Went to see The Darkness start off their comeback tour of the UK at the Liverpool Guild of Students last night. The Gig was originally meant to be at the O2 Academy, but the roof has collapsed, hence the change of venue.
Novelist Supermum came with me - she hadn't been to that particular venue for about 20 years and reckons that it's changed a little, but not that much.
I'd been there once before myself (in 1985 I think?) - it's a medium sized hall that does the job OK.
We arrived as the first of two support acts were finishing their set. "Crown Jewel Defense". Didn't sound like anything special, and I heard a couple of bum notes in the final guitar solo.
The second band "Foxy Shazam" from the US of A were far more entertaining. A bizarre looking bunch of glam rock rejects who threw themselves into every strange number that they played. The bald, bearded keyboard player was right at the front of the stage, standing on his keyboard for the clapalong bits. The bass player had come straight from Mott the Hoople and there was also a chap in a top hat, playing the trumpet.
Then came the band that we'd been waiting for. The Darkness ran through a blistering set of numbers from their two albums. The stuff from the second album still doesn't sound as good as the first to me - but OK live all the same. Lots of Lizzy-esque guitars in chorus moments and plenty of riff-tastic posing opportunities for Justin and his brother Dan Hawkins.
They started off with "Black Shuck", somewhere in the middle was my personal favourite "Get Your Hands Off My Woman You Mother....r", and finished with a string of encores, which included their Christmas song (a month early), an instrumental jam, Queen's "Tie Your Mother Down" and of course "I Believe in an Thing Called Love".
During this last section Justin took off, riffing away whilst being carried on someone's shoulders (fan or roadie - I'm not sure?) through the crowd and back to the stage again. May have been spontaneous, may have been staged, but looked great all the same.
Quotes of the night from Justin "What was that dear?" "These breasts are for you?" "No thank you - I've got two of my own!". Also (after changing into a red striped glam-suit) "It's the only one that's clean".
Great night out - if you don't count the £3.80 for a pint of San Miguel in a plastic glass!
Showing posts with label gig. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gig. Show all posts
Thursday, 10 November 2011
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Back to the '80's RUSH - Time Machine
Back to the '80's in more than one way today.
Nipped out at lunchtime to purchase a Clarinet 'sling' for Samwise, who is starting his first lessons on this instrument at school, and needs a little support when playing.
Found the city centre literally overrun by police - I counted 10 police vans in Victoria square, blue lights flashing roadblocks at every major junction around the city centre, the town hall surrounded by uniformed police, large groups of police patrolling the streets and a helicopter buzzing overhead.
I could hear the chanting of what looked like a thousand or more students demonstrating against the cuts as they marched down Lord street. All very orderly, no doubt due to the heavy police presence, although they kept sitting down every so often as part of the protest.
Reminded me of a similar experience I had down the shops in Wolverhampton in the '80's, - no riot helmets, shields and batons in evidence this time though.
I've just ordered my ticket for RUSH at the Manchester Evening News Arena next May.
They're doing their entire 1980 album "Moving Pictures" live on stage. Looking forward to going back to this with them.
Nipped out at lunchtime to purchase a Clarinet 'sling' for Samwise, who is starting his first lessons on this instrument at school, and needs a little support when playing.
Found the city centre literally overrun by police - I counted 10 police vans in Victoria square, blue lights flashing roadblocks at every major junction around the city centre, the town hall surrounded by uniformed police, large groups of police patrolling the streets and a helicopter buzzing overhead.
I could hear the chanting of what looked like a thousand or more students demonstrating against the cuts as they marched down Lord street. All very orderly, no doubt due to the heavy police presence, although they kept sitting down every so often as part of the protest.
Reminded me of a similar experience I had down the shops in Wolverhampton in the '80's, - no riot helmets, shields and batons in evidence this time though.
I've just ordered my ticket for RUSH at the Manchester Evening News Arena next May.
They're doing their entire 1980 album "Moving Pictures" live on stage. Looking forward to going back to this with them.
Friday, 21 May 2010
Wilko Johnson - Liverpool O2 Academy 20 May 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Ullah!
We went to see Jeff Waynes Musical Version of War of the Worlds at the Echo arena on Sunday Night.
It's the 30th Anniversary Tour i.e. 30 years since the album was released - as it's only been performed live for about 3 years.
On the whole the performance was great. The orchestra was divided into a keyboards / percussion / electric stringed instruments and a 48 strong string section. Jeff Wayne conducting, of course. The music from the album was performed from start to finish, with an interval at the point where the second disc has to be played. No staged encores, or replays of favourite bits, the show finished at the second epilogue, as it does on the album.
To complement the music there was background screen displaying CGI animation portraying the story, live singers/actors who interacted with a hologram head of Richard Burton and a 35 ft Martian Fighting machine.
On the downside the sound technicians seemed to be having trouble getting the balance right between the spoken words, the singing and the music. The Richard Burton hologram and the actors were drowned out a couple of times by the music/singing, when they should have been speaking over the top of it.
The sound improved a lot by the second half, so it could have been a symptom of this being the only performance at this venue.
The CGI wasn't the greatest I've seen, but this isn't a cinema performance, and the heat ray scenes interacted well with pyros and flash bombs going off on the stage. It was a warm night, so you really felt like you were getting blasted and scorched.
At the start of the gig a new scene was displayed, showing the Martians plotting their invasion of earth. Personally I thought that this preview of the Martians lessened the impact of the later classic scene, as described by H.G Wells and narrated so well by Richard Burton when the cylinder lid unscrews, and a Martian is seen for the first time.
The fighting machine was quite impressive at first, when it descended from the lighting rig - although most of us had seen a much better mechanoid just outside on the steps last September :) This tripod was animated by chain motors, rather than the hydraulics and was a lot more cumbersome in it's movements. It reminded me a little of the old Motorhead Bomber lighting rig which was "flown" in a similar manner.
The Richard Burton hologram head is a bit weird at first. It's projected onto a clear plastic backdrop stage right and carries out the narration, as heard on the album. The weird thing is that the hologram is of a much younger Richard Burton than you might have expected him to look (the voice sounds older than the image).
The singers/actors all performed their parts well. We were amused at the start by the performers being introduced on the screen, which reminded us of an American mini-series intro - particularly "The voice of humanity" who was punching the air with his fist. They reacted to the hologram well, which in turn reacted to them.
Justin Hayward played the journalist - getting on a bit, but singing well - the right voice for "The Eve of the War" and "Forever Autumn". I didn't think that the other performers would top the original voices from the album, and I was mostly right, but surprisingly, for me, Jennifer Ellison as the preacher Nathaniel's wife did. I've only really seen her on the cover of FHM, and other magazines of that ilk, so I'd assumed that she was only famous for her other assets.
So a great musical piece, well performed, but not perfect. The complementary special effects are not for the CGI/Video games generation, but make a good piece of theatre all the same.
It's the 30th Anniversary Tour i.e. 30 years since the album was released - as it's only been performed live for about 3 years.
On the whole the performance was great. The orchestra was divided into a keyboards / percussion / electric stringed instruments and a 48 strong string section. Jeff Wayne conducting, of course. The music from the album was performed from start to