The Vaccines, Rock City, Nottingham

Supported by Dream Wife

Tonight it’s the ‘Vaccines’ at Rock City but first up are Dream Wife, an all girl band from Brighton, who I would say show definite similarities to Honeyblood but with more members. So obviously they appeal to me. They are a bit rawer and more punk rock than Honeyblood but no less riotously excellent for that.

We weren't actually sure we'd see the Vaccines again after what has been a turbulent year or two for them which included the loss of their drummer but here they are. They’re back and with a corking new album in 'Combat Sports' which is a real return to their roots after perhaps going off track in parts on their previous two records. 

In front of a long ago sold out Rock City, the band show that they have clearly got their mojo back. Their performance positively fizzes tonight aided in no small part by such a cracking selection of ridiculously catchy tunes. It is a set bookended the two excellent singles so far from the new record. The ferocious ‘Nightclub’ to open and the bouncy lively ‘I Can’t Quit’ to close.

In between Justin Young and co set a blistering pace, rattling off the numbers in very quick succession barely taking a breath. Sixteen of which have been listed as singles making this more of a greatest hits\non-hits tour than an album tour for ‘Combat Sports’.

Everything from their début single ‘Wreckin Bar (Ra Ra Ra)’, the perhaps slightly irritating perfect pop of ‘Teenage Icon’, the brooding ‘Dream Lover’, their big ‘hit’ (number 32 you know) ‘Post Break-up Sex’  through to the traditional mass sing-along to the lovely ‘Wetsuit’ and that's just the first fifteen minutes. 

Their ode to Amanda Nørgaard naturally brings the house down and there’s even an outing for non-album single ‘Melody Calling’. Meanwhile the new music fits in seamlessly with ‘Out On The Street’ and ‘Take It Easy’ particular stand outs.

In all the Vaccines rattle through 19 songs in just over an hour. Then return to do another three including a wonderfully seductive ‘All in White’ to close. Gig of the year so far?

Feeder, Rock City, Nottingham

Supported by Marsicans

So to my second Feeder gig in four days, well it is a special occasion being their 21st Anniversary.

They are supported by a young indie quartet from Leeds called Marsicans, who go down pretty well with the sold out crowd both for the quality of their performance and their infectious enthusiasm.

As regards Feeder, the big question for me is whether anything different would be chucked in to what they played in Leeds. Apparently they teased the Birmingham crowd on Thursday by offering 'Crash', another oldie, but didn't play it.

Their crowd are a diverse bunch. They have amassed a devoted following over the years that has stuck with them through thick and thin. For them, this Tour has been a sort of payback time with the band delving deeper into their classic debut album 'Polythene' than we’ve seen for many a tour. Among the many that are here reliving the old days, you could probably include the band themselves. Although judging by his Mohawk and shades, no one has dared tell Taka that he's over 50 now.

They have also continued to attract new fans and I don’t think they’re all the offspring of their older fans. Popularity wise, the band are bigger now than they've been in fifteen years and are selling out decent sized venues up and down the county.

The gig itself turns out to be very similar to Leeds, obviously just in a better venue. There is a slight set change in that 'Stereo World' is moved earlier to follow equally terrific 'Insomnia'. This means that the three in a row from ‘Polythene’, that happened at Leeds, doesn’t occur tonight. In fact it’s not even two in a row because, as expected, the set is trimmed to fit Rock City’s curfew and ‘Cement’ loses out. Fully vindicating my trip to Leeds.

Marooned on it’s own 'My Perfect Day' steps up gallantly to fill the void and soars ever higher tonight as it is joyfully welcomed home by all the hardcore oldies (and youngies) down the front, me included.

Other highlights are another ‘Polythene’ song that is a set regular ‘High’ which is emotionally dedicated to Jon Lee, the band’s former drummer who is no longer with us. ‘Piece by Piece’ is again outstanding and ‘Yesterday Went Too Soon’ sublime nestled in the middle of the five song encore.

