Von Bondies, Bodega Social Club

We go nice and early because it’s supposed to have a 10pm curfew but this turns out to be incorrect information. So we’re in plenty of time to catch all three bands. They are a three piece called The Sugars. To me, they look and sound like a harder version of the Raveonettes. They also have quite an American sound, although they are actually from Leeds. As their set runs out of time they enquire as to whether they’ve got time for one more. In the end they cheekily slot in two back to back. Not bad.



Before the second band come on we grab a drink from the bar. I have a Newcastle Brown but L risks an Asahi, which doesn’t taste of much at all but what it does taste of, isn’t pleasant. We then reserve ourselves a good spot quite close to the front. I was a bit concerned that in such a small venue things could get a bit manic down the front but on the front row is an old chap with beard, a woolly hat, and walking stick. Perhaps it’s not going to get that manic after all.

Next up are Fight Like Apes from Dublin. They take so long setting up their kit that they only get to play twenty minutes. They’re a bit like another band I like, the SemiFinalists, that is if you crossed them with the Goodies. This is because the keyboard player reminds me of a young Bill Oddie. Oddie or ‘Pockets’ as he wishes to be known rushes around the stage in true Goodies style. He also had a head torch strapped to his forehead, performing a one-man light show.



The singer is girl known as McKay, who for reasons unknown brings a thermos flask on stage with her. She’s a bit of a screamer, rather frightening but also rather good at it. There’s also a drummer and a bass player, who shares a pair of rather un-fetching novelty sunglasses, equipped with flashing lights, with McKay.



Musically they’re actually rather good but the appreciative crowd doesn’t really know when to applaud because they don’t appear to be taking any breaks between songs. Either that or it’s all one long song. Eventually they do take a breather, cue applause. Our friend with the beard is totally loving it and getting on rather well with the lead singer. Can't see her inviting him back stage though.

Whatever happened to Detroit’s Von Bondies? They seemed about to hit it big but then they just disappeared into obscurity. Tonight, after a three-year break they’re most certainly back, or at least some of them are. Of the original four-piece only front man Jason Stollsteimer and drummer Don Blum remain. Both female members have departed to be replaced like for like. There's a new girlie on guitar and occasional keyboards, although she needn’t have bothered with that because it’s barely audible over the constant fuzz of the guitars. There's also a new female bass player, the fourth in an ever-changing stream of girls to have picked up the bass guitar. How does Jason get through so many female bassists? Both show they can play. There’s also the addition of a third guitarist. Quite why they need three is anyone’s guess.

They take the stage and promise to play some good old-fashioned rock n roll and they don’t disappoint. With little conversation but plenty of head shaking, by band and crowd alike, they get on with their set of no frills guitar rock. Our bearded friend is well into it, showing that it's the body that grows old, not the man.

Overall it’s quite an old crowd tonight. I’m obviously not the only one still harking after that unfashionable Ramones sound. The bands songs are almost all high powered two-minute guitar romps, simple but effective. Musically, it’s hardly ground breaking but I’m suitable impressed. Stollsteimer snarls at us, the guitars whine and the thundering bass and clockwork drumming pound at your skull. Excellent. They’re a lot rawer than on record. After about a dozen songs in I glance at my watch and see they’ve only been on stage for 25 minutes.



They give us a mix of tracks from the two albums they’re produced in seven years. Yep not exactly prolific. They tell us a third is finally on the way. It will be called 'Love, Hate and Then There's You' which is a great title.

The favourites are all played, although predictably ‘C'mon C'mon’ goes down the best. The girls take the vocals on ‘Not That Social’, a song about the anti-social non-drinking habits of the bass player but not this bass player, one of Jason's ex's. Perhaps Stollsteimer should use bass player Leann Banks’s vocals more often, she does an excellent duet with him on the bluesy ‘No Sugar Mama’.



They don’t say much but they do introduce a softer track ‘21st Birthday’ from their new ‘We Are Kamikazes’ EP and drummer Don Blum’s gets to sing for us on 'Rock n Roll Nurse'.

