricks slung under his keyboard.

Presumably it's usually the record company’s idea but bands should never self title an album. It's just plain dull for a start and utterly pointless. You should know who the album is by, I would hope, and it's so lazy. It shows a lack of creativity which tends to be repeated throughout the tracks on the album, so it should serve as a warning to us buyers as well. If you must do it. First album only. Never after that. Certainly never your fourth as Interpol have done.

The signs are that the band themselves aren’t that enamoured with it either, which backs up my thesis, because only five tracks are played from it tonight. Add to that the fact founder member Carlos Dengler left straight after the album was complete to 'concentrate on other things'. Maybe this shows he wasn’t that keen on it either. That said; it isn’t too bad. A little underwhelming on first listen but it's a real grower. Carlos, you should have given it another spin mate.

'Success' the opener on the album and also the opener tonight, is slower, steadier and more funereal than their last two albums, harking back to the style of their debut, 'Turn on The Bright Lights'. Things immediately get a touch livelier with the next track, a rocking 'Say Hello To The Angels', proving that they had rare upbeat moments even on their debut album.

The plus side of the new album only being lightly touched upon was that tonight became pretty much a retro night and this yielded a quite brilliant set full of juicy treats with six tracks from each of their first two albums.

'Antics' supplies us with ‘Narc’, which soars along whereas ‘Length Of Love’, a nice extravagance, swaggers.

With Carlos D gone, the new boy on bass is David Pajo, who it has to be said is pretty anonymous throughout. Perhaps he’s nervous; he appears to have a quadruple brandy next to his water. Is this to help him get through it?

Main stays guitarist Daniel Kessler and main man Paul Banks, who met in a philosophy class you know, are positively lively by comparison. The band’s lack of mobility is legendary but they are far from statuesque tonight. Not that they leap around the stage or anything. That would have somewhat spoiled things.

Paul Banks is positively chatty, well almost. He even puts names to a couple of songs. Nice hat by the way Paul. He even smiles a bit. Daniel Kessler smiles a lot and his expertly delivered guitar hooks are accompanied by some neat footwork.

There’s only one track from 'Our Love To Admire', which was a bit harsh on what isn't a bad album and 'Rest My Chemistry' wouldn't have been my choice either but it’s affecting enough.

Everything is accompanied by a never ending fog of smoke that envelopes the barely lit stage, so the band all have their own little lights so that they can read their set lists. All this means there’s not a lot to aim the new camera at. So it’s just a case of stand back and appreciate the music which is as tightly performed and as expansive as expected.

The trio of hits from 'Antics', their more populist more upbeat album, are all present and correct: - 'Slow Hands', 'Evil' and 'C'mere' and it helps to lighten the mood of the darker stuff. Those numbers also blend well with recent single 'Barricade' but it was their choice of oldies that excites and makes it such a great night.

‘NYC’ isn’t always in their sets, which is a shame, as it’s just so fantastically moody and wonderfully done tonight, wallowing in its own exquisite misery. As for ‘Leif Erikson’. Just amazing. Well I think so but my partner is looking a bit bewildered. I guess with Interpol you either revel in their intensity or... well, not.

There are some new slow burning epics too. Particularly the dazzling 'Lights'. When Banks poignantly cries ‘That's why I hold you dear’ you feel that perhaps he means it.

They close with a thumping 'Not Even Jail' which means that 'The New', a real rarity that sent the forums all a chatter when it surfaced mid set at their last gig two nights ago in Germany after (apparently) seven years of not begin played, isn’t in the set tonight.

Ah, but it is. Disappointment turns to delight as the encore from heaven for any hardcore Interpol fan follows. Not that I would regard myself as hardcore but anyway. You would have thought it unlikely that they'd play 'Untitled' but to not only play it but then follow it with 'The New' and then 'PDA' is simply sensational. That’ll upset them and make them drool in equal measures back in their home country across the pond. That’s an entire encore from the darkest depths of ‘Turn on the Bright Lights’ and some way to finish.

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Gaslight Anthem, Rock City

2010-11-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

It’s an early start for Leamington Spa's Sharks, a 7.40 stage time, ten minutes after doors open. I'm stuck outside in the queue and suspect Sharks are playing to about fifty people but no. It's packed inside when I finally get in; they're already hanging from the rafters. What I see of Sharks is quite promising and thankfully they have nothing in common with the 70’s band of the same name. The only 70’s thing about them is lead singer/guitarist James Mattock’s sleeveless Exorcist t-shirt, a film that pre-dates him by a couple of decades.

He strikes a confident figure, has a strong voice and overall I like their lively punk sound. They’re also a good test platform for my new camera. Well they are until, amid much confusion, they abort their set a song early due to a broken drum kit. Just how do you break a drum kit? Not seen that before and how does it hold you back. One drum, possibly a snare, surely does not matter much but they go off anyway. I’ll forgive them; they’re a young band who haven’t learnt the art of improv yet. Then again many experienced bands haven't or simply can’t be bothered to improvise when required.

The chap who walks on next and slings his jacket on the floor before tuning up an acoustic guitar could have been a roadie but how many roadies do you see in a flat cap? No this is Chuck Ragan who certainly fits the experienced description. The American singer/songwriter has been a member of Florida rock band Hot Water Music since 1993.

Like the Gaslight Anthem’s last UK tour support, Frank Turner, Chuck is another ex-punk rocker who has picked up the acoustic and gone folk. They like their maverick acoustic performers do the Gaslight. I’m obviously going to say Frank is better and he is. Chuck was good though, a bit more ‘throaty’ with his vocals than our Frank and whereas Frank has an entire band to back him, Chuck just has his side kick, John on the fiddle. It’s all very, well folk. All we need now is a spot of harmonica, which duly arrives on track four. Anyone called Chuck has to have a harmonica. At which point things do veer dangerous into barn dance territory but between them they ignite Rock City with their sheer energy, Chuck n John quite a match. Move over Kate n Wills.

And so to the Gaslight, who again come on stage a good ten minutes early. Isn’t that refreshing? Provided of course you’re not running late yourself, and thankfully I’m not. They’re known for playing ‘value you for money’ slots but will be up against one of Rock City’s immovable curfews, so it’s good that they’re getting started early.

Opening with their recent single, odd choice though it was, ‘The Spirit of Jazz’ they get the place jumping straight away, through another newbie ‘Boxer’ and the cracking ‘Casanova, Baby!’

Then Brian Fallon launches into one of his huge monologues before they play ‘The Diamond Church Street Choir’, about cakes, and his mother, who told him that rock 'n' roll was from the devil and gives you STD's and he probably mentions other things but they are largely indecipherable due to his thick New Jersey accent. He rambles a bit, as perhaps you can tell and he’s fascinated by the balloons which have lights in them, so he bursts one to see how it works... and some lag predictably likens it to a condom, which is perhaps how we got on to STD’s and his mother, and maybe cakes but who knows. He’s prone to ramble a bit. Have I mentioned this?

Oh and he also has his flat cap on... and the band have a flat capped roadie. So there’s flat caps everywhere tonight, just shows what I know.

He could have probably talked all night but he’s wasting serious music time. Which when it comes is seriously good. Then he picks up a harmonica in middle of ‘Old White Lincoln’, what else.

Of course nobody can mention the Gaslight without mentioning Springsteen and the band are now clearly sick of the comparisons but they did dig themselves a rather large hole with their second, albeit brilliant, album ’The 59 Sound’ and then shovel the soil in over themselves by going on and on about it.

Now they say they’re moved on, grown up, but they will never get away from it. Though to be fair their new album ‘American Slang’ sounds nothing like Springsteen. It sounds like plenty of other things but not ‘him’. More importantly it sounds like them. Whilst despite the popularity of ‘The 59 Sound’, probably the reason for the near sell out tonight, their best album remains, in my opinion anyway, their first album ‘Sink Or Swim’ from which ‘We Came To Dance’ and ‘Wooderson’ are both particularly electric tonight.

On CD the new album comes over as perhaps a bit too glossy. Whose third album isn't? Live, as ever, it sounds much rawer. 'Stay Lucky' particularly appears faster and punkier, whereas some of the slower tracks sound much more epic and ‘The Queen of Lower Chelsea’ is a stand out moment.

Naturally there are a couple of covers. Wilson Pickett’s ‘In the Midnight Hour’ is instantly recognisable but Wayne Cochran’s ‘Last Kiss’ is met with many a bemused look and sends me scrabbling post-gig for someone with a stolen set list.

Then finally chance for the Brucie lovers to go ape with the closing duo of ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘The 59 Sound’ for which Chuck Ragan returns to the stage to assist.

The title track of 'American Slang' opens the encore but the highlight has to be ‘1930’ from 'Sink Or Swim' which follows. Before the slower ‘Miles Davis and the Cool’ leads us into the usual rousing finale of ‘The Backseat’.

A damn good night. They missed a few faves out but very few bands rotate a set list like these guys do, and they’ll be getting those in Leeds tomorrow.

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New Model Army, Rock City

2010-10-23T00:00:00.000-07:00

Back in 1985 I recall seeing New Model Army make an appearance on Top Of The Pops with their single at the time ‘No Rest’, which went top 30. Most striking, apart from the great song, was the bands T-shirts with the slogan ‘Only Stupid Bastards Use Heroin’ which the BBC didn’t quite know how to deal with, what with it being a bit too confrontational for them but at the same time appearing to give out some rather good advice, that probably fitted in with its remit as a public service broadcaster.

It wasn’t long after that that I was persuaded to go see the band in the flesh at Rock City. It soon became a regular occurrence, going through the routine of donning shin pads, putting all valuable belongings in a very safe pocket and double checking the life insurance before heading down to join in the mosh at these exceedingly 'lively' affairs. The band's fans have always said the concerts were friendly occasions even though you’d be counting the bruises afterwards. They may be more on the friendly side these days but in the earlier days I’m not so sure. Perhaps it was just other more unsavoury types attaching themselves to the band at that time.

This was all some time ago and I don’t think I’ve seen them in at least five years. Consequently I have somewhat lost touch with their material but rather like 25 years ago I’ve been persuaded down to Rock City tonight for the second of their 30th anniversary shows in Nottingham. Rock City has, despite the band coming from Bradford, become somewhat of an adopted home for them. The band are playing two consecutive nights in various cities worldwide playing a different set each night and supporting themselves. There are only two shows in Britain:- London and Nottingham, so people have come from far and wide tonight to pay homage. I hear they played 29 tracks last night and we’re due a completely different selection tonight. Tonight, by the way, really is their 30th anniversary. The bands very first gig was in their home town on 23rd October 1980. Exactly thirty years ago.

Justin Sullivan, the band’s lead singer, guitarist and only constant factor in the bands existence takes the stage a little after 7.20 with just an acoustic guitar and his fellow guitarist for company. It’s a gentle start and hey, I know this one, ‘Heroes’ from 1986’s ‘Ghost of Cain’ album opens the night. I don’t know much else of what follows, save for ‘Lovesongs’ again from ‘Ghost of Cain’, in a nine song ‘support’ slot which includes a mix of material across the 30th years of the band and even includes a b-side ‘Modern Times’.

Throughout this set they gradually build up the pace and the instruments, first the drummer joins them, then the bass player. Sullivan’s long term partner, the artist, novelist and poet Joolz Denby who has frequently worked with the band makes an appearance during ‘Space’ (from 1990’s ‘Impurity’) before they close the set with ‘Ocean Rising’ from last year’s ‘Today Is A Good Day’.