Hopefully those who have come mainly for the hits from the early 2000s will also appreciate these early songs and also Feeder’s material from the last decade which includes some of their finest work. Songs which Grant Nicholas is always rightly very proud of and keen to play. The likes of ‘Renegades’, ‘Borders’ and ‘Eskimo’ show what those who haven't been paying attention have been missing out on. 

Appreciate it I think they do. Nicholas himself looks almost shocked at how well everything goes down and I am intrigued to see where Feeder go from here. Their set has always been a bit of a hits package because Nicholas has always seemed reluctant to leave anything ‘big’ out in case he offends anyone, which can makes things a touch repetitive at times. He’s got around this dilemma for this tour by pushing the set out to two hours, and they have cleverly paced it as well, never playing more than two nights back to back. This has enabled them to jump deeper into the archives to keep awkward customers like me happy.

The question now is can they put the genie back into the bottle and go back to shorter sets? Probably not... I hope not... and this celebration of their first 21 years won’t kill off the repeated calls for ‘Polythene’ to have a birthday tour of it's own. Here's to the next 21 years...

Feeder, Academy, Leeds

Supported by Team Picture

Feeder are out on another big tour to celebrate the 21st anniversary of their first release, 25 years of existence and last year’s ‘Best Of’ collection. They have promised to dig deep into the ‘Best Of’ to dust down some of the classics they haven’t played for many a year.

I’d booked tickets for the ‘warm up’ show in Lincoln last week to see if they were going to make good on that promise but sadly that show was snowed off. So instead, with tickets already for Nottingham on Friday, I thought an extra trip to Leeds was in order.

The support bands are Sweet Little Machine and Team Picture. Feeder have been offering their support slot up to local bands and tonight they have teamed up with Kerrang! Radio to offer two of them.

I miss the former but the latter, dressed as some sort of toy soldiers, are eclectic knob twiddlers and guitar pedal geeks if you like creating an almost psychedelic sound. It’s a slightly obscure mix of sounds that might take them somewhere but might not. Good luck to them.

Feeder meanwhile don’t disappoint, playing 24 songs and clocking five minutes over two hours on stage. This was the biggest Feeder show I've ever seen. Of course they played all their big hits as usual and opened with ‘Feeling A Moment’. Never a great favourite of mine and I’ve never been too sure about it as an opener either but I guess it gets it out the way. From there onwards they really rocked.

The crowd took a while to get going but they got there eventually. The big question though was what were the band going to dig deep for. Sadly there isn’t time in the set to give new mini album ‘Arrow’ a fair hearing and only ‘Figure You Out’ features but you can’t have everything.

The first nugget of gold was ‘Piece by Piece’ which is so rare that despite being a serial Feeder gig goer I’ve never heard them play it live before. Criminally it wasn't even played on the Echo Park tour despite coming from that particular album, so it has been a very long time coming. It was just WOW.

However the main meat of their back catalogue digging came towards the end of the main set, after the band had done another first and taken a mid-set siesta after playing ‘Tender’ or was this just to get Grant Nicholas’s cat Bamboo up on the big screen. Don’t ask.

The meaty highlight was a trio of tracks back-to-back from the bands début full LP ‘Polythene’ from 1996. First was punchy début single ‘Stereo World’, then the illusive legend that is ‘My Perfect Day’ which was dedicated to Jon Lee and then my beloved ‘Cement’. ‘Cement’ being the track that got me into Feeder all those years ago and unheard live by my ears since 2001 (that 'Echo Park' tour again) where incidentally they also played ‘Stereo World’ before retiring it. It was so terrific to hear both live again after 17 years.

The Polythene pair were included in an audience vote for which only hard core fans need apply along with Silent Cry’s 'Who’s The Enemy' from 2008. A rather unfair choice as the excellent but not well known ‘Who’s The Enemy’ could do with the exposure.

After the usual jump around to ‘Buck Rogers’ the band return to play a five song encore that really wound the 'casuals' up who had been shouting for the closing ‘Just A Day’ since about the third song of the evening. We all love a bit of ‘Just A Day’ of course but sometimes you wish they're throw it in early so then the rest of us can then enjoy the rest of the set in peace.