They close with a storming ‘Broken Man’ and go off stage after about 55 minutes. A short set just like the Hoosiers but in that time playing probably three times as many tracks. They’re close to curfew time but would have had time to come back for one more but nothing can pull them back to the stage. No encore tonight.

The old man is putting his hat and coat back on, picking up his walking stick and winding his scarf around his neck. With the set list in one hand and a poster in the other he wanders off into the night. I wonder if he’s off home to the wife or perhaps he’s off up to catch alternative night at Rock City. Youngsters eh?

Hoosiers, Keele University SU

Tonight we are at Keele University Students’ Union to see the much-hyped Hoosiers.
It’s a very young audience tonight which doesn’t bode well musically.

The band have encouraged their fans to come in fancy dress and quite a few have. There’s a motley array of fairies, nuns, even a Star Wars stormtrooper, along with the predictable 'Cops and Robbers'. Daughter catches a dummy that I assume someone has thrown out of their pram. L and I have come as ‘old people’, Daughter says she’s come as someone ‘who isn’t with us’.

The second of two support acts, we miss the first one, are a very polished trio from Dublin called ‘The Script’. Rather too polished if you ask me. I’ve not seen many bands dim the lights and do a triumphant entrance to their own backing track when you’re only playing six songs as the warm up act. In fact I haven't seen any. The reason for their polish becomes clearer when I look them up later and find out that all three band members are established producers who have spent many years producing for other artists in Los Angeles. They have all the gimmicks:- text us for a free download etc etc, they have an iTunes only release out now but their debut single ‘We Cry’ isn't out until March. I think they’re terribly dull. I’m sure they’ll be huge.



I like the venue, it's big and airy with lots of side rooms. A typical Uni setup. They also have a nice high stage which is good for the vertically challenged. The stage itself is adorned with a threesome of huge lampshades and there's some fetching 70’s wallpaper as a backdrop.

From the moment the Hoosiers arrive on the bedecked stage waving huge letters spelling out their name, you know that this gig isn't just going to be about the music. The three band members are accompanied by two skeletons, who turn out to be their backing band and the whole lot arrive on stage straight of the closet or is it a giant wardrobe. There's a superhero straight out of 'Mr A' on keyboards.

The band are fronted by the not so shy and aptly named, Irwin Sparkes. Whom I've heard described as Ben Stiller meets Frodo Baggins, which is spot on. He certainly seems to appeal to the folks down the front who appear to be mainly young girls whipping themselves into a frenzy.

Irwin doesn't have a monopoly on great names, the drummer is called Alfonso Sharland and the bobble hated Swedish bassist is called Martin Skarendahl.

Having opened with a lively 'Worst Case Scenario', things tail off a little as Irwin turns into Mika on ‘Run Rabbit Run’. With only the one album, ‘The Trick of Life’, to pull tracks from, the band treat us to all of it but when they play the slower songs the young crowd soon seem to get bored and our man Irwin is drowned out by the chatter of the crowd. He has a strong almost falsetto voice and he likes to show it off but it starts to grate after a while. They do play one new song which hints at their inner indie fighting to get out.



The band rely on their enthusiasm, of which they have plenty and a few gimmicks, cowbells and other odd musical asides, to make up for their lack of material. The band, and in particularly Irwin, are clearly having a ball, and this carries the gig but it has to because only occasionally when things start to flag can they lift the crowd with their music. Such as when they throw in their infectious ode to ELO and Supertramp 'Goodbye Mr A'.

Other times they rely on props, such as when three large balloons are thrown into the crowd. The highlight of the night is when one wipes out a crowdsurfer and fetches down a security guard at the same time. The balls play havoc with the equipment, regularly knocking down the microphone stands.

After only 50 minutes the band leave the stage after closing with the forthcoming single, the aforementioned, 'Cops and Robbers'. They return with Skarendahl dressed as if auditioning for a part in ‘Finding Nemo’ although Daughter assures me it's something to do with Torchwood.

After a solo number from Irwin the band play a highly ambitious cover of one of Billy Joel’s finer moments 'We Didn’t Start the Fire' because, they tell us, they have run out of their own songs. Err, well apart from a certain debut single, the name of which escapes me right now... Oh yes that’s the one. They break the golden rule of playing live and save their biggest song ‘Worried About Ray’ till last.