After a twenty minute break they return to the stage and are straight up to full throttle. The crowd are also now well warmed up and I let myself drift backwards away from the stage as mayhem erupts during ‘Christian Militia’ from their debut album 1984’s ‘Vengeance’, to avoid having to explain the multiple bruising to my partner later. Now they’re in my era. This is how I always remembered New Model Army nights absolutely heaving and one constantly moving dance floor.

Another obscure track ‘Falling’ gives way to a few newer numbers before another track from ‘Ghost of Cain’, unsurprisingly well represented, ‘The Hunt’ stirs things up again. The usual no crowd surfing signs were up at Rock City and I didn’t actually see anybody doing any but instead we get a bit of ‘crowd walking’.

At one stage they were building a human pyramid which predictably collapsed.

Security doesn’t usually put up with any of that sort of behaviour, not these days, but it appears as it’s a special occasion and it’s the ‘Army’, I think security have been given the night off.

‘Get Me Out’ from ‘Impurity’ and ‘Here Comes The War’ from 1993’s ‘Love of Hopeless Causes’ are more stand out moments before an awesome threesome close the set. ‘White Coats’ (1989’s ‘Thunder and Consolation’) is followed by ‘51st State’ (‘Ghost of Cain’ again). Referring to the subject of the song, Justin points out that ‘some things haven't changed in 30 years’. It’s a reworked version which verges into reggae territory in the middle but still doesn’t stop the crowd singing every word back at the band. Then finally the track I mentioned right at the beginning, ‘No Rest’ (1985’s ‘No Rest For The Wicked’) finishes things off.

They return for a five track encore, which may have been longer had it not been for another of those annoying 10pm curfews, that concludes with a double from ‘Thunder and Consolation’, ‘Stupid Questions’ and then finally what he describes as the only way to finish, with ‘I Love The World’.

If there’s a drawback for me, being an old git, is that there is only one track from each of their first two albums tonight. Particularly as I’d expected the place to be full of fellow old gits but surprisingly it’s not. There are an amazing number of people, who as Justin points out, were not even born when they started.

‘See you at the 40th’, says Justin. Yep, I imagine you will.

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Feeder, Leeds Metropolitan University

2010-10-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

Feeder re-emerged at the start of the year as Renegades and played two blindingly good low-key tours showcasing their new material. Now with an album of that name released they’re out to promote it but back under the Feeder banner.

The now familiar strains of ‘The Good, The Bad and The Ugly’ signal that this is going to be basically a Renegades show in all but name, but on a bigger scale and with the hits re-added to shut up the handful of hecklers who disrupted a few of those shows.

It’s also though, about bums on seats or more precisely feet on floors. Like a lot of bands they are finding that the records aren’t selling much but the gigs are. So the band are playing a lot of gigs at the moment and by the time their current schedule ends in March 2011 they will have played nearly 80 gigs in 15 months. Serious gigging and there's no sign they're done yet. Apparently have another album in the can, that may contain lighter material, though the band haven't confirmed this and to be honest Grant and Taka appear to love playing the heavier Renegades stuff so much. The record was originally rumoured to be out around now but it's now shelved until at least early next year, perhaps longer.

The band take to the stage, then seconds later ‘Barking Dogs’ launches itself out of the kennel and growls its arrival (sorry), opening the night in breathless fashion. A style that is typical of their new record.

If nothing else the Renegades experiment showed what a tight live band Feeder still are and you can hardly spot the join as they vault back eleven years for 'Insomnia'.

Like the opener, ‘Sentimental’ is also from that first Renegades ‘Black’ EP and its heavy chords continue the raucous theme. Feeder's new material has been a trip back to their dark side of old and a welcome one. A dark side of short, sharp, adrenalin fuelled tunes.

Even when they do show their lighter side, when the first of their two suicide infused power ballads arrives in the form of 'Feeling A Ooooh Ooooooh Ooooooh Moment', it’s as if the track has been taken out the back, given a bit of kicking and then let back on stage. It seems a much more intense animal tonight.

The band are just about still a three piece, although the keyboards are back for those softer moments, of which there aren’t that many but even then the keyboards are kept pretty much in the background.

‘Renegades’ itself, a track as good as anything they've ever done, with its subdued opening before it explodes into life, gets the crowd really jumping for the first time tonight and starting to appreciate this new/old Feeder sound.

Then just as the tone has been set, most of the big hits arrive in a clump in the middle with newbie 'Down To The Ooooh Ooooooh Ooooooh River' for company, and this disrupts the tempo a touch. Of the ‘big’ tunes, ‘Pushing The Senses’, which I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for, is the pick of the bunch. Pretty awesome tonight.

Karl Brazil is, with respect to Mark Richardson and the late Jon Lee, one of the ‘keenest’ drummers I’ve ever seen and he tries to leave the imprint of his drum kit on everything but I swear he was drumming something else, possibly ‘Home’, over the top of ‘Just The Way I'm Feeling’. Which has also been roughed up a bit at the edges but if anything comes out sounding a bit muddled.

Well ok, I don’t like it much anyway, the song grates on me but always has, though I can’t begrudge the band their moment. It’s such a sad song that draws heavily on Jon Lee's suicide. There’s also the fact, admittedly, that this song and the following one about drinking cider from a lemon get a very big crowd reaction.

Then we’re back to those heavy guitars for 'White Lines', so good they played it twice. Well the first verse anyway, after Grant messed up but I think he was the only one who noticed and then 'Home' which just seems to get faster each time they play it.

Throughout the show Taka Hirose prowls the stage with his bass guitar, showing no signs of his alleged passport problems. Apparently the Home Office don't believe he’s been living in this country since 1992... and if he went out of the country he may not get back in again. Which could cause a problem or two for the upcoming European Tour. Tonight though, he's seems to be an adopted Yorkshire man.

Unlike with ‘Silent Cry’, Grant seems to like their new record and pulls heavily on it tonight. Whereas on the tour for that album they played very few tracks from it live. So it’s no great surprise to hear nothing from that album tonight. Perhaps they’re trying to forget that record ever happened, which would be shame. Just one track tonight would have been a nice touch but Feeder never were big on surprises. Well until recently, when the Renegades tour briefly broke the mould.

The big moment for me comes after they close the set with ‘Call Out’ and return for the encore for which the crowd are already singing ‘da da da’. For God’s sake Grant just play the damn thing when they ask for it and don’t be so predictable by leaving it until the end. Better still, why not blow everyone’s mind and open with it or something. Encores should be for surprises.

I had mentally pencilled in a ‘predictable’ encore of ‘High’ followed by ‘Seven Days’ and that ‘da da da’ number but we do get a treat. Even a surprise if you like. ‘We’ve not played this one for a while’ he admits, as he lights up my evening with the wonderful ‘Yesterday Went Too Soon’, performed all too rarely. You see, it’s not difficult, I’m easily pleased. One more like that and they’ll be carrying me out on a stretcher.

Then he decides to ditch 'the big rock ending' he said they had planned (probably ‘Godzilla/The End’) and play some old ones instead. ‘Ooh good’ me thinks, fingers crossed for 'Sweet 16' and 'Descend' again, which were so wonderfully resurrected for those Renegades shows. Get that stretcher ready... but no. He means ‘Seven Days’ and that ‘da da da’ number. Well suppose they are old too, it’s been ten years now. Nothing from ‘Silent Cry’ is maybe understandable but nothing from either ‘Polythene’ or ‘Swim’ is just criminal.

That said it’s a lively finish, a good finish, sending the crowd into delirium and yes I do love ‘Just A Day’ as much as everyone else but it’s all a bit too predictable.

Still an excellent gig though. The Renegades stuff still sounds awesome and largely blends with the older stuff well. Now if Grant just had the conviction to draw on their amazing back catalogue a bit more, because he clearly has a liking for the grungier stuff, then we'd really be in business.

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Delays, Sheffield University SU

2010-10-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

It’s October, so it must be about time for another Delays gig.

We miss the tackily named ‘Scars on 45’ but catch the unusually named Ruberlaris from nearby Chesterfield, who seem to have a bit of a ska/reggae thing going on. Well, at least the lead singer/guitarist Chris Alsop does. Sometimes I think the rest of the four-piece band, who apparently are usually a five-piece with a saxophonist added, are playing something more conventional but it all blends together quite well. Lyrically he is strong too.

The band struggle at first to get much reaction, other than warm applause from the small crowd, because it’s still quite early in the evening but the crowd gradually warm to their high tempo music and energetic stage presence. They’re pleasant enough but really not my thing.

After a short delay (that’s nearly a pun), Greg Gilbert bounces onto the stage in typical Greg Gilbert fashion, wearing what I’m almost sure is the same shirt he always wears when we see the band live. I just hope he washes it occasionally.

‘Girls On Fire’. It's back. The Bodega in June was good but this is already better, they didn’t play it then. Well its better until I start getting picked on. That's all I need the lead singer having a go at me for not clapping to ‘Lost In A Melody’. It’s not even one of my favourites. Then he seems to keep his beady eye on me all night which, I think, makes my partner a touch jealous.

Greg introduces ‘One Night Away’ as just a song from ‘Faded Seaside Glamour’, their first album. I don’t recall them playing it before but I’m sure they must have, just not recently. I always like it when bands chuck in an obscure oldie. The song ends with a touch of feedback and morphs into the excellent ‘Friends Are False’.

Four tracks in and nothing new yet, nothing from their new album ‘Star Tiger, Star Ariel’. Then ‘Find a Home’ appears but the only track we’ve not heard before is ‘May '45’ which appears mid-set. That apart there’s a lack of new stuff.

A chap in the crowd keeps yelling for his favourite song but he doesn’t actually know the name of the song he keeps yelling for. Aaron fights him off once but then Greg has a go when he requests ‘In Bittersweet Sunshine’ for the third time. ‘How can I play that when I aint f***ing written it yet?’ he protests before launching into ‘In Brilliant Sunshine’.

Tonight I think it's possibly the liveliest Delays crowd I've seen, the place had filled up considerably, adding to the small crowd who witnessed Ruberlaris. The band are as lively as ever, well Greg is, he even bounces his shoe laces undone during ‘Wanderlust’.

‘Panic Attacks’ is accompanied by an order to ‘get your arms up Sheffield’ and I’m sure he’s looking at me again. He hasn’t got much time to hassle me though; they seem to be in a rush now, up against another Saturday curfew. To coin a phrase or an album title, ‘Everything’s A Rush’. (Mental note: in future pick midweek gigs for longer sets).

‘Hideaway’, ‘Nearer Than Heaven’ and ‘Valentine’ end the set with the crowd continuing the latter even after the band have left the stage.

They return and Aaron protests about the curfew, ‘they’re trying to kick us out’. Yes but you were late coming on mate. They still run slightly over budget with ‘You And Me’ and ‘The Earth Gave Me You’ appropriately from the aforementioned ‘Everything’s A Rush’.

I’ll let my partner sum it all up. ‘Such nice boys’, she says. So there you have it.

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Twilight Sad & Errors, Stealth

2010-10-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight's gig could be a difficult one to blog. The Twilight Sad appear to have no website, no forum, no recent setlist.fm listings and no live reviews of their current tour. Add to this the fact that, although they have a great line in song titles, the titles bear little or no relation to the song, so much so that the band themselves can’t even remember them and resort to cryptic codes on their own set lists. Then throw in instrumental band Errors as support and you can see I’m going to be in for a tough evening set list wise. Even if the bands were to introduce everything, what with them both coming from in and around Glasgow, it probably wouldn't help as I won’t be able to understand the accents.

So first, Errors, last seen at Summer Sundae wedged between The Besnard Lakes and Los Campesinos. They are billed as co-headliners, which means they get fifty minutes on stage and I suppose theoretically even an encore.