First Nicholas aided by Tom Gleeson on guitar played an acoustic ‘Silent Cry’ before Dean Deavall joined them to add keyboards to ‘Children of the Sun’. The pace is gradually being ramped back up and next is the always epic but not always present ‘Yesterday Went Too Soon’. It is immense, as ever.

Now guys you can go mental to ‘Seven Days in the Sun’ and ‘Just a Day’.

It was possibly the best set I've seen Feeder do for 15 years and well worth the long drive. Now to Nottingham, where sadly they may have to trim the set a little due to the strongly enforced early curfew there.

Honeyblood, Rescue Rooms, Nottingham

Supported by Super Furniture

Honeyblood are a band I’ve wanted to see for ages and who I finally saw last year at the Handmade Festival in Leicester. However that was a very short set cut even shorter due to the whole festival running behind schedule. I’m hopefully for more than just six songs tonight.

First though are Nottingham’s Super Furniture who openly confess that they don’t have any music to sell us but they are very keen for us to buy a t-shirt. They are also back in July. I think the lead singer mentioned that... several times.

They are a fairly bog standard indie four piece guitar band, pleasant enough but not of the required level to buy the t-shirt.

Honeyblood are still at that nice stage where they set up their own instruments while trying to pretend that they aren’t the band before sneaking off stage to make a grand entrance and everyone’s supposed to go ‘oh, you ARE the band’. Problem is that’s not working any more because they’re becoming too well know. As is shown by the fact that this gig, originally scheduled for the Bodega, got upgraded.

It is their second album ‘Babes Never Die’ that has got them the recognition and it is from that they open with acerbic ‘Justine, Misery Queen’. Understandably it is that album, slightly more polished that their first, that provides the majority of tonight’s set.

However, their first album ‘Honeyblood’ is arguably as good as shown by the more rift-ful ‘Choker’ which is up next and which sets the tone for a night of good noisy fun with the odd

reflective moment thrown in such as on the excellent ‘Cruel’.

The band of Stina Tweeddale on guitar and Cat Myers on drums are one of just many two-piece bands around at the moment. It must be quite a feat for two people to create the sound that is usually associated with a full band but these two manage it and think of the lower overheads that must bring. It makes you wonder why everyone isn't doing it.

There’s also less chance of your band members falling out but then if you do it's probably terminal or perhaps not because, although Honeyblood were formed in Glasgow back in 2012, Myers has only been on board since 2014.

The only misstep is when Stina says ‘Thank you Bristol’ after one track, oops, but after a bout of booing, mainly orchestrated by herself she is forgiven.

After three of their big numbers ‘Sea Hearts’, oldie ‘Killer Bangs’ and album title track ‘Babes Never Die’ end the set we find out that a band who, apparently, didn’t believe in encores now do.

They come back for two more, another oldie ‘Super Rat’ and one of their recent big singles ‘Ready for the Magic’.

Excellent stuff and, oh, Honeyblood have t-shirts on sale too.

Edit this setlist | More Honeyblood setlists

Bananarama, NIA, Birmingham

I am a little out of my comfort zone tonight. I know this because I’m at the NIA in Birmingham, or whatever it’s called this week, and the two women in front of me are wearing flashing red devil’s horns as are a distressingly large number of other folk. I have a feeling that the car is out of it’s comfort zone too as it throws a flat tyre into the mix that I don’t notice until we pull into the NIA car park. Hopefully it’s only just gone flat.

I could do with a drink, a pint of overpriced cheap lager perhaps, but in a nod to the times the venue is full of fast food joints and merchandise stalls selling t-shirts for £30 and programmes a snip at only a tenner less. There are hardly any bars which means long queues at the ones they do have, so we don’t bother. Oh, and I have a seat. Welcome to the world of Arena concerts, this is not my usual environment.