For a band with a lot of hype to live up to, they turn out to be rather ordinary. Energetic, jaunty and fun but ordinary. I can’t help thinking Fratellis syndrome. Where do they go from here? With not so jolly lyrics buried within their happy sound there might be hidden depths. They need to discover them.

Eamon Hamilton, Bodega Social

We head into town to the Social, sorry the Bodega Social as it's now known, to catch Brakes front man Eamon Hamilton play am acoustic solo set. We're not expecting a large crowd, for a start our tickets are number 1 and 2. We grab a drink and mingle with the dozen or so others.

First up is a chap called Rob from Stourbridge, who calls himself The Voluntary Butler Scheme and is very much a one-man band. Apparently he's used to be the drummer in a band called 'The School', who I haven't heard of, and also 'The Boy Least Likely To', who I fleetingly have. The main man, Eamon, is in the 'crowd' too.

First thing L says when he comes on stage is that he's a ringer for Son, same hair, same downward gaze, same mumbling articulations. Main difference is that he's a brilliant singer and talented multi-instrumentalist. Of course Son could be too and we just don't know it.

Rob plays some very catchy pop songs using a variety of instruments and all accompanied with some great lyrics. He's not so eloquent between songs, at one stage he appears to start to explain why he's called himself the Voluntary Butler Scheme but then appears to give up mid-sentence.



So impressed are we that afterwards we try and find the man himself to buy his CD but he's already legged it. We find out later that he does have an EP available for free, it's called 'The Vol-Au-Vent EP' and you can download it from his myspace page. It's very short, in total all four tracks last a little over three minutes. He describes it as a lunch break worth of ideas.

So to Eamon and the crowd has swelled to about 25 people, if you count the bar staff. Eamon doesn't look bothered about the small crowd; he just seems to love playing. Complete with his set list jotted down on back of his guitar he works his way through some of the Brakes lighter moments, along with a smattering of new tracks. He also plays a few of the quicker numbers such as ‘Porcupine or Pineapple’ and ‘Ring A Ding Ding’, which still come over well. It's a very friendly affair in front of us hardcore fans.



Near the end he announces he's going to do two more songs but then starts to take requests from the crowd, playing 'No Return' and 'Heard About Your Band' before returning to his set list. He closes the set with another request 'Comma Comma Comma Full Stop' and asks the requester to count him in.

He comes back to encore with 'Jackson' and a very brief new number before we all headed home to our collies.

British Sea Power, Rescue Rooms

'Make Model' sounds like something to do with Airfix kits but they turn out to be a new up and coming band from Glasgow. They come over as a bit of a 'pop' Arcade Fire, and they have almost as many members. Having only just released their first single 'The Was' before Christmas and with no album yet in the offing, they are very much in their infancy but they certainly show promise. They have some great slow building songs. One to watch out for I think.



As I've already mentioned British Sea Power are an eccentric bunch. I mean how more eccentric can you get than moving from Kendal to Brighton. Ok I'm old, Kendal is probably dull if you're young but Brighton?

Tonight their usual stage decorations of foliage and assorted stuffed animals are gone; in their place are what look like various random signalling flags. As the band come on stage to the new album's opening overture 'All In It' it is without their army uniforms. Instead they look as though they had started to dress up as Morris men but thought better of it and abandoned the idea part way through.

They are without their drummer Woody tonight, who had recently injured his back. They tell us he's at home on decorating leave. He's been temporarily replaced by Tom White of the Brakes and also of Electric Soft Parade. White usually plays guitar so for him to turn his hand to drums and learn the material in just a few weeks is admirable.

Following the sequence of the album, they launch into 'Lights Out For Darker Skies'. Then comes the recent single 'Atom' which is accompanied by an air raid siren that is brought onto the stage. An old favourite 'Remember Me' follows. Their violinist accompanies them on most tracks, although the sound of that gets pretty much lost in the mix.