Well, honestly I haven't a clue what they played but it was good and the small crowd at Stealth approved. There was nodding aplenty from a crowd desperate to sing along to their infectious blend of electronics mixed with traditional guitars and drums, but with nothing to sing along to, a good old nod had to do instead. Sorry... I just don’t really go for instrumental bands. I'm not sure of the point but presumably they are. Perhaps, to get their music used as backing tracks by the BBC. Which these days seems to be the ultimate endorsement for any slightly obscure band and in this case the BBC don’t even have to strip the vocals off. How convenient is that?

Errors like everything just so. Their lead man Simon Ward seems a bit of a perfectionist, often signalling instructions to the sound desk and then smiling to himself when it all goes to plan. The Twilight Sad on the other hand are much more rough and ready, brash even. They start loud with the lead track from their new EP ‘The Wrong Car’ and get louder.

By track two, ‘That Birthday Present’, I had already realised that in my eagerness to get a look at their set list I have made a tactical error. I am standing far too close to guitarist’s Andy MacFarlane’s amp because the wall of guitar noise that he is producing is now swallowing me whole. So much so that most of the time I can’t hear James Graham’s vocals at all or the keyboards. I know there are some keyboards in there somewhere.

I consider moving across to the other side of the stage to see if I can hear the keyboards or perhaps moving to the back in the hope that I can hear everything but then a) I wouldn’t be able to see and b) I fear the damage has already been done to my eardrums.

Their albums, particularly their first one ‘Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters’, are quite sombre affairs which did not quite prepare me for the intensity of the band live, where the cacophonous noise dominates everything, unlike on record, where the guitars are reigned in, letting the vocals shine.

More blistering guitars obscure their finest vinyl moment, set listed as ‘hit single’, more commonly known as ‘That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy’. Gripping his microphone in both hands, James Graham’s face is a mass of anguish as he delivers his impassioned vocals. Sometimes I can even make them out and at the moment he is informing us that his ‘kids are on fire in the bedroom’.

He frequently stands sideways to the crowd, appearing lost in his own world and I can see why he’s often compared to Ian Curtis, although isn’t everybody these days. Although this guy even sound-checked like I imagine Ian Curtis would.

‘I'm Taking the Train Home’ is equally piercing and far louder than its vinyl counterpart. The floor starts shaking. Did I mention that the Twilight Sad are loud? Very loud. Not just ear bleeding loud but nose bleeding loud and probably causing internal damage loud too. As I walked down to the gig tonight I had to thread my way through the hoards queuing to get in to see Mumford & Sons at Rock City, probably less than a hundred yards away as the crow flies and this lot are trying to drown them out.

Then a quiet moment. A slow burning start to ‘Cold Days From The Birdhouse’, sung pretty much guitar-less, until the song eventually bursts into life, well exploded if I’m honest and practically blasted the head off the front row. The song as a whole though worked well live and was undeniably the best bit tonight.

Then to close, the noisier but still slow building, ‘And She Would Darken The Memory’ driven again by MacFarlane’s guitar and the powerful drumming of Mark Devine.

Then James Graham thanks us all for coming and for not going to see Mumford & Sons. Wouldn’t have mattered, we’d have heard them from there anyway. I leave with my ears ringing. That was one incredibly loud gig. As an overall spectacle it was rather impressive. 10 out 10 for intensity but a lot less for audibility. I have to say overall the experience was a little underwhelming. I’d go again but next time, perhaps I’ll stand further back.

I’ve made a good stab at that setlist.

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NME Radar Tour, Rescue Rooms

2010-09-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

I should have been reviewing the Emerge NME Radar Tour but unbeknown to me it was a 10pm curfew. Should have guessed really. The doors opened at 7pm and Flats were apparently on soon after, so we missed them completely. Sorry guys.

Wilder aren’t even here, choosing to only play three of the dates on the tour. Presumably they won’t play Nottingham because they don’t want to detract from their own headline show at the Bodega in three weeks time.

Chapel Club were on at 7.45, so when we arrived just after 8pm it was to the sound of ‘O Maybe I’ being belted out from the stage. We assume it was from the stage, we can’t see it because it's so busy. Full. Blimey, wasn't expecting this. We can barely get in the door. So we head back outside to go up to the balcony. Closed. No balcony. Odd. Ok. So we're going to have to fight for a decent spot. When we get closer we suddenly burst out into a clearing. No one is anywhere near the stage. Why is that people are often too ‘shy’ to stand close to the support band? Anyhow not our problem. Voilà, front row.

We only get to hear four tracks from Chapel Club, but they are good, very good. Not remotely chatty though. I’m just getting really really into it when ‘All The Eastern Girls’ and ‘Paper Thin’ close the set. We were handed a CD of ‘All The Eastern Girls’ when we walked in which was odd as I thought that was their new single but it turns out it’s just a blank disk to burn the track on to. Odd concept.

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There’s not much setting up to do because while Chapel Club have had their drum kit in the ‘traditional’ position at the back of the stage, the Joy Formidable’s Matt Thomas always has his sideways on. I thought this must be due to space constraints at some of the small venues they've played but no, apparently not. Lifestyle choice. I suppose it makes him more visible.

He takes the stage alone, amongst the golf balls in bird cages and what appears to be British Sea Power’s air raid siren at the back of the stage. He starts to play, then Ritzy and Rhydian come on to join him. ‘Cradle’. Magnificent as ever. The golf balls turn out to be fairy lights. Well weird.

Next up, the only truly unfamiliar track of the night ‘Magnifying Glass’, which ends with Ritzy spilling her wine for what she says is the third night in a row. Someone brings her the whole bottle, which she then ignores for the rest of the night. Ungrateful or what.

The new single ‘I Don't Want To See You Like This’ follows but there is a lack of new material considering they have an album coming out in January. In fact there’s less unfamiliar stuff than when we saw them last in Derby and that was back in June last year. What’s worrying me is that they are now referring to last year’s ‘A Balloon Called Moaning’ album not as an ‘album’ but as a ‘mini album’, saying that in January they will release their ‘debut’ album. Which all sounds like record company talk to me and probably, but hopefully not, just an excuse to recycle a lot of the three year old tracks off the previous record. That’s not a good route to take, just look at bands like ‘Glasvegas’. They have been stuck in a creative rut playing the same songs over and over for five years now whilst their audience has got bored and moved on.

Then the band fall back on those three year old ‘classics’ to which they’ve added some intros and some outros, generally extending them. It’s time to crack open the Kopparberg. ‘Greatest Light’. Awesome of course. ‘Austere’. Superb. The sound often isn’t the best in Rescue Rooms but they certainly make it work for them tonight.

It’s quite a show; they’ve clearly worked on their performance and polished up their stage show. Though Ritzy almost gets a symbol in the face when she fronts up to Matt on the drums.

My favourite JF track and the best moment tonight is last year’s ‘Greyhounds In The Slips’ single, simply ferocious tonight, but there is no place in the set for its follow up ‘Popinjay’.

Then Ritz picks up an acoustic and we get a surprise in the middle of the set. Well more of a shock really. I can’t complain, I love an obscure moment and this was one. They play a slowed down version of 'My Beerdrunk Soul', which was their ‘Christmas song’ of a few years ago. It’s perhaps a bit early for all that but then I’m sure a lot of the population have already completed their Christmas shopping. I hope Ritzy Bryan isn’t one of them.

Then it’s back to that non-album of last year and Matt’s orgasmic drumming intro to ‘The Last Drop’. Ritz, very well spoken tonight, thanks us all for coming and they close with an eventful ‘Whirring’. During which I thought she was going to do a 'Leeds' on us with her guitar. At the festival she totally smashed up her guitar but tonight the air raid siren gets it instead. I just hope BSP don’t want it back undamaged. Matt has a bit of a fit with his sticks and Rydian breaks a string on his bass. He starts kicking it on the floor and into Ritzy, accidentally I assume. It’s all a bit unnecessary really. Good gig though.

There’s no encore, presumably because of the damn 10pm curfew. It’s a shame because the crowd seemed up for more but it didn’t happen. We were out the venue just before 10pm. How often does that happen?

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Wolf Parade, Glee Club, Birmingham

2010-09-12T00:00:00.000-07:00

Having been smitten by the Handsome Furs, whom I stumbled across last year, it only seemed natural to investigate Dan Boeckner’s other band, Wolf Parade, who conveniently booked a date at the Nottingham Rescue Rooms but then later cancelled it, citing scheduling issues. So rather than being disappointed we decide to go to Birmingham, where they are playing the Glee Club... which conjures up horrid images of America TV programmes...

The Glee Club is actually predominantly a stand-up comedy venue that has expanded into music. Situated in Birmingham's Chinese Quarter close to the Hippodrome Theatre, it opened in 1994. Since then they have opened venues in Cardiff, Oxford and now this month, one is scheduled to open in Nottingham.

Quite what the name has to do with comedy I’m not sure, the TV series had one thing right; traditionally a glee club is to do with music.

Support tonight is from Peter Kernel, who we thought was probably a soloist but may even have been a comedian but we’re totally wrong. ‘He’ is a three piece from Switzerland and as they start up, the floor immediately starts to throb under the assault of the very heavy bass. My ears will probably be out of commission tomorrow. Musically they sound a bit like our own Johnny Foreigner with the interplay of words between their female bass player and male guitarist. Then again, the girl kind of fancies herself as a Kim Deal I reckon and the chap doesn’t do anything to dispel the Pixies comparisons. That all sounds quite promising but for all that they are oddly unsatisfying.

So to Montreal’s Wolf Parade. I’ve been digging though Wolf Parade’s first two albums which are full of great moments but something about them just doesn’t completely satisfy then last month their new album ‘Expo 86’ dropped through my letter box and it’s bloody brilliant.

The ‘Expo’ is that big exposition ‘fair’ type thing that Prince Albert started up 150 odd years ago and now travels around the globe every year. Expo 86 was held in Vancouver and apparently that is where five young boys first became friends and made a pact to meet up sometime in the future to form a rock band. Believe it or not, that is the alleged beginning of Wolf Parade.

But never mind all that, they are now just a four piece who still find time to do Wolf Parade between their assorted side projects. The band take the stage and Dan Boeckner launches into ‘Soldier's Grin’ from their second album.

Boeckner, on the guitar, democratically shares lead vocal duties with keyboard player Spencer Krug, who promises us a mix of old and new songs without obviously playing the one you really want to hear. He takes vocals on ‘What Did My Lover Say?’ off the new record before handing back to Boeckner for another new song, the wonderful ‘Palm Road’.

Krug and Boeckner have complementary but differing styles and talents. Krug’s songs are more poetic and melodic such as on ‘Dear Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts’ and he works away busily on his array of keyboards and other assorted electronic gadgets. He is not only a man in dazzling control of the technology at his fingertips but it is equally enthralling to see him perfectly in control of his stool, which he rarely sits on but instead manages to pivot around with his foot, never once losing control of it.

Boeckner is more old school. He belts out his numbers and pours passion into both his singing and his guitar playing. Whipping songs like ‘Pobody's Nerfect’ off the new ‘Expo 86’ up into a fervent, hot-blooded frenzy.

As a new recruit to the Wolf Parade cause I find all the new songs sound terrific tonight, although so too do oldies such as ‘This Hearts on Fire’ and ‘I'll Believe in Anything’ which are less familiar to me.