Oh, and the support act is a DJ. Hmmm. Really? Apparently Belfast got The Adventures, who are admittedly from Belfast but I'd have contributed towards their air fare.

Tonight’s main attraction, by the way, are Bananarama on their inventively titled ‘The Original Line Up Tour’. Yes, Siobhan is back and so are we. We’d seen Sara and Keren at Splendour a few years ago but this, amazingly, is the band’s first ever tour as a threesome. However, while Splendour was more or less an up close and personal experience from where I’m sat tonight I can’t even tell who’s who let alone able get any decent photographs.

Almost all gig venues are rectangular but places where the experience matters put the stage in the middle but places where the money matters put it at the end, like tonight.

Anyway, I best stop whinging about the place because the girls are good tonight. They’re in good voice, well choreographed and with a very able four piece band backing them with no obvious signs of any backing tapes. The music, well, dubious but popular Stock, Aitken and Waterman era stuff aside, that is good too.

Openers ‘Nathan Jones’ and ‘Robert De Niro's Waiting’ are excellent but probably chucked in too soon, ‘Cruel Summer’ also comes very early, as the pacing does go a little bit awry mid-set with material that many are unfamiliar with.

Some of these are their best songs though because ‘Rough Justice’, ‘Trick of the Night’ and their one and only ballad ‘Cheers Then’ are terrific songs, and very well done tonight. Everyone sits down for the latter, so that is why we have seats because us old folk need a mid-set siesta.

In what is a fairly daring set list they also play their début single ‘Aie a Mwana’ sung entirely in Swahili which must have took some practicing. For me the earlier stuff is indeed the best, so it’s a little annoying hearing ‘Shy Boy’ truncated and merged with the lesser known ‘Boy Trouble’ but fellow ‘Deep Sea Skiving’ tracks ‘Really Saying Something’ and the closing ‘Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye’ hit the spot.

They chuck in a cover of Shakespeare's Sister’s ‘Stay’ which is interesting with Sara and Keren becoming Marcella Detroit and (I think) they play only one track from the post-1988 post-Siobhan era, ‘Preacher Man’ which Keren, or was it Sara?, said it was one of their favourites.

There is also the bizarrely brilliant sight of seeing them dance in time with their younger selves up on the big screen on ‘I Heard a Rumour’.

The encore opens with the Fun Boy Three’s ‘It Ain't What You Do’ which they now seem to have claimed as their own. Personally I’d have got the guys to re-record their bits or take clips from the original video so they could have been ‘there’ but what do I know.

Overall though, it’s great entertainment for us and for the girls themselves, who seem to be having a whale of a time. Then it’s gig over, tyre fixed and the M42 closed. What? There’s always something.

Edit this setlist | More Bananarama setlists

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Rock City, Nottingham

Tonight’s support band are the incredibly misspelt Restavrant and on the evidence of the last 30 seconds of their set I would have quite liked the sound of them, had I not arrived so damn late.

Then in the gap between bands the entertainment and the intrigue is presented by Rock City’s forthcoming gigs board. Just who are Arse Full Of Chips and am I missing out on something?

Then it’s time for BMRC and I’m in my element. This is how I like my music. Simple. Guitar, bass and drums. Music wi' Nowt Taken Out and nothing added either. What else do you need? And for good measure Black Rebel play it loud.

They also play it dark and smoky, and its therefore pretty dire for photography. The band seemingly disappear completely several times and we can only take their word for it that Leah Shapiro was back there on the drums at all.

Tonight they test the water with a lot of new material from their forthcoming album ‘Wrong Creatures’ although this isn’t due out until January but half a dozen tracks are featured, and they are all met with due respect, including tonight’s opener the current single ‘Little Thing Gone Wild’.

Where as ‘Bandung Hum’ is new but less so (it was also played last year) but isn’t on the album or anywhere that I can see.

Naturally the old favourites go down the best. ‘Berlin’ is as gorgeous as ever but not less impressive are the really old oldies ‘Love Burns’, ‘Stop’, ‘Six Barrel Shotgun’, ‘Spread Your Love’ etc. If there is a criticism it is that, like a lot of bands, they don’t vary the oldies enough. There is a nice outing tonight for ‘U.S. Government’ which doesn’t always feature. 

