Heaven 17, Octagon Centre, Sheffield

Storm Claudia ensures I have a vile drive up for Heaven 17’s hometown gig at the Octagon Centre in Sheffield. The venue is sold out but is still roomy. Perhaps that's deliberate for us oldies.  

Tonight's support comes from Rusty Egan’s disco. Egan was the drummer with Visage as well as being in many other bands. Tonight, being a DJ is almost all there is to it as he plays the hits of the 1980s. He does play us one track from his new album which is called ‘Stranded’ which apparently he has recorded with Peter Hook and he tells us he wants to film us for the video. So, we all wave. There is no sign of Peter. 

Then at ten past eight someone comes on stage and taps him on the shoulder. Clearly telling him he's ran out of time and to get off the stage. So, he does. 

There are minimal stage changes to do between bands as he didn’t have much kit and Heaven 17 don’t use fancy things like guitars, so there’s none of them to tune either. But hang on. Is that a guitar I see? Wasn’t these fancy guitar things the reason Martyn Ware left the Human League? 

But then I’m distracted from my thoughts as the lights drop and ‘Crushed by the Wheels of Industry’ thunders from the stage. This has always been a favourite of mine but my first thoughts tonight are WTF is Martyn Ware wearing. Closely followed by my second thought that Glenn Gregory still has a very strong voice. I try to concentrate on the music without being distracted by Ware’s jacket and his fedora.  

The two of them are joined on stage by two backing singers, Rachel and Kelly, along with keyboard player Florence Sabeva. The other ex-Human Leaguer, Ian Craig Marsh, left the band in 2006. 

‘We Don’t Need This Fascist Groove Thang’ is next and aligns with the message Gregory’s chest. It is a song that shouldn’t be relevant these days, referencing as it does a rogue President of the United States in Ronald Reagan, but obviously it is. Then it’s ‘Play to Win’, the song that got them on ‘Top of the Pops’. 

Between tracks, Gregory and Ware banter with each other. They talk about the old days, the Human League, and the fact they met up with Phil Oakey today in Fagans Irish Bar. They say they tried to get Phil to guest with them tonight and do ‘Being Boiled’ but they failed. He wanted to rehearse whereas they were just happy to see how it went. Then they play ‘Geisha Boys And Temple Girls’ which is about a night out in Sheffield. 

An excellent ‘Come Live With Me’ is followed by Gregory doing the first part of ‘We Live So Fast’ on an acoustic guitar. Wow, I didn’t know he could play and he was really good. Then we blast into the full version. 

The set list comes mainly from their first two albums but their second, non-album, single ‘I'm Your Money’ makes an appearance but is curtailed when someone is ill in the crowd. Then once everyone is alright again we get a sing-along to ‘Let Me Go’. 

 

At the end of the main set they leave the three girls alone on stage to start ‘Temptation’ while Martyn Ware gets some big feathers on. 

After a short break, Gregory and Florence Sabeva start the encore with ‘Party Fears Two’. This is a song by The Associates that they sung at Billy MacKenzie’s memorial. It’s a little bit emotional. 

The next song, a cover of Bowie’s ‘Let's Dance’ is just plain odd and then they close with the previously mentioned ‘Being Boiled’ but without Phil obviously.   

This is the first time I’ve seen Heaven 17 live but then they didn’t even do a tour until 1997. Ok, so I’m still thirty years late to the party but I’m here now.

The Slow Readers Club, Leadmill, Sheffield

Supported by ShadowParty

To start tonight we have a super group called ShadowParty who consist of some of the members of Devo and New Order although they are not the ‘big’ names from those bands.   

The lead singer is Devo’s guitarist Josh Hagar and originally he was joined by drummer Jeff Friedl but Friedl isn't touring with them on this occasion. From New Order we have Tom Chapman who was Bernard Sumner's bass player in Bad Lieutenant before Sumner invited him to replace Peter Hook in New Order and we have 
Phil Cunningham who has been their guitarist since 2002.