When they are not playing the lead Krug and Boeckner back each other up well, letting their respective instruments take a more background role. Everything combines together very well. In fact, the band as a whole have a lot of chemistry and that always makes for a good live show. On the other side of Krug to Boeckner is Dante DeCaro pummelling his guitar as hard as Boeckner does while behind them Arlen Thompson is a thunderous presence on the drums.

Damn good stuff.

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Jónsi, Birmingham Academy

2010-09-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight when I arrive at the Birmingham Academy, ‘Riceboy Sleeps’ an instrumental album by Jónsi and his other half, Alex, who is also part of his band tonight, is playing. I have missed the support band, Mountain Man, who are (obviously) three girls from Vermont, USA. That's the first time I've missed a support for a while.

I’m not sure what I’m expecting tonight. Only that the whole Jónsi experience is going to be a bit different. Jón Þór Birgisson is better known as the guitarist and vocalist of Sigur Rós, a kind of Icelandic Cocteau Twins. A band who, after 16 years in existence, are now on ‘indefinite hiatus’ presumably having temporarily ran out of new ethereal soundscapes to craft and have all gone off to have babies, an option not open to Jónsi.

The thing with Sigur Rós was... well... I have to be able to sing along to my music, which is why this new wave of instrumental bands just don’t do it for me and with Sigur Rós, Jónsi went one better than being instrumental and choose to sing not just in Icelandic but also in some made up hybrid that he called Hopelandic, or Double Dutch if you prefer. Tonight though, cue drum roll, because Jónsi’s debut solo album 'Go' is predominately in English, we won’t need subtitles, mostly.

Suddenly a couple of chaps amble on to the stage, catching everyone by surprise and probably some folk still at the bar. It’s the man himself and his drummer Doddi. It’s the most low-key of low-key starts ever and Jónsi keeps it simple for ‘Stars in Still Water’ with just his guitar and a little added glockenspiel courtesy of Doddi.

The rest of the five piece band join them on stage, then after dabbling with the English language on the opener, Jónsi reverts to Icelandic or whatever for ‘Hengilás’, while Doddi get serious with the glockenspiel playing it with a couple of large orchestral bows.

The music I suppose is broadly similar to that of Sigur Ros but far easier to get into, the songs are shorter, happier, poppier. Making it all more accessible for the Academy crowd tonight. The somewhat large Academy is though, I would guess, only about half full.

The set seems to be cleverly structured. The slow numbers come first, building things up, through moments like the thumping bass drum finale to ‘Icicle Sleeves’, eventually bringing us to the faster numbers, whilst saving the epic ones until last. Not that it's not all epic.

The band alternate between a selection of instruments, continually swapping roles, while Bass player Ulfur Hansson plays with a brace on his hand. His thumb struck permanently upwards after slicing his hand open on broken glass after their Gothenburg show last week. They all engage in what appears to be a mass xylophone love-in session before ‘Tornado’ and then Jónsi takes over at the piano for ‘Sinking Friendships’ as he works his way through the entirety of ‘Go’ plus a smattering of unreleased tracks.

Visually too it is spectacular. A continually changing animated backdrop accompanies the music, brings us a steady flow of assorted woodland animals, birds and even a wolf who appears to be stalking them all.

So far he hasn’t uttered a word to us and then when he does, to introduce ‘Go Do’, it’s such a shock no one knows what to say. There seems to be a brief moment of embarrassed silence on both sides before he picks up a ukulele and then suddenly an audience that has been mainly transfixed to the spot so far, is suddenly rocking to ‘the hits’.

He even offers the mic to the crowd during ‘Animal Arithmetic’... Yeah right. Love to mate but... even in English the lyrics still tend to leave you a little bewildered ‘Wake up, comb my hair, making food disappear, riding bikes, making out, elephants swimming down...’

He slow things down again with something called ‘New Piano Song’ which is a bit more than what the name implies. Then to close ‘Around Us’ for which he starts seated at the piano before seamlessly handing over the ivories to come back centre stage. The set ends with the band leaving Jónsi alone crouched at the front of the stage doing his best ‘My Bloody Valentine’ impression only without the guitars, generating plenty of feedback with only a microphone at his disposal.

The band return quickly for an encore with Jónsi wearing a Red Indian head dress and starts with the up-tempo ‘Sticks and Stones’ from the score to the film ‘How to Train Your Dragon’. Then to finish ‘Grow Till Tall’ appropriately grows in stature, the animated screens fill with rain and the band are drenched in strobe lights as the show comes to a dramatic conclusion.

Then after the encore the band come back on to the stage, take a bow and clap the audience, just like at the theatre, and it’s a nice touch.

Well... It was unique. Different. An experience. Rather good actually. Well worth going to see ‘Go’.

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Frank Turner, The Venue, Derby

2010-08-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

Frank Turner is everywhere, he seems to be always performing somewhere, always touring. So much so that the options to see him were quite diverse for his upcoming December tour, from the large new Leicester Academy to the, by comparison, tiny Sheffield Plug. Then he announced a couple of warm-up gigs for his Reading and Leeds Festival appearances. Derby's excellent The Venue being one of them. Sold.

First though a Turner wannabe and perhaps apprentice, Ben Marwood. Who appears to have taken a couple of days off work and travelled for five hours up from Reading to be here tonight. After tomorrow’s appearance with Frank in Kendal he intends to be back at his boring desk job on Friday morning. That’s some schedule.

We are glad though that he took the trouble. He describes himself as ‘either a rubbish version of James Blunt or some kind of deity, depending on who you listen to’. Tonight Derby thinks it’s the latter and he seems quite taken aback by the reception he gets and deserves. It is the quality of the real life tales in his lyrics that make his songs so strong, the music accompaniment coming only from his acoustic guitar.

There are so many great lines of his that I could quote but ‘I will still be this cynical when I get paid and I’ll be this way until I get laid’, somehow stands out, from a track called ‘Oh My Days’. He does though, seem to have an obsession with ‘Get Cape, Wear Cape’ and whether they actually stole his sound or not... There may be a story to tell here but it’s not one he divulges tonight. It’s mentioned on his MySpace and in his second song tonight ‘Question Marks’.

His ‘moment’ though is probably his penultimate song ‘Singalong’ which is sheer genius. He endeavours to get the crowd to sing with him and of course succeeds with the great singalong chorus ‘Tried to write a singalong but we all forgot the words’. Marwood seems to be a bit of a star in the making, one to watch out for I think.

Talking of a deity, here’s Frank, with his punk folk songs straight from the heart. Opening with ‘Eulogy’, a great little new song and I mean little; it’s very short before ‘Poetry Of The Deed’ kicks off what proves to be an exceedingly hot and sweaty gig. It’s serious hot being amongst the crowd but it must be worse on stage and the band are soon dripping with sweat as they pack a lot of songs in early before Franks reverts to storytelling later, as he slows the pace.

His following seems to be ever increasing but one thing you don’t seem to get many of is the casual fan. The sold out crowd tonight are buzzing and just as fervent as every other Frank crowd I’ve seen. They know every word and can keep up, even in the fast bits such as on ‘Reasons Not To Be An Idiot’ which comes early. I can’t.

He explains the story behind ‘To Take You Home’ about a French girl who wasn’t that into him but he wrote the song about her anyway. He went all the way to Paris on the Eurostar to play it to her but before he could even tell her about it, she dumped him. So he says he swore never to play it... well we can’t keep all our promises can we.

For ‘Dan’s Song’ he needs a harmonica player and a girl in the audience has her hand up before he even asks, so she gets the gig. A plant? I don’t think so, just an avid fan who clearly knows the form and she clearly been practising, she’s very good.

Then a new song and a chance to ‘f**k off to the bar’ as Frank puts it. It’s not so new that it hasn’t been on YouTube though, a lot of the audience know it and are more than willing to join in when asked. A bit subdued at first but once Frank points out at how loud the Germans were last week, the volume is upped. As he says a touch of xenophobia works wonders.

Then the very sad ‘Long Live The Queen’. A song in memory of a good friend of his who died from breast cancer. It is such a powerful song, so well written and heart breakingly sad. Her death was a tragedy but yet the message is to celebrate her life, as she lived it to the full and that's what everyone should do.

As usual as the show draws to its close, Frank thanks everyone, his band of course but also all his crew as well. Then Ben Marwood joins him on stage for the closing ‘Photosynthesis’. A good job too, someone has to play acoustic guitar on it as Frank has shredded yet another guitar string.

Frank comes back solo for one more song but not before he’s requested that a shot of Jamesons be brought up from the bar. That’s not a shot; it looks like at least a double. Whiskey in one hand, lager in the other, he embarks on another of his long stories before he invites everyone to settle down with him around the ‘kitchen table’ without a mic for a communal rendition of ‘The Ballad Of Me And My Friends’.

This is supposed to be a festival warm-up, ‘f**k the festival’, he proclaims, ‘the shows here’ where we ‘have all the best stories to tell...’. Too right.

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Summer Sundae Weekender (Sunday)

2010-08-15T00:00:00.000-07:00

Day three. It’s sunny. The mud has baked nicely dry and its firm enough to sit on, as many folk do as Jose Gonzales's band Junip take the main stage for a spot of Spanish guitar laden electro from Sweden.

Indoors it’s instrumental band Errors, a pounding mix of synths, guitar and drums. We’ve seen a few like this recently. They are excellent but instrumental just doesn’t do it for me... they need a vocalist. Wonder if Mark E Smith is still in the building.

We’re back at the main stage just as Low Anthem go totally acoustic and shun all modern forms of amplification. This is fine at your typical spit and sawdust intimate venue but a main stage outdoors... The consequence is that most of quite a large assembled crowd have no idea what’s going on as they perform to solely the first five rows.

Once they plug back in, they have their moments but we want to get front row for Los Campesinos!, so we hurry back indoors, where we hear Gareth sound-checking with a few Mumford swear words, who headline the main stage later.

Sunday was on paper the best day at the festival. Drowned in Sound have sponsored today’s indoor line-up and it’s a pretty good one with LC! followed by Frightened Rabbit and then The Futureheads.

As Los Campesinos! take the stage a quick head count confirms that they are eight strong today. Thankfully there’s lots of room for them on stage this time, plenty of room for Gareth to show off his lack of dancing skills, unlike last time we saw them at the Musician. They turn in a typically perky set, perfect festival music which is perhaps why they pull the biggest indoor crowd of the day.

Their only other previous trip to Leicester, that show at the Musician, is where Gareth tells us they had their merchandise stolen. Now he has another reason to remember Leicester... During the closing ‘Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks’ Gareth gestures to the crowd to clear a space for him to jump into. Then as he leaps he seems to catch a foot on the barrier and goes down head first. If only they’d been someone there to catch him... The band, such professionals, play on regardless and Kim picks up the vocals, meanwhile the crowd peel Gareth off the floor boards and the splinters out of his face. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to be in too bad a shape.

Local Natives are now on the main stage and are livelier than I expected. The big news is though that the real ale has run out, so it falls to Frightened Rabbit to lift my rapidly sobering mood. They are another band we've only seen on tiny stages, so also must be revelling in the extra space. They also come now with added polish, a feature of playing so many gigs I suppose.

Scott tells us the rabbits were indeed frightened by a scary flight into Birmingham this morning. They play an oddly short fifty minute set, shorter than LC!

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Mumford and Sons’ sound probably suits the outdoor arena. Though I’m not sure how they’ll stretch their limited output to fill a headline slot but there’s plenty of people willing to find out. We linger a while and they sound good, their album transferring to an outdoor arena much better than I thought it would. We have divided loyalties though and nip back indoors to catch the onslaught that is the Futureheads.

Their simple rock sound is a punchy and fitting finale to the weekend.