After four songs main singer Yan hands over to his brother Hamilton, who sings three tracks all pulled from different albums. Hamilton does not have as strong a voice as his brother but he seems to sing on some of the better material. Whether this is because of his voice or whether the songs would be even better if Yan sang them I'm not sure.



For our vantage point, I realise that the Rescue Rooms is far too small for the amount of people they have in it tonight. They may have worked out the capacity on available floor space but as the venue is such an odd shape, a lot of the floor space offers little or no view of the band; hence everyone has to cram in near the stage. I'm glad we've up on the balcony and even that was about five or six deep.

Yan returns to sing the current single 'Waving Flags', an ode to the Polish plumbers and Slovak waitresses now working in our country. Well it makes a change from singing about polar ice-shelves and Arctic explorers.

The brothers then trade the lead microphone for the rest of the night. Throughout, the audience is rather deadpan as are the band. There's little in the way of banter but it appears that none is expected from the faithful.

The instrumental 'The Great Skua' takes on new proportions when it is played live. How many bands play instrumentals these days? The track is truly immense tonight and accompanied with great visuals, although Tom White gets in the way of most of them.



The set list consists mainly of tracks from their new album, 'Do You Like Rock Music?' but with a fair smattering of tracks from their debut, we get a superb rendition of the brief 'Favours In The Beetroot Fields' but little from 'Open Season', notably 'Please Stand Up' but oddly 'How Will I Ever Find My Way Home'.

A storming 'Down On The Ground' and 'A Trip Out' would have been a good way to finish but this isn't their way and they take around twenty minutes to churn out the final two tracks.

Firstly we get the obscure but mental 'Spirit Of St Louis'. During which the air raid siren is given another airing and it all descends into muddled insanity. Guitarist Noble swaps his guitar for Yan's tambourine and ascends the steps to the balcony. He then proceeds to climb, Spiderman like around the outside of the balcony, even navigating his way around a pillar. Surely a manoeuvre he must have practised earlier. Some bands do a sound check, BSP it seems have climbing practice.

Just as we're wondering what will happen when he runs out of balcony he throws the tambourine to the bar staff, descends into the crowd and then swims back on a sea of hands back to the stage. Priceless but even so the song dragged on a bit.

Then they close the set with the full eight minutes and some more of 'True Adventures'.

They return for an encore and play an awesome 'No Lucifer' and the popular 'Carrion' before more larking about ensues with their regular improvised finale known as 'Rock In A', which apparently has been known to go on for three days but thankfully is a little shorter tonight. I lose track of who's on stage as someone new seems to take up the guitar, perhaps a roadie or a member of the support band? Another girl appears from somewhere, does a lot of shrieking and appears to start a 'friendly' fight on stage. Noble is once more in the crowd and surfs around the room on his back, pointing the microphone at anyone who wants to contribute to the chaos.

BSP have some great three-minute pop songs and if they stuck to that, which is what they are good at, they would probably be massive but they always seem to have the urge to extend everything into a ten minutes epic. Unfortunately 'epic' is not quite the result. Three quarters of a good gig but still pretty damn good.

Set List

Lights Out For Darker Skies
Atom
Remember Me
Canvey Island
Down On The Ground
How Will I Ever Find My Way Home
Blackout
Waving Flags
The Great Skua
Fear Of Drowning
Please Stand Up
Favours In The Beetroot Fields
Spirit Of St Louis
A Trip Out
No Lucifer
---
True Adventures
Carrion
Rock in A

Hard-Fi, Nottingham Arena

It's the Ice Arena, so expectations are low. We arrive to catch the last few songs of Tavistock quintet, The Rumble Strips. L describes them as having a touch of Dexys about them, which is a good analogy. They are good and quite inventive which may reflect badly on tonight's main act.



Then the Surrey boys take the stage and launch into 'Middle Eastern Holiday' or rather three quarters of the band do because the bass guitar isn't working. Now, is it the professional thing to carry on regardless or stop, get the bass sorted and start all over again? They carry on, I think to the slight annoyance of Kai, the bass player. So we get a rather subdued version of one of their punchier tracks. I don't remember anyone sound checking the equipment before they came on, tut tut, shoot the road crew. I can't quite believe it when they opt to play a second track still without any bass guitar. Are they on a deadline or something? Kai is now miming, as technicians run around madly, swapping guitars, changing cables, prodding buttons, twiddling knobs, flicking switches, anything they can think of short of kicking the amplifier. Kai though, I think, is seriously considering it.