They released an album last year which only really gives a cursory nod to both 'source' bands. That’s not to say it wasn’t decent and it sounds good live but then with all that experience in the band you’d assume they know what they are doing up on stage. American Hagar is quite chatty frontman too even dedicating one song to ‘our horrible orange man'. I wonder who he means.

They are joined on stage by Ellen Lewis, who must be half the age of the rest of the fortysomething band, and she takes lead vocals on one track 'Present Tense' while offering keyboards and backing vocals on the others. Overall, they are pretty good.

Talking of fortysomethings, before the Slow Readers Club come on stage I get chatting to the chap next to me who is a big Readers fan and says he has seen them loads of times. He says the crowds at their gigs are fantastic e.g. just like the old days e.g. lively. ‘The old days’ he says, are the ones that ‘fans like us in our late 30s and early 40s remember fondly’. As he has totally misjudged my age, we are now best friends forever. 

The Slow Readers Club have been slow burning their way through the conscience of the nation over the last eight years. Yes, there’s been nothing quick their rise and they have built the band up the old way, the hard way, through gradually building a fanbase. They remained unsigned, while still maintaining day jobs, until their third album was released last year. Finally, now the band have managed to go full time as a band.

They are about a third of the way through a massive 48 date UK and European tour and tonight they have sold out the Leadmill, making it their biggest gig so far outside of their homeland of Manchester.

They open with ‘Lunatic’, the big commercial moment from that third album ‘Build A Tower’. Everyone knows it and singer Aaron Starkie has to raise his voice to be heard above the singing crowd. From there, the only way could have been down but the Readers have too many good songs for that. 

‘Lives Never Known’ is followed by debut single ‘Sirens’ but they have so many good songs in fact that mixing the set up every night isn't a problem. The 17-song set is pulled in almost equal measure from all three Readers albums with songs from different albums segueing faultlessly into each other. Such as the excellent transition of ‘You Opened Up My Heart’ into ‘Plant The Seed’. In amongst all the old favourites is a brand new track ‘The Wait’. 
 

‘Forever In You Debt’ slow builds the start of the finale from which ‘Feet on Fire’ and ‘I Saw a Ghost’ from the excellent ‘Cavalcade’ album follow. Then finally their latest single ‘On The TV’. There is no encore, they have already left it all out there.

Feeder, The Leadmill, Sheffield

Supported by Daystar

It must be about time for another Feeder gig and they duly oblige with another four date preview of their new album 'Generation Freakshow' which is released today. The ‘main’ tour to promote the album isn't happening until November which seems a very odd marketing tactic and makes it all the more important to be here tonight in Sheffield.

Support comes from Manchester's Daystar, an unashamed indie rock five-piece for which you could name check almost any Manchester legend as an influence and not be far wrong. I mull over several, Stone Roses, The Smiths, Oasis before settling on The Charlatans, who aren’t actually from Manchester...

Lead singer, Simon Monaghan, certainly has a bit of Oasis or more precisely Liam Gallagher about him and a distinctive voice, relayed via a 1950’s microphone. I’m never completely convinced about his vocals during their thirty minute set, when it’s good it’s good but it seems to suit some tracks better than others. I am convinced by their lead guitarist, who is excellent and overall the whole band put in an assured performance.

They say and do all the right things, as support bands are supposed to. I think it must be compulsory to complement the main band's soundcheck, so I’m not sure we can read much in to their prediction that we’re in for treat when Feeder hit the stage. We knew that anyway.

Grant Nicholas, Taka Hirose and co open with ‘Tiny Minds’ which before the gig I’d got in my head as being dropped to make way for the superior newbie ‘Headstrong’ but ‘Tiny Minds’ was actually excellent tonight as the set opener. Still no ‘Headstrong’ though.

While the new album is clearly ‘lighter’ than their last, it doesn’t sound it live as ‘Oh My’ tumbles across the stage towards us.