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Summer Sundae Weekender (Saturday)

2010-08-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

I send my partner off ahead to the festival as I take in the football. Her mission, should she choose to accept it, is among other things, to report back on X-Factor ‘star’ Diana Vickers... Audience dividing might be a polite way of putting it. She doesn’t watch for long, nor does she linger long in the company of Paul Simon’s offspring Harper either. Though she does brave the front row and the rain for Turin Brakes, who I’m reliably informed were excellent ‘Summer rain, dripping down your face again’, how apt... whatever that song’s about.

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I arrive soon after and we rendezvous outside the knitting tent, where else, where I’m told we’re heading inside for a spot of tongue... I mishear, she says Tunng. Which turns out to not be a Norwegian fish dish being sold by one of the many eclectic food sellers but a UK band specialising in something they call folktronica. The hall is packed and it's not even raining, at the moment. Brilliantly quirky.

Then we wade through the mud to the main stage for the hotly tipped Stornoway. Who are more folksy than I expected and pleasant but also rather empty sounding.

Back indoors, Canada’s Caribou take an age to set up but I guess it’s their own stage time they’re wasting. ‘Inventive funk grooves’ my programme says from a chap called Dan Snaith who’s been around in many guises for a decade or more. Seems he can’t make his mind up about his sound and still hasn’t.

That said all the bands indoors are sounding better than those outside in the wind and the rain. Funny that, acoustics are a wonderful thing. Why would any band plump for the outdoor stage?

Then to the continually full Musician Tent from which a pair of female lungs in full flow can be heard. I like a bit of girl rock, so we battle our way inside for the first time and to the front, where we discover Tiffany Page on the far too low stage.

Visibility is still close to nil even near the front but at least you can feel the sweat and the spit off her and her band. I approve but I get tugged away from this rock chick and instead we head to the Rising Stage and a US band called Fool’s Gold who specialise in African rhythms. They deliver a lively and colourful show but they’re not Tiffany...

Nor, back on the main stage, are Brighton’s The Go! Team, who rather appropriately go on a bit, so we head back early to the Musician tent to see who's next to grace the soggy stage left behind by Tiffany Page. We bagsy a good spot in time to see Sunderland’s Frankie And The Heartstrings, who are a kind of 80’s style rock 'n' roll act. We almost make the front row but then get pushed back. It seems you are guaranteed front row only if you have a big camera and maybe a press pass. Note to the Musician, next year can we please have a bigger tent, a higher stage and a press area like they have on the other stages.

Indoors it’s packed for The Fall. I think this is the fourth time I’ve seen The Fall, each one being approximately ten years apart. Perhaps this is the correct spacing for Fall gigs. You either like what Mark E Smith does or you don't. Though sometimes the band are only as good as the musicians Smith assembles around him. Tonight his band are awesome. All they need is a more conventional vocalist... only kidding, that would be missing the point entirely. Despite the blinding musical backdrop the focal point remains Mark E himself, who ambles around the stage bellowing out the lyrics to go with terrific sounds being produced by his band. It’s a good blend.

The crowd, a mix of the devoted, the confused, the appalled or the simply enthralled (that’s us) lap it up or pop outside to wait for Tinchy Stryder. The tracks, I understand, not being a Fall aficionado, are drawn mainly from their latest album ‘Your Future Our Clutter’, which must be some record. Smith wanders around the stage, twiddling with things, and at one point turfs his wife, Elena Poulou, off her keyboard and then goes on to show why she’s playing it and he isn’t. Then in the end he simply decides the band have done enough for one night, puts his jacket back on and exits stage left. Top that Tinchy...

Which I suppose he may have done... but I doubt it. Though we’re again too rock n roll to stay and find out, as we head off for our train.

Summer Sundae Weekender (Friday)

2010-08-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

We’re doing the whole music festival thing on the cheap this year. Well, on a smaller scale at least, travelling only to Leicester and the Summer Sundae Weekender in the grounds of De Montfort Hall. A festival that is now in its tenth year and if, like us, you’re used to huge festivals like Leeds this one is much cosier. You can walk around the entire site and all five stages in around ten minutes. They even sell proper beer. We’re so hip we’re even here for the whole weekend and we have the wristbands to prove it.

This is a festival like no other... perhaps... it has a garden

A knitting tent

And of course the sundaes

And where wellies and mini-skirts are the order of the day

(photo withheld)

And a few bands.

Kyt, a local band and the winner of the BBC East Midlands competition get the honour of opening the main stage. Their music is unfamiliar to us of course, apart from ‘Solsbury Hill’, yes that one. It’s an interesting version. They weren’t bad, drawing a reasonable crowd but the elements intervened and the first of several bouts of rain drove us and many others indoors.

One advantage of Summer Sundae is that De Montfort Hall itself is on hand as a safe haven from such weather but I certainly don’t envy whoever has to wash all the mud out of the carpets come Monday. Nottingham’s Spotlight Kid are the first band to grace the indoor stage. Three guitars, bass and a girl vocalist, more 90’s shoegazing retro but they prove to be the best of the local bands we see across the weekend.

Leicester’s Musician venue have their own tent and we stumbled across Kirsty Almeida in there. Her jazz n blues n stuff seemed very popular with the sat down chilled out crowd, although this might be because of the rain. The Musician presumably had a hand in the nearby real ale tent as well, which is a very welcome sight compared with the usual beer desert that festivals are.

We venture back outside where Charlie And The Martyrs are dabbling with another odd mix of styles on the main stage but it soon starts raining again, so we switch our attention to another Nottingham band Swimming on the indoor stage. They are another band who can’t decide whether they want an 80’s guitar sound or an 80’s keyboard sound and consequently mix in too much of both.

The Phoenix eFestivals tent is mainly for comedy and showing films but when we pop in there for a change of scenery there are some weird choir rehearsals going on. Apparently for a performance later on during the weekend.

There are a few no shows today, artist wise, and quite a few artistes switching stages. We get caught out when we wander back to the main stage to see Fanfarlo but apparently they are stuck on the motorway, allegedly and we get the Mercury nominated Irish singer-songwriter Fionn Regan instead. The sun comes out for him but he does little for me.

Following him though, come the Sunshine Underground to brighten up my day, delivering a typically excellent forty-five minute set and it even stays dry for them.

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After which we try a couple of Lou Rhodes songs for size but leave after only one. She’s so pleasant it's painful. Off for a pint instead.

Which I sup listening to comedian Adrian Poynton in the eFestivals tent. He turns from your average unfunny comedian to suddenly quite amusing once he started ad-libbing and picking on his audience. This improved his act no end but did nothing for audience retention as people started to leave out of fear of being his next victim. We move on... to see Teenage Fanclub who haven't changed much since I saw them at Trent Poly decades ago.

They jangled along merrily and inoffensively then and did so today as well, there were even a few tunes I vaguely remembered.

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Back to the Musician tent which is packed for Danny and The Champions Of The World. So packed we can't get in, which is a feature of the Musician tent all weekend. It's a riot in there for Danny and co, so I guess he must have been good.

The find of the day are Sheffield’s Charles Watson and Rebecca Taylor, collectively known as Slow Club, who are excellent until she stops singing and starts talking. Crikes that accent. Stick to what you’re best at Rebecca, singing. My partner is so impressed she goes home and orders the album.

All that is left is a choice between headliners Roots Manuva (indoors) or Seasick Steve (outside). We choose Seasick Steve and walk out after two songs. How rock n roll of us. Can’t see the appeal to be honest, yes he was unique and impressive with his guitar playing when he broke through on Later with Jools a few years ago but now... just another blues act or perhaps I just don’t get it, as he seems popular tonight. His guitar playing being whisked away on the gathering wind as we head off for our train home. Nope, we’re not camping.

Feeder, Camden Barfly

2010-06-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

I’m down in London today. Last week a friend emailed me to say he’d got tickets for the launch party for Feeder’s new ‘Renegades’ album.

Woah. Good call. In short, I snapped his hand off.

We make it to the Camden Barfly in good time for when the doors open at 1.30pm, for this is an afternoon show. Rather worryingly as we queue we can hear the band bashing out a couple of their new songs. Have they started without us? Thankfully not, as we grab a free Aisha beer and join the queue for the upstairs room where the gigs are held, we realise they were only sound checking.

When the band t hit the stage at 2.45, they play an eight song set consisting exclusively of tracks from the new album, songs they’d premièred on their Renegades tours. Including, to close, the new single ‘Call Out’ and still, thankfully, they’re doing it all as a three piece.

The crowd are understandably really up for it and the band seems to enjoying themselves too. The new material sounds better and better each time I hear them play it, although even the lighter moments of the new tracks, such as on ‘Down To The River’ are now starting to sound on the heavy side. We were hoping for an encore of oldies to follow the set but instead what we got was the promise of another complete set later on. Cool.

So we head back into the bar area, watch the Cameroon v Japan World Cup tie and try out the free Sake. Meanwhile all three band members are milling around meeting their fans.

Later turns out to be quite a bit later, but eventually the band come back on and I’m sure it’s going to be worth the wait. This set could be interesting.

They open with ‘Godzilla’ off ‘Comfort In Sound’, not a great fave of mine and to be honest it sounded a bit messy tonight but it set the groove for the songs that followed. The ‘Renegades’ set may have been heavy but this set if anything was even heavier. Included were the two missing Renegades numbers that we usually get live, ‘End Of The Road’ and ‘Left Foot Right’ but it was when they went back to album number two for an awesome ‘Insomnia’ that the place really got rocking. ‘Insomnia’ has not sounded this good or this raw for years. Probably not since the band were last a three piece and playing in venues of a similar the size to the Barfly. It cannoned off the roof and the walls, sounding simply fantastic.

Top that? Well, it was perhaps equalled by ‘Lost And Found’, which stripped down and played raw like this, took on a new lease of life and, please takes note, sounds much better without the Foo Fighters in the middle of it.

Before which we got a slightly unnecessary reprise of ‘Renegades’ because someone requested it. They’re just being too accommodating, when there’s so much else that could be played. Yet second time around it is kind of special as the crowd start off singing it before the band have even started to play it.

Then there’s ‘Sweet 16’, still so amazing and aren’t they getting better and better at playing it again now it’s had a few outings after years of neglect. This has got to stay in the set for the October tour. Surely?

Grant has a huge grin on his face and appears to be saying to Karl, ‘What we going to do now? Are we going to finish on Breed?’ Well, that’s what it says on the set list but seven songs have been got through in such a fast time, surely there’s time for more. Karl seems to agree, hits the drums and ‘Come Back Around’ emerges. Yes, another track that sounds just amazing stripped down to its basics.

Then they do close with a cover of Nirvana’s ‘Breed’. Good though it was, it begs the question... ‘Descend’? ‘Shade’? But still it’s not a bad way to finish and it’s been a wonderful second set, not that the first one wasn’t good because it certainly was.

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Kele Okereke, The Plug, Sheffield

2010-06-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight I finally make it up to a venue that I’ve wanted to check out for some time. The Plug in Sheffield. I like it. Some places just have the right ambiance and this place has it in spades. Then there’s the good viewing with a high stage, this always helps.

First tonight, a local Sheffield band called Starlings. Which if we’re being honest is a really naff name, and a very girlie one at that and there’s no girls in this band. As with a lot of new bands around at the moment there’s something a bit 80s about them with their bass and synth pop sound. That said they’re rather good and seem determined to make the most of their stage time. They rattle through their songs in a hurry and it makes for quite a breakneck half hour.

Front man Justin Robson is a strong vocalist, albeit one with terrible knicker line, that is one above his low slung trousers. I’m not at all keen on how he keeps waggling his underwear at us. Thankfully it’s not quite enough to put you off the music.