Then 20 seconds before the end of the track I think someone realises that they forgot to plug the amp in and the bass guitar bursts into life. Just in time for 'Tied Up Too Tight' their debut single from 2005 which sounds good and gets the crowd going. They follow this with one of their better new tracks 'Can't Get Along', and by now the place is really rocking. They maintain this momentum for a while by playing a mix of old and new but then they lose it when they play a sequence of mediocre tracks from their slightly lightweight new album.







It's at this point that I start looking around at tonight's audience. The first thing that is obvious is that the Arena is probably only half full, which begs the question why are they playing here. My mate the other night reckoned it was because vocalist Richard Archer is a 'bit of a knob' with too big an opinion of himself. On tonight's evidence that's a bit harsh, he's hardly any match for Matt the Mouth from the Pigeon Detectives.



The audience is a real mix of ages and not the predominately younger crowd that I had expected. The youngsters do entertain us though, during the dull moments. A lad in a stripy jumper has to repeatedly try to fight off the ardent attention of his embarrassing drunk girlfriend. He indulges her just enough, so as not to compromise his chances of getting his leg over later, before peeling her off him and pushing her away. Every time he does this she runs off to put her arm around someone else or in one case climb on to their shoulders. She's evidently trying to make him jealous but he doesn’t look bothered, in any case she keeps boomeranging back.



Back on stage, 'Cash Machine' sounds disappointingly flat and is also upstaged by the big screen at the back of the stage. Archer could have been stood there singing naked and no one would have noticed because everyone is too busy being entertained by the screen.







Drunk girl is back again, swinging her arms around Stripy, we all duck as arcs of lager fly from the glass in her hand. Thankfully it'll soon be empty. Although I find myself wishing she'd drink it rather than spill it then she might fall over and we'll all get some peace.



The band play a B-side 'You And Me' and Archer plays a burst of The Special's 'Ghost Town' on a Melodica, proving his talents, he also plays guitar and his voice tonight is faultless.



They all have to do it don't they? On 'We Need Love' they change the words to say 'Nottingham', luckily it is easily transposed with 'Birmingham'. It would have been interesting to see how they got on in Margate the other night.



Some silly sod has fetched Drunk girl a fresh pint of lager and we all get ready to duck again. Stripy's had enough, he slopes off, and when he doesn't return after a couple of songs she goes off to find him. We all relax.



They finish with the oddly popular 'Suburban Knights' and 'Hard To Beat' which also sounds below par. I shall give them the benefit of the doubt and blame the Arena. Luckily we are close to the front and probably get the best of the sound because again there are insufficient speakers for those at the back to get much clarity.



As Archer is singing 'Stand up, knock me right off my feet, hard to beat' a well timed bottle comes sailing towards his head and tries to do just that. Archer pulls off a ducking manoeuvre that he ought to share with Ricky Hatton. The lyrics are so appropriate 'Goodness, no, I've never known a night like this' but I wonder if he's tempted to change the next line and sing 'Can't believe it, I'm so hard to hit'.







Drunk girl has found Stripy and they are back in front of us for the encores. Archer returns alone with an acoustic guitar and plays the first verse of 'The King' alone. The rest of the band gradually drift back and join in as the song goes along. It is one of the best moments of the night. Then they close with two oldies, first the title track from 'Stars of CCTV, then Archer asks 'What goes down in Nottingham on a Thursday night?' That's a bit personal; perhaps he's read Stripy's thoughts. I think 'who falls down' might be more appropriate in Nottingham. Archer is trying to get a lead in to 'Living For The Weekend' but it's a bit convoluted. The track itself does come over well.



In the end I am pleasantly surprised. They're an entertaining band; they just need more decent material. For a band who were once labelled as the modern day Clash they've lost their way a touch. ‘Stars Of CCTV’ was half a good album with some excellent moments, most of which were played tonight, unfortunately it had an equal number of less inspired ones. Their new album ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ is more of the same, or rather less, because they've built on the uninspired half, which hints at a dearth of new ideas. Next time, they 'Better Do Better'.