Next up, it is a pleasure to welcome back ‘White Lines’, as this is my favourite Renegades era track and it is the first of three from that album tonight. ‘Sunrise’ meanwhile is definitely lighter and a throwback to more poppier days.

I hadn’t really noticed but the guitar intros to ‘Borders’ and ‘Buck Rogers’ are actually quite similar. Grant seems to play on this tonight, whether this is totally deliberate I’m not sure. It is ‘Borders’ that follows though. It has become quite a gig favourite and would certainly had been a big hit had it been released by the band during their prime.

‘Hey Johnny’ is the most blatant tribute to Jon Lee yet and Grant seems to put extra feeling into delivering this one. It is followed rather appropriately by the more subtle ‘Just The Way I'm Feeling’ during which, bizarrely, a fight breaks out on the floor.

Once order is restored we get a bit of a surprise. It’s always nice to get surprises in a band’s setlist but Feeder aren’t normally big on this in theirs. ‘Down To The River’ wasn’t really what I had in mind but I certainly didn’t see its inclusion coming.

This slower moment gives me chance to look around. The demographic at a Feeder gig has changed over the last few years. The couples who saw some of their power rock ballads as ‘their song’ have been replaced by more of the ‘old guard’, grizzled Feeder veterans like me, but also a considerable dose of younger blood who seem more animated by the newer rockier stuff than the old classics. All thanks to the rock-focused exuberance of ‘Renegades' I assume.

Feeder actually seem to be on 'repeat'. If 'Renegades' was them rediscovering their 'Polythene' roots now they've pretty much recorded a similar album to its follow up 'Yesterday Went Too Soon'. No bad thing.

At this point the Nirvana-esque ‘Idaho’ riffs into view, signifying on its own a timely throwback to the early days. It opens a repeat of that impressively heavy closing threesome from February, followed as it is by ‘Insomnia’ and the terrific title track to ‘Generation Freakshow’

That’s only thirteen songs in the set, so that surely leaves four ‘must plays’ in the encore. The crowd await their return, now bored with incessantly chanting ‘Feeder Feeder’ they revert to locality with ‘Yorkshire Yorkshire’.

‘Children of the Sun’ is ‘must play’ because it’s to be the next single and is released next week. It opened the set back in February but tonight it opens the encore with Grant again on the acoustic. It’s a pleasant track let down by what I think is a cringeworthy title. It tries perhaps over hard to be the next Feeder anthem. Personally I don't think we need another Feeder anthem but many will disagree.

Grant then asks for requests, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do that before. I think he was expecting a deluge of shouts for ‘Buck Rogers’ but I didn’t actually hear anyone call for it, although surely someone somewhere did. There was an impressive selection of requests offered but the loudest shouts were predictably for ‘Just A Day’ but close second was ‘Sweet 16’ but he played Buck anyway. Which naturally went down a storm but somehow I don’t think the world would have ended if he’d played something else. ‘High’, also on the ‘must play’ list, wasn’t played and the world is still spinning. Then to finish, it’s time to break a few ribs with the closing ‘Just A Day’.

Overall I really like the balance of the sets at the moment. Three tonight from Renegades, eight from Generation Freakshow and again much less reliance on the ‘old favourites’. I’m thinking Grant is getting the confidence to play simply what he wants to play rather than what he thinks he should play.

Later I blow up a photo I took of the set list but couldn’t make out clearly enough on my camera at the time. ‘Shade’ was down as an option to finish the set and an additional song was scheduled in the encore, one of the options was ‘Yesterday Went Too Soon’. If I’d got those two I’d be taking the day off work today to recover.

Unfortunately the band came on late and came up against a 10.30 curfew, so they probably ran out of time. Anybody at the other gigs this week could be in for a real nice bonus.

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The Bluetones, Academy 2, Sheffield

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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Kele Okereke, The Plug, Sheffield

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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