I've always been a big fan of Bloc Party but haven’t been too impressed with their direction of late, they have been heading deeper and deeper into dance music but I thought the main man Kele with just a guitar would be a good way for him to get back on track... unfortunately (for me) that is not the track he intends to be on.

Tonight, there’s barely a guitar in sight and for me the best music = guitars. Instead Kele surrounds himself with electronics, a wealth of percussion and a new three piece band, so this is actually Kele far from being solo. They all take the stage to the sounds of Gary Numan’s ‘Airlane’ and beneath a big neon sign with Kele's name on it. A sign that makes him look a bit like the proprietor of a kebab shop as he delivers the first number ‘Walk Tall’, also the opener to his forthcoming debut album, ‘The Boxer’.

... and yep it’s all very dancey, as too is the next track ‘On The Lam’ but pleasant, in a dancey sort of way. The third track ‘Meet Me In The Middle’ is a bit different, with a slower introduction and those famous yearning vocals of his. His vocals are also supplemented by the lovely Lucy, his new keyboard player and added eye candy, whom Kele seems to be rather fond of despite the fact he’s not supposed to be of that persuasion.

So far Kele hasn’t even touched an instrument but he pitches in with the maracas for ‘The Other Side’. He doesn’t seem to miss his guitar, preferring to be a free spirit, jumping around to his own music and interfacing with the crowd. Perhaps this is his way of letting his hair down or it would have been if he’d not had it all cut off.

Then there’s a treat for the ‘home of knives and forks’, as Kele announces a medley of tracks from a band I ‘used’ to be in. Oooh, Freudian slip... That’s not good news for a band who are supposed to be on a year’s sabbatical. He dishes out ‘Blue Light’, ‘The Prayer’ and ‘One More Chance’ segued together, it turns a so far simply appreciative crowd in to lively one and warms them up for his debut single ‘Tenderoni’ which follows. Its pounding synth beat goes down equally well and almost everyone knows the words. Well suppose they’re not hard to grasp, if you can spell. T-E-N-D-E-R-O-N-I. See! Even I know it.

Then Kele dabbles in a little bit of guitar and I mean a little bit, for the intro of the closing ‘Rise’. It’s only to lay down the backing track, that he records ala Voluntary Butler Scheme. ‘Rise’ is a good closer and my favourite of the night.

He’s clearly enjoying himself and is already over running his allocated slot by the time he returns for an encore. Which he opens with the Bloc Party rarity ‘Your Visits Are Getting Shorter’. He’s overrunning so much that he has to cull a song from the encore. On asking the crowd what they’d like to hear, they opt for the Bloc Party song ‘Flux’ rather than a new song, which is predictable but disappointing.

He’s good but after a promising start it turned into too much of a Bloc Party covers night and that was a shame. There was simply not enough of his own stuff if he’s supposed to be promoting his forthcoming album. If I was you mate, I’d cut out the medley in the main set and play a couple of new songs instead. Then the show would just about have been as perfect as you can get (without a guitar) and still not good news for the rest of Bloc Party.

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Julian Cope, Rescue Rooms

2010-06-09T00:00:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've ever seen the back wall of the Rescue Rooms stage before. It’s not a big stage and it’s usually piled high with equipment. For all I know there might not have even been a wall there at all. Tonight though I can confirm that yes, there is a wall. I can see almost every square inch of it and that’s before the kit of the support act has been removed. Something rather obvious is missing. Ah yes. A drum kit. For either act. So no drummer induced deafness tonight then. The bereftness of the stage points to tonight’s show being a minimalist type of offering.

It’s 8.30 and Acoustika wanders on to the stage. One man, an acoustic guitar and a box of electronic tricks. Just like you get outside the train station, next to the Big Issue seller. Only better.

He must be a mate of Julian's, I can see the resemblance. Except unlike J he's a man of few words. Well one actually. 'Cheers' is all he says for five songs in a row but then what's this, a couple of 'thank you very much's. Then a full blown speech, as he confesses he must be mad for attempting it as he closes his set with ‘Fear Loves This Place’, that’s a Julian Cope song by the way. It’s Acoustika’s best moment, a very good rendition of a Cope classic. Step aside JC but then again, can we live without the banter?

So to the man himself, Julian H Cope, all the way from Wessex to entertain a curiously busy Rescue Rooms. I haven’t actually seen the great man live since 1998, which is a bit remiss of me. So what has changed? Not much really. Except perhaps his eyesight. He has the largest set list I’ve ever seen and I don't mean as regards the number of songs on it. It's the size of the paper, it must be a metre deep at least and it’s printed in very large type. Well I suppose he is 52 now.

He opens with a couple of newer songs ‘Come The Revolution’ from his latest Black Sheep project, and a delightful little gem, entitled ‘I'm Living In The Room They Found Saddam In’. Which sounds very witty on first listen, unfortunately I haven’t a clue how you get hold of it. I can’t find any CD on his website that it’s contained on.

After arguing with record labels almost his entire career, Cope opted out of the mainstream approach of releasing proper records around 1996, instead promoting his music via his Head Heritage website. Oh and he’s not just a musician these days. He’s also an antiquary, an occasional poet and also an author. His latest book he tells us is entitled ‘Lives Of The Prophets: A New Perspective’, that’s from the view of an atheist. His banter and his forthright opinions are very much an integral part of his live shows. If you don’t get how the man thinks then you won’t get the music either, plus there’s the added bonus that Julian is funnier than your average comedian.

He’s also a well researched chap and he goes back to 1984’s ‘Fried’ album to tell us the story of ‘The Bloody Assizes’. The Winchester trials of 1685 where over a thousand rebels were sentenced to death, many were hung, drawn and quartered, for attempting to overthrow King James II.

Then he rambles on about people he admires. Britney, Mr R Williams.... he’s joking we assume. His real hero is Leila, a Palestinian terrorist but only because he thought she was beautiful. How very superficial of him. Cue the Teardrop Explodes' love song to a highjacker, ‘Like Leila Khaled Said’.

Amidst the rambling we get the quiet protest song ‘I'm Your Daddy’ and several cuts from 1991's ‘Peggy Suicide’, regarded by many as his best work but surprisingly there’s nothing from its follow up, the venomously anti-Christian, ‘Jehovahkill’. A record that caused a major record label, Island, to get shut of him.

He’s skipping songs on the set list now as he’s already behind schedule, now there's a surprise. He says he only has the set list as he doesn’t want to overrun the curfew. Well, it’s not working. ‘Land of Fear’ works though, not heard that one live before. Brilliant.

He moves to keyboards for a couple more old oldies, ‘Head Hang Low’ and ‘You Disappear From View’ before back to the guitar for another stand out moment, ‘Autogeddon Blues’.

There are impressive rain effects for ‘Search Party’ unless that is, it’s real, and it’s started bucketing it down again outside.

He’s back on the keyboard for ‘O King Of Chaos’, a song about a séance that went wrong and for ‘Screaming Secrets’ off ‘St. Julian’ which apparently was a song rejected by the Teardrop Explodes. I didn’t know that.

‘Las Vegas Basement’ is blindingly good but he’s now getting further and further behind schedule. The 11pm curfew is fast approaching. So play then someone cries out, stop bloody talking! That’s simply not his style.

‘The Greatness & Perfection Of Love’ is the closest we get to a hit, obviously no ‘World Shut Your Mouth’, ‘Trampoline’, ‘Charlotte Anne’ or anything like that.

He pre-warns us that there will be an encore but to make sure that we demand one anyway, just to make an old man, who doesn't get out much, happy, before he plays a rousing ‘Pristeen’. There’s a shambolic sing-along from the crowd to ‘Sunspots’, the fifth track to be taken from 'Fried' tonight, the album that caused him to get dropped by another label, Polygram this time, but thankfully JC rescues the song before departing.

Then, what a surprise, an encore.

Even less of a surprise is that it’s ‘Sleeping Gas’, which sees him joined by his entourage, beating drums, waving flags and oddly holding paintings. Acoustika, who also seems to be his roadie, is among them.

It’s a good gig but the sad fact is that Cope and just a guitar will never make a great one. He’d need a band for that and he doesn’t show any signs of wanting to take a band out on the road to perform his songs. As ever it’s the banter that makes it all worth the while. This is Julian H Cope, musician, antiquary, occasional poet, author and all round entertainer.

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Delays, Bodega Social Club

2010-06-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

The Delays have announced, what turn out to be false, new stage times proclaiming they’ll be on stage at 8.45 rather than the usual 9.30. So we get down to the Bodega Social for 7.45, 45 minutes after the new door time of 7pm. Even this is a bit late if we want to secure a front row spot. Tonight we are ticket numbers 29 and 30 and traditionally we’re always 1 and 2 at the Social, so we’re expecting it to be busy. Who are all these interlopers? We have to be close. My partner’s aim isn't very good, so she doesn't want to have to throw her undergarments too far. Of course, she could just throw them at me rather than at Greg Gilbert. I’ll be the one stood next to her.

The doors to the Bodega Social are locked and there’s a mini queue of other folk who’d also heard about the new start time. Misinformation obviously and from an official source as well. We abort and head off for a pint, returning later.

Tonight’s support is Nottingham’s Amber Herd, last seen supporting That Petrol Emotion. I remember it well. They were a right mishmash of sounds as I recall but tonight they seem more sorted, more consistent in their music style. Probably because they appear to have dropped the keyboards tonight. Their new single ‘Red Gold’ sounds good to me as does a later track ‘Days Like These’ with singer Neil Beards sounding as if he’s got his Mick Jagger voice on at times.

By now there’s a healthy crowd inside the Social, all waiting for the Delay’s to take the stage, which they do at 9.30... so what was all the fuss about stage times...

As a band they are always entertaining, always alluring and always a good target for hurling underwear at (so I’m told), if you’re near enough. It also appears that they have now learnt a thing or two about how to hook an audience. Their first three tracks tonight arrive in an almighty hurry with little or no chat and they all go for the jugular. ‘Lost in a Melody’, ‘This Town's Religion’ and ‘Friends are False’ make a lively trio. The latter, tellingly being the only track tonight from their last album, 2008’s patchy ‘Everything’s The Rush’.

This threesome, combined with Greg Gilbert’s boundless energy and enthusiasm, ensures the crowd are well won over before they hit us with the first newbie. Even that’s not that new. ‘Find a Home’ has been out as a free download and features the Clangers on back vocals. Honestly! Just listen to that intro.

All the old faves are there of course, ‘Nearer than Heaven’, ‘Wanderlust’, ‘Long Time Coming’, with Greg’s voice on top form, as well as other tasters from their forthcoming fourth album, ‘Star Tiger Star Ariel’, in the form of the guitar driven ‘Lost Estate’, ‘In Brilliant Sunshine’ sung brilliantly by Aaron and the new single ‘Unsung’. Then Greg’s back to leaping around the stage again as ‘Panic Attacks’ ignites the venue.

It’s good to see a different oldie thrown in as 'Bedroom Scene' from 'Faded Seaside Glamour' makes an appearance but things get even more obscure as requests come from the floor. We seem to have a knowledgeable crowd tonight, who are shouting out for obscure album tracks that I’m not familiar with. Please stop it. That’s exactly the sort of annoying thing that I’d do. What’s even more annoying is that no band ever takes the blindest bit of notice when I do it but tonight Greg Gilbert actually takes on board the suggestions and steps up to the plate, adding an acoustic excerpt from 'You Wear The Sun' to the set list before the closing ‘Valentine’.