‘Howl’ is heavily featured with four songs and one does wonder whether Peter Hayes can do anything other than ‘Devil's Waitin'’ on an acoustic. Go on Pete, confuse us next time.

Sadly this traditional mid-set acoustic break which also saw Robert Levon Been perform ‘Sympathetic Noose’ wasn’t treated with the respect it deserved. Too many boozed up folk, who clearly only came to ‘rock’, talked over the top of it which is a huge shame. These people were also most likely responsible for the frequent rainstorms of lager. Something you don’t, thankfully, see much of these days. 

After ending with ‘Whatever Happened...’ and Been inevitably down the front with the crowd, they returned for a brave encore playing ‘Ninth Configuration’ off the new album. A track that is sure to become another brooding BMRC classic.

Twenty three songs and two hours from probably the finest rock three piece around.

Edit this setlist | More Black Rebel Motorcycle Club setlists

Skids, Rock City, Nottingham

Supported by Angelic Upstarts

They say that old punks never die and as if to prove that statement we are at Rock City tonight to welcome back the Skids, the latest of that generation to reform. They have dabbled with minor reformation in the past but this time it’s for real, with a full UK tour to celebrate their 40th anniversary and there’s even a new album ‘Burning Cities’ in the offing.

Also still around, and from the same era, are support act Angelic Upstarts. We only catch the end of their set, so it would be unfair to comment on them really, only to say that they went down very well with the crowd.

Of course there is one old punk who sadly disproves that statement. Obviously Stuart Adamson can’t be here but original members Richard Jobson and William Simpson are, along with drummer Mike Baillie who joined the band a few albums in.

As the band opening with ‘Animation’ one thing was absolutely clear, that Jobson had certainly not lost the desire to not only throw himself into every song but around the stage too.

The question was could he last the distance. As he windmilled his way through ‘Of One Skin’ and ‘Melancholy Soldiers’ it was clear that he was certainly going to give it a damn good go.

Thereby followed an all-inclusive run through of the band’s singles and better known album tracks, with the likes of ‘Working For The Yankee Dollar’ and ‘The Saints Are Coming’ going down particularly well.

Stepping into Adamson’s very large shoes tonight was, rather appropriately, his former Big Country band mate Bruce Watson. As Jobson paid tribute to Adamson prior to ‘Scared to Dance’, Rock City erupted in a huge round of applause in his memory.

Watson had brought with him his son, Jamie, to play rhythm guitar and also to become target of a mid-set sing along of ‘Ed Sheeran is a wanker’, as he does bear a passing resemblance.

Back to the music and there was little you could think of that the band didn’t play, from début single ‘Charles’ through to the epic ‘The Olympian’ with Jobson still going strong. I was sort of worried he would collapse and I think he was too, admitting he was knackered and not quite his old younger self any more. Then he was off into motion again with another one legged scissor kick, only occasionally grabbing a sneaky rest as he delivered one of his engaging but often unfathomable anecdotes about the band.

The finale was stunning. The excellent ‘A Woman In Winter’ lead into ‘Circus Games’, then ‘Masquerade’ before they finished with ‘Into the Valley’.

They return quickly to play ‘Charade’ and then the song that Jobson threatened not to play if anyone badgered him for it. Namely ‘TV Stars’, the original flipside to ‘Into The Valley’, revamped slightly with Boris Johnson and Theresa May included in the lyrics but still (obviously) with it’s singalong ‘Albert Tatlock’ chorus.

They return for a second time and reprise 'Of One Skin' claiming they’ve run out of material. It’s perhaps slightly odd that they refrain from previewing anything from their new album but I suppose tonight is really all about the last 40 years.

Now I am no hard core Skids fan but tonight was pretty special. Welcome back to the best (and only) punk band from Scotland, so says Jobson’s mother anyway.