Icicle Works, Rescue Rooms

We head to the Rescue Rooms because tonight it's the Icicle Works. Our ticket numbers are 41 and 42, so we're expecting a nice cosy gig and we're not disappointed. L has said all along that she's aiming for the front row and she gets it. I warn her about crowd surfing, for a start she’ll make Daughter jealous but also there aren’t really enough people to surf along, it could be painful.



The support band are called Amsterdam but we only catch their last song, so it's difficult to comment but word has it they could be the next big thing. Although they would say that wouldn't they.



After being solo for something like 15 years, last year Ian McNabb surprised everybody by resurrecting the 'The Icicle Works' for a series of gigs. They obviously enjoyed it because they are back again this year. As it turns out though this isn't the original band, only Ian McNabb survives of the original line-up, although bass player Roy Corkill joined around 1990. Tonight he is joined by former Dodgy drummer Matthew Priest and keyboard player Richard Naiff, who apparently is fresh from touring with the Waterboys. He's quite a character is Richard, I can honestly say I've never seen anyone enjoy playing keyboards as much as he seemed to.



The first time I saw the Icicle Works back in the eighties, a friend had to talk me into going but I was impressed because they were a great live band and I subsequently went to see them several more times until they split up in the early nineties.



They start tonight with the 'When It All Comes Down', released when the band were at the height of their fame and it still sounds great. I think L immediately regrets being on the front row. You can't fault the view but they have the sound turned up very loud for such a small venue and every time Matthew Priest hits his bass drum the resulting throb and whoosh of air from the speaker parts the hair of the front three rows.



McNabb plays pretty much a 'favourites' set with the notable exception of 'Birds Fly' which is not played tonight but 'Evangeline', 'What She Did To My Mind', 'Seven Horses', 'Up Here In The North Of England' etc all are, along with some of the more sickly later stuff. McNabb also throws in one of this own solo tracks, which shows that he remains a very talented musician, although he still seems irked that people don't buy his solo albums but I think he's past caring now.







As we reach the end of the main set, I become aware of a chap with a Mohican dancing manically next to me. So if you ever wondered what happens to punks when they get too old to pogo to 'Pretty Vacant', well they go see Ian McNabb and freak out to 'Understanding Jane' instead. As for what happens to groupies when they get old, well I'm afraid they all get fat, hog the front row and step on my toes. Ouch.



The set list, which we can see from where we are, only lists one song as an encore, that being 'Hollow Horse' but after an enormously long time off stage they return to play three slightly more obscure album tracks instead. Presumably they needed the long break to discuss what they were going to play.



The crowd cheer them back for a second encore, quickly this time, to play the previously planned 'Hollow Horse'. One criticism of McNabb, and he is well know for this, is that there were too many karaoke moments tonight. On several songs McNabb stepped back from his mic during the chorus and cupped his ear encouraging the crowd to take over. Which they do but as it isn't a huge audience this isn't terribly effective. As he does this on 'Hollow Horse' I realise that this song isn't terribly easy to sing along to anyway, particularly when unaided by the vocalist. I hate it when bands do this sort of thing. It's one thing the audience joining in with the songs but it's another thing entirely if the singer takes a break and leaves them to it. We have, after all, paid our money to hear him sing.



They return for a third time to close with 'Love Is A Wonderful Colour', their one and only big hit. This is all very eighties, these days the trend is for no encores or grudgingly just the one. No one plays two these days, let alone three. I wondered if they might keep coming back on stage even if we all went home because it is clear that McNabb and his band are clearly having fun.



Top gig.

Human League, Royal Concert Hall

Tonight the soulless Concert Hall. We are off to the 30th anniversary of the Human League and the 25th ish anniversary of their classic album Dare.