Then for the encore I’m hoping for ‘Hey Girl’, which apparently they’ve resurrected recently and been playing a lot but some other clever sod in the audience wants something more unfamiliar and of course, gets it. Greg apologises for barely being able to remember the words, or so he says, before obliging the fan and performing acoustic duties again for the requested ‘Overlover’. Can't complain, I do love an obscure oldie.

Then we’re back on familiar territory to close, with a lively ‘You and Me’. As always the Delays can be relied up on to put on a good show and tonight was no exception.

‘Star Tiger, Star Ariel’ is out on 21st June.

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British Sea Power, Y Theatre, Leicester

2010-05-20T00:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight we’re at the YMCA! Well Leicester’s Y Theatre, a totally new venue to me and quite an impressive one too. Though I dillydallied on getting tickets for this one and the standing tickets sold out, so we ended up with seats on the balcony of what turns out to be quite a lovely little theatre, very intimate and with great acoustics. Looking on the bright side, with being on the balcony we should get a good view of British Sea Power’s guitarist, Noble, when he goes on his usual climbing spree.

Support tonight is from John & Jehn or should that be Nicolas and Camille as those are their real names. The couple, and they are apparently a couple, are from France although they do have or at least had a London base and they sing totally in English. They’re another of the current crop of bands with an experimental edge and claim to have recorded most of their debut album in their bedroom.

In the last year or so they have expanded to be a quartet and follow another trend of late, which is proving their musicianship by getting everyone in the band to trade instruments at various times during the set. They appear to have expanded their sound too, embracing more of a pop side and less of the experimental. Still means they can throw in a few animalistic yelps occasionally. Pleasant, promising but not spectacular.

So to one of the most eccentric bands around. The eccentricity starts as ever before the band even comes on stage with the setting up of the equipment, which is again adorned with numerous flags in a nod to their ‘Waving Flags’ track and far more foliage than I’ve seen for a while. In fact the strategic placement of so many sprigs of plant life probably delays their entry by a good ten minutes or so. Then when they take to the stage you can only just see the band for the trees.

Opening with an oddity, ‘Apologies to Insect Life’ from their debut album, ‘The Decline Of British Sea Power’ they are soon up to speed with the wonderful ‘Atom’, which concludes as usual with the use of the air raid siren. Although their singer Yan, in some sort of woollen cricket jumper thing, he must be really hot, and with a hunting horn across his back, claims to feel a little out of sorts. Something is missing as regards his guitar he reckons. A plectrum perhaps someone kindly ventures from the crowd. Yan is as ever the most absurdly dressed of the band but the rest always run him close, all looking as they come fresh from the nearest charity shop.

‘Atom’ is taken from their most recent album, 2008’s excellent ‘Do You Like Rock Music’, which forms the bulk of the set, seven tracks tonight, with a few old favourites thrown in.

Yan hands over vocals to his brother Neil for a couple of tracks, which also happens to be some of their best recent stuff, ‘Down on the Ground’ and ‘No Lucifer’. Both are standout moments.

Then there’s the usual brilliance of oldies of ‘Remember Me’, the superb short burst that is ‘Favours In The Beetroot Fields’ and ‘Please Stand Up’, the only track from ‘Open Season’ tonight, played back to back.

It’s a laid back and relaxed performance from the band but then the Y Theatre is a very relaxed sort of place. The crowd is chilled too, no crush down the front and certainly no beer throwing. The band themselves are not quite so way out this evening, concentrating on the music. Again we have the violinist, Abi, on stage and playing throughout, although again we can barely hear her, drowned out by the rest of the band. This is despite the sound quality being excellent tonight, crystal clear in fact. As I’ve said, excellent little venue. Suppose Abi serves the purpose of being nice to look at but I can’t see her from my position ‘up on the shelf’.

There are three new songs, the last of which is dedicated to someone who’s been to 250 gigs... although the band seem to think only they qualify for this. All of new songs sounded impressive and went down well.

We know the end is nigh when their first single ‘Fear of Drowning’ gives way to the usual madness of ‘The Spirit Of St. Louis’, an oldie that is still not proving any easier to get hold of, despite manic googling. As expected, Noble is climbing up the speaker stack before the song is barely out of it’s blocks. He poses on top of the speaker for a while before decamping up on to the old gits' shelf where we’re slumped. Only the length of his guitar lead, which is actually impressively long, prevents him doing a full lap of the balcony.

They finish with a demonstration of roadie Paul’s muscles??? and with Yan promoting their own brand ‘Zeus’ beer, which also seems to the title of one of the new songs, before eschewing it for a glass of white wine and sending us home with the terrific ‘Carrion’. So no improvised ‘Rock in A’ tonight.

I wasn’t expecting an encore but the crew seemed to be setting up the guitars again as if we’re going to get one but it’s already gone 11.00 so we’re not. There’s a bit of a frustrating delay before this is confirmed.

We head to the merchandising stall and purchase a bar of BSP chocolate, at £3 hardly a bargain but it will fuel us for the drive home. ‘Bar is not dark, bar is not light, it just tastes good, especially tonight’, so it says and proves. Most bands sell t-shirts, CD’s, posters and perhaps a few badges. BSP sell chocolate, beer and even tea. As well as mugs for the tea to be drunk in, mugs that allegedly do strange things when you add hot water but they'd sold out, so we didn't get chance to find out. Another reason to catch them next time, not that I needed one.

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The Big Pink, Sheffield Leadmill

2010-05-08T00:00:00.000-07:00

First tonight, Esben and the Witch, from Brighton, who take their name from a Danish fairytale... They take the stage with a couple of miniature street lamps and a porcelain owl or two. Enough said? Singer Rachel Davies, stands between her two guitarists and delivers an ethereal sound that is perhaps part Portishead, part Bat For Lashes, maybe. Most of the real action seems to revolve around the solitary drum and cymbal that is set up in the middle of the stage.

Dark, gloomy and intriguing... nothing like tonight’s headliners, The Big Pink.

Who open with the wail of guitars and an ear shattering rendition of ‘Too Young To Love’, that sounds little like it does on record. This is the approach they take to most of their material. They make everything bigger, beefier, louder, more distorted. So much so that some folk who have come for more of the bubbly pop of their hit record ‘Dominos’ immediately seem disappointed. Once you make the mental adjustment though it’s all rather good. Personally I have never actually been a big fan of 'Dominos' anyway, the track quickly became irritating but I was swayed, surprisingly, by the heavier sound of the rest of the album which I rather like.

The Big Pink are actually officially a duo. Consisting of singer/guitarist/self appointed rock God Robbie Furze and his keyboard maestro Milo Cordell. Cordell has his hoodie over his head all night as he prods at his keyboards, while simultaneously working an impressive range of effects pedals (for a non guitarist) and updating his Facebook profile via his laptop (or whatever else he’s using the laptop for). These two are joined on stage by their scantily clad drummer, Akiko Matsuura. Who was hidden from my view practically all night (shame) by a combination of her own drum kit and the band’s bass player who completed their live line-up.

'At War With the Sun' followed again accompanied by Furze’s shrieking guitar and a bass cranked up so loud and rumbling it’s almost painful. Although this is probably my own fault for standing right in front of the bass player’s amp.

The guitars are cut back slightly for ‘Velvet’ and ‘Frisk’, which are slightly more electronic, as tracks from their album made up the first half of the set. The best of which are probably an excellent ‘Crystal Visions’, sounding particularly huge tonight and a fave of mine, the wonderful ‘Count Backwards From Ten’.

The content of the second half is less clear cut, as they slip in a few covers and a new song. They cover ‘100%’, although I’m not sure where they got it from. Didn’t Mariah Carey do a song called 100%? and didn’t Sonic Youth? To be honest, it could be either or neither. Someone please advise.

No one is particularly talkative, apart from the odd cry of 'Sheffield’ from Furze and a brief introduction to a new track called ‘Twilight’, there’s little chat.

They finished in more of a pop mode with the new single, ‘Tonight’, a cover version of Beyonce’s ‘Sweet Dreams’, yes really and of course, 'Dominos'. I hate it when bands save their 'big' record until the end but it sounds good tonight and at least they don't elongate it.

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Temper Trap, Rock City

2010-05-03T00:00:00.000-07:00

By delaying her entry until 8.30 Sarah Blasko risked being upstaged by the impromptu balloon show organised by the impatient crowd. Then once on stage it takes an age to get her band’s double bass booted up, or whatever you do with a double bass. Finally she gets started.

I was worried we'd get an Australian Ellie Goulding but she's more of a Florence, with a touch of Cerys Matthews thrown in. Well, perhaps more than just a touch as it happens. Overall, her sound is a simple mix of drums, keyboard and double bass with only a light sprinkling of guitar and the occasional banjo. A blend that lets her strong vocals shine through.

Her tunes are generally quite mournful and her rockiest moment comes during the closing 'No Turning Back', which is perhaps pure Florence but then I have a suspicion that Sarah Blasko got there first. Her rather long 45 minute set doesn’t drag and she’s entertaining but frankly, just not my type.

After the resumption of the now rather tedious balloon show, fellow Aussies The Temper Trap take to the stage and open with something, according to their set list, imaginatively called 'Intro'. This is basically a jamming session for the band but is actually rather good. Then it’s into ‘Rest’ and a trawl through every track on their debut album and solitary release, last year’s ‘Conditions’.

‘Fader’ is a real crowd pleaser, vocalist Dougie Mandagi singing in the highest pitch I’ve heard since Jimi Somerville warbled Smalltown Boy but it’s the band I find most impressive, at times they pile three guitars on top of Mandagi's distinctive voice. Bassist Jonathon Aherne was entertaining in his own right, as he bobbed around the stage, and his long hair, piled weirdly on top of his head, bobbed along with him.

‘Sweet Disposition’ has frankly been everywhere in the last year, in numerous TV adverts, repeatedly used as background music for, well, practically anything and it even featured in the film '500 Days of Summer'. In fact, you only had to be walking down the street and it would come up behind you and tap you on the shoulder. Tonight though it seems to creep up on the crowd with an elongated teasing introduction, before exploding into life.

After which they closed the set with ‘Resurrection’ amidst a blinding light show, ‘Resurrection’ like ‘Down River’ which was played earlier, builds up gradually in layers towards a grand finale. They then segued this into another jam session that turned out to be 'Drum Song'. The band letting themselves go like they did on the equally instrumental opener and we get our first crowd surfer of a so far quiet evening for the security staff.

Dougie pours a bottle of water on to the solitary snare drum that he is playing and then illuminated by strobe lighting, he bangs the drum so that the water splashes up high, to quite impressive effect.

They depart after almost 50 minutes on stage, which is only marginally longer than Ms Blasko but after a short break they return. The break being just long enough to give the roadies time to mop up the water from the stage.

For the encore, they play a new song called 'Rabbit Hole’; again it’s another song that starts slow and builds up, something that seems to be a bit of a trademark style for them. They leave us with their most recent single, 'Science of Fear', and Dougie again gives security something to do by seemingly trying to hug as many of the crowd as possible.

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The Primitives, Bodega Social Club

2010-04-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

Tonight’s support, ‘Lucky Soul’, have a happy slightly appropriately soulful sound and in Ali Howard they have a sing that looks and sounds like Dusty Springfield. She also impossibly perky throughout their generous ten songs set. Far too happy for a Monday night and for their own good.

There are six of them on the small stage at the Bodega. Not enough room to swing a tambourine with tassels on it but she manages. It’s all very pleasant but actually a bit dull and repetitive to be honest. Most of the audience manage to master tapping a foot to the rhythm whilst simultaneously looking bored.

