First time visit for me to Liverpool's O2 Academy to see Wilko Johnson, after he'd finished the Q&A session at the screening of Oil City Confidential on the other side of town.
I've found a bit of the gig on YouTube. This guy was filming just beside where I was standing.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=DHUv1InQ-Hk
The venue is an old warehouse just behind Lime Street Station - formerly the Lomax nightclub. The size of place that I like for seeing a really good band in (for any West Midlands readers, same size as the old J B's in Dudley) i.e. medium sized hall. I've found a website which tells me that there's a larger capacity hall upstairs - which explains how they can put on some of the bigger acts that are listed to appear there.
The bar was a room just off to one side, and was filled with a smoky fog, reminiscent of days before the smoking ban. I'm not sure if this had been intentionally done, or if smoke effect had just seeped in from the stage?
Beer was atrocious though - Carlsberg or Tuborg Lager in a plastic glass. Cans and bottles were available, but decanted to plastic tumblers on serving.
There was a couple of local support acts before Wilko came on. The first, Fly With Vampires were playing as I arrived, and were OK - indie rock with good vocal harmonies. When they finished a bloke came round handing out CD's - I'll have to give it a listen. The second support act, The Vanities were a sort of funk metal band - reminiscent of Living Colour. I quite liked them, and wouldn't mind hearing some more. One guitarist had a black geronimo stripe on his paint and a geometric design body paint (hexagon on the chest and square wave along his arms).
The audience were mostly my age and older. A number were wearing Eric's Club T-shirts. A couple of leggy wannabe models were with The Vanities, as they danced to their boyfriends songs, and didn't hang around for Wilko.
Wilko walked onto the stage and immediately launched into his first number, doing the 'psycho strut' moves around the stage that he's known for. Fantastic rhythm guitar method - great to see it close up and live. His left hand hardly seems to move, whilst the right is a blur of activity - all done with the fingers - no pick. Not pure strumming though as lead licks are thrown in at every opportunity.
Norman Watt-Roy on bass threw himself into the gig from the start and kept going until the end, pumping out rhythm's to complement Wilko's guitar work - they were really putting the 'R' into R&B.
Wilko is the Mona Lisa of rock. His mad stare means that his eyes follow everybody around the room. Turning the guitar into a machine gun, and using the strings to make a statacco whilst firing the guitar at the audience was another musical joke that he likes to do.
A few Dr Feelgood numbers were played. The first was the pounding "Roxette", about half way in - a guest came on stage to do the singing and harmonica. Ths was followed by Paradise - which was a song Wilko wrote which started the argument that caused Wilko to leave Dr Feelgood. Later on he played "Back in the Night", which sounded a bit different without the additional slide guitar part - Wilko filled in with a few licks for this. "She Does It Right" was one of the stonking show finishers that left us calling for more.
Somebody shouted for "Milk and Alcohol", but he was only doing Feelgood songs that he wrote himself.
He came back on fairly quickly, and finished off with his version of Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode" - which he augmented with a "trains a coming" section, doing train impressions with the guitar.
Nice venue, great gig, proper R&B.
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