Support is by a band called OneTwo who I had never heard of, which is surprising as its basically Paul Humphreys of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Claudia Bruecken of Propaganda. Their competent if a little dull set consists of mostly tracks from their album 'Instead', but they also play Orchestral Manoeuvres classic 'Messages', although not as well as the band themselves did it earlier this year and they finish with Propaganda's 'Duel'. They are very well received by the crowd, despite Claudia's appalling dancing.







Another track they played was a cover of 'Club Country' by the Associates. This was done as a tribute to Billy MacKenzie who would have been 50 this year had he not committed suicide in 1997. MacKenzie who was already suffering with depression, overdosed on prescription drugs in his father's garden shed, after the death of his mother.



So to the main event and a huge backdrop of half the original Dare cover, of the three surviving members, covers the stage. Phil Oakey comes on stage, looking more and more like Christopher Walken in manner and dress, each time I see him. They launch straight into Dare, in its entity and in order. The problem is, it's immediately an anticlimax because the first three tracks of the album are well known live favourites anyway so the occasion doesn't really happen until 'Darkness' is played. Now had they thrown in a few pre-Dare rarities first then that would have whipped up the expectation straight away. How about opening with something like 'Girls And Boys' which was the first League Mark 2 single anyway.







'Do or Die' is my favourite track off Dare and I haven't heard them play this since the Hysteria tour in err.. 1985 was it? but tonight it falls a little flat. It doesn't help that they seem to prolong the instrumental bit in the middle and Phil and the girls disappear off stage for no apparent reason.



It’s side two of the vinyl that makes the night. The three tracks that merge together on record, the brief 'Get Carter' (that Phil milks for all its worth), the fantastically haunting 'I Am The Law' and a sensational 'Seconds', with great graphics. For the first time they crank the bass up and you can feel the walls of the auditorium throb. You want them to stop right there, rewind and do all three of them again. Brilliant.



Throughout the crowd are very static (standing but barely dancing) and very quiet, none of which is helped by the staid venue. The bands last three visits to Nottingham have all been to Rock City, so it seems an odd decision to downgrade to the Concert Hall this time. I only saw the last of the Rock City gigs in December 2005 but the atmosphere was fantasic. People's attitudes are different at places like Rock City, tonight you get the impression that people have nipped out to grab a concert in the gap between Coronation Street and their evening cocoa and they'll be really pissed off if they're not back in time for the Ten O'clock News.







'Love Action' and 'Don't You Want Me' round off Dare and then we get a totally instrumental Hard Times, purely so the gang can do a clothing change. Then we have a run through of some of the hits starting with the Lebanon and finishing with 'Fascination' and 'Mirror Man'. Regrettably there are no surprises.



The encore starts with a storming 'Being Boiled' and concludes with the immensely annoying 'Together in Electric Dreams'. Which is not even a Human League track but they always play it.



Oakey's voice was excellent throughout and the band weren't bad but still an awful lot was on tape but the three best tracks of the night were by miles 'I Am The Law', 'Seconds' and 'Being Boiled', unfortuantely non of them feature the girls. Who were their usual dancing, singing slightly off-key, selves with numerous costume changes. Perhaps too late for a career move but time to go solo Phil?



The problem with playing your classic album first, as I discovered with Orchestral Manoeuvres this year, is that whatever you play next is going to be an anti-climax. Also, although I thought it would, playing the album in order doesn't work either because there's no surprise, everyone knows what's coming next. What both bands should have done for a retro-tour like this is play it as if it really was the Dare tour (or the Architecture & Morality Tour) e.g. play what you would have played in 1982 on that original tour. Which in the Leagues case would have meant drawing on stuff from 'Travelogue' and 'Reproduction'. They could possibly get away with a few tracks that were close to that period e.g. 'Fascination', 'Mirror Man' and why do they never play the wonderful 'Love You Too Much'? It just doesn't seem right when you mix in stuff from twenty years later. Just my opinion.







In 2005 they did a greatest hits set, is there any point in doing the same thing every year? Go on surprise us. Just because 'Dare' sold millions doesn't make it a classic album, it's a classic album simply because it is! If you see what I mean. 'Travelogue' is a classic too, now there's a thought...



Go on Phil do it, 'Dare' To Be different, I can see it now...



'A crow and a baby had an affair...'