I amuse myself by watching her feet, she’s gone on stage shoeless and I spend half an hour wondering how she’s managed not to snare her tights on the metal edges of the stage floor.

The Primitives too can do happy. Late last year, after nearly 18 years in slumber, they reformed for a couple of live shows, one in their home town of Coventry, the other in London. This must have been a success because they have now embarked on a wider tour of the UK. This begs the question, what do you do when you don't play a gig for 18 years. Do you stash all the equipment in your loft, waiting for such a day or do you hire a new lot?

The band were hugely successful with their first album ‘Lovely’ and of course it’s hit single ‘Crash’, a number 5 hit in 1988, but their career faded after that. They split in 1992 following the failure of their third album, ‘Galore’.

To be honest I’m not expecting great things but, after a slow start, they prove me wrong. Opening with a slightly subdued ‘I’ll Stick With You’, followed by ‘Dreamwalk Baby’ which also doesn’t quite sound its bright self. The rarity ‘Everything's Shining Bright’ doesn’t seem familiar to many and doesn’t help. There’s a hint of perhaps going through the motions a little but then again the Bodega sound is not brilliant. The lighting too, plays havoc with photography again.

Although ‘Thru the Flowers’ picks things up it isn’t until ‘Way Behind Me’ that the crowd start to get into it. Tracy Cattell seems relieved and starts to talk a little to the crowd but even then she remarks how quiet the crowd are. Quiet from both sides. Quiet crowd. Quiet band.

Tracy looks exactly the same as she did. She still short of course, you forget how short. Once they get going you realise that the band’s songs haven’t aged too badly either. Perhaps not sounding quite as twee as they were but can you still do twee when you're over 40?

As expected a lot of the set comes from the ‘Lovely’ album and earlier releases but it’s good to see them lifting a few tracks off the later two albums but the blank looks that meet ‘Empathise’ off ‘Galore’ confirms that that record didn’t sell well.

‘Summer Rain’ is as pretty as ever and then we get to hear what the band are up to now. They are recording an album of covers of songs by lesser known female vocalists. Tonight they play 'Need All The Help I Can Get' which was originally recorded by Suzi Jane Hokum back in 1966.

It isn’t until they hit us with an excellent quartet of songs, starting with ‘Stop Killing Me’ that things really take off and the pace improves, ‘Sick of It’ follows, still bursting with raw energy and then their most famous moment ‘Crash’ lifts things a notch higher. By the time they’ve finished ‘Buzz Buzz Buzz’ they have the crowd well and truly won over. It’s just a shame we’re nearly done and that the finale is more low key. The 1991 single ‘You Are The Way’ probably isn’t known by that many, neither would be the b-side ‘(We’ve) Found A Way (To The Sun)’ that they close with, which is dedicated to their bass player, Steve Dullaghan, who died last year. It is reported that it was at his funeral that they thought about this reunion, partly as a tribute to him.

Then for the second night in a row I witness a top encore. A sparkling ‘Nothing Left’ before 1986's ‘Really Stupid’ closes the night in style. I think it's only the spreading waistlines of some of their fans that prevent a mosh getting going.

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Renegades, Sheffield Leadmill

2010-04-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

A word or three about Essex boys Morning Parade, who I imagine we’ll be hearing a lot more about. They reminded me a hell of a lot of White Lies, albeit perhaps more cheerful and they may go on to be more successful. Every track of theirs was pretty impressive and they seem to go down very well with the audience. It appears that they came up from Essex just for this one gig and I think judging by the impression they made it was well worth the cost of the petrol. They have a very crafted powerful sound although I can’t help thinking perhaps they’re trying to cram too much in, using two guitars but then overpowering it with perhaps too much keyboard but there’s no doubting the quality of the tunes they have there. They’re at the Dot-to-dot in Nottingham, tempting. A very pleasant half hour and a good warm-up before the main event this evening. Not that anyone needed warming up. Blimey, it’s hot tonight in the Leadmill.

Just under a year ago, Feeder split with their drummer of seven years Mark Richardson, who returned to the reformed Skunk Anansie. Their most recent album, 2008’s badly received ‘Silent Cry’, had seen them reach the end of their record deal, leaving the band in limbo a little. Grant Nicholas though clearly saw this as an opportunity and perhaps a chance to do something different for a while, whilst the creative cuffs were off. Now I must confess I had the guy all wrong, I thought he was happy simply topping up his pension plan by touring the same Feeder classics set list forever. I even assumed that those were his favourite songs. Seems I was mistaken. Instead he and Taka Hirose, hired a new drummer, the impressive Karl Brazil, put the other musicians they use on gardening leave, left the keyboard at home and went back to how they had started out, on the road as a three-piece.

The 'Renegades' project was born and the band booked a low-key six date tour and released a tour only EP on their own label. Mirroring perhaps Feeder's first release, the 'Two Colours' EP back in 1995 which was also only available at the band's gigs. Their intention to play only new material may have ruffled a few feathers with some of the newer fans, who may have been unaware of the band's past (OMG! No Feeling A Moment?) but it certainly delighted oldies like me who've been more of less the whole distance with them... or it would have done if I could have got to any of those shows. To make things even better they weren't actually playing just new stuff but also a few golden oldies but really old oldies. Bands always have to remember where they came from and suddenly 'Renegades' were right on the money.

Now they're back for some more dates and this time I had no intention of missing out.

But... honestly Grant, shall I get the whinge out the way first, cause I’m always going to have one. I know I missed out on the last tour but I've seen it on YouTube, so it's very nice of you but you didn't have to play all the same Renegades songs and in the same order... well, ok so you moved 'Home' but other than that they were in the same order. This makes it far too easy for an ageing blogger to keep track, whereas amnesia may have otherwise set in.

So still Mr Frustrating in one way... Why no new songs? Do we assume you're keeping the rest of the dozens of songs you claim to have written for Feeder? Ok so I'll never be happy and what's life without a bit of predictability. Life's just a piece of fruit, and all that... but more of that later.

Let's start at the beginning because, I have to say, the Renegades material was pretty damn amazing. The chap next to me was wondering if they’d open with ‘We Are The People’ again, err no. Instead I think a breakneck ‘Barking Dogs’, the heaviest of the tracks on EP1, pinned his ears back a touch. Poorly received as Silent Cry was at least it broke the back of the suspicion that the band were in danger of turning into a soft rock band but the ante has now been seriously upped. Tonight is something else. Renegades are loud, powerful and unashamedly last century retro-Feeder.

'Home', I love 'Home'. Like most of the new stuff it’s a return to basics, with a ferocious tempo, a thumping bass line and at an energy level that they manage to keep up for the rest of the night. It’s terrific but it seems not everyone agrees with me. Two tracks in and we have a heckler. Grant ignores him but it clearly rattles him. He explains to everyone almost apologetically what the Renegades project is all about and then attempts to blow Mr Heckler away with a dose of ‘Sentimental’, right between the eyes. ‘Sentimental’ is tremendous tonight, far better than on CD.

I think the heckler is getting to Grant and he introduces ‘Left Foot Right’ out of sequence before correcting himself and playing the gentler intro to ‘This Town’ instead. Not that it stays gentle for long, as it gives way to another monster tune.

Then ‘Left Foot Right’, yeah you can play it now. It’s probably not the best of the new stuff but it’s certainly one of the heaviest and grungiest.

Mr Heckler clearly doesn’t approve of heavy or grunge, loudly proclaiming that 'I came here for a f***ing Feeder gig' before shouting for ‘Buck Rogers’ and Grant has to deal with him. ‘I think you've got the wrong gig mate’ he tells him. To be fair to the chap, the Leadmill have been advertising tonight as a Feeder gig, as have the ticket agencies, my ticket also says Feeder on it and not everyone reads Facebook where the band have been crystal clear what these gigs are all about. Grant himself put the blame squarely with the promoters in an interview in last week’s Sheffield Star. Personally he would have preferred to have stuck to the smaller venues of the first tour but promoters clearly have mortgages to pay as well.

Mr Heckler storms off, so I’m not sure if he heard ‘Down To The River’ or not. He might have even approved, it’s probably the most ‘modern’ Feeder-ish song they play tonight and it's a good one too. If Grant's looking for another chart friendly epic, he may just have written it here. That said I'll be soon be sick of it if it becomes another 'lighters n phones in the air' anthem.

Then it’s back to rocking out with the awesome bass driven, 'White Lines' which judders along, rattling the walls and recreating the glorious sound of the Polythene/Swim era all over again.

Then Grant asks for requests for next time. It’s reassuring they’ll be a next time. Somebody shouts out for ‘Cement’, oops that was me, but instead we get a choice. ‘Tangerine’ or ‘Godzilla’? Surely though ‘Godzilla’ breaks the 'oldie' rules, I mean it's off ‘Comfort in Sound’ for God’s sake, ok it doesn’t sound like it’s off ‘Comfort in Sound’ but it is. Anyhow, it matters not; ‘Tangerine’ gets the biggest cheer. A track that had become a running joke between the band and the older fans who have called for it at practically every Feeder gig. Never one of my favourites but it was good to hear it again, particularly as Grant announced they would be retiring it for good after this tour.

Then back to the new. The band again rolling back the years with ‘End of the Road’ which is practically punk rock. With Mr Heckler gone the band are now clearly enjoying themselves, as are the audience, even those who may have been suckered by the promoters.

Then I recognise the words but not the intro, because they’ve changed the start to their signature tune 'Renegades'. A cracking track in the first place, that seemingly couldn’t be improved on but has been, by the addition of a teasing, hairs on the back of the neck raising intro before galloping off at its usual fast tempo. Wonderful. Cue real activity across the crowd for the first time tonight. If they could get all this material released then the gigs will be real lively once everyone knows the songs.

The set is concluded in around 50 minutes and closes with another corker ‘Call Out’, almost as impossibly catchy as ‘Renegades’, all it needs is familiarity.

Only 50 minutes but we’re all exhausted and sweating buckets, although this has a lot to do with the phenomenally hot temperature inside the Leadmill, even before the bands started. Someone clearly forgot to adjust the thermostat to a springtime setting.

Then it's the eagerly awaited encore...

When Grant said he was going to play something off 1996's 'Swim' I don't think anyone foresaw W.I.T. (otherwise known as 'Women In Towels'). It’s not one of the more obvious choices but I have to admit, it had some clout live. This is followed by ‘Sweet 16’, slightly slower than it once was perhaps? But still I sung myself hoarse to that. Marvellous stuff.

I have to confess to being a bit gutted we didn’t get ‘Shade’, like lucky lucky Newcastle on Friday but having said that the alternative was thumping rendition of the almighty ‘Descend’. Returned to its rightful place as the set closer, you can take your ‘Just A Day’ and your ‘Lost And Found’ and stuff em’ mid-set thank you very much. This is the way to close. ‘Descend’ was simply brutal tonight.

As Renegades, the band have rediscovered what made them such a potent live band in the first place and long may it continue, at least to the end of the year by the sound of things. I'm sure there must be a spare night at Nottingham Rescue Rooms this summer with their name on it... a chance to dust down some more oldies... Crash, Stereo World, Can’t Dance To Disco (ok perhaps over hopeful there)... CEMENT... hint, hint, hint, HINT.

They say you can never go back... you should never go back, but... and this has got to be unique. A band takes you back over a decade in sound and does it without having to resort to the ‘playing a classic album in its entirety’ route; mind you I’d buy a ticket if they did. Instead they did it with predominately new material.

One old fan left the gig tonight having met up again with an old flame, that being one of his favourite bands of all time, who re-ignited the fire he thought they’d lost years ago... and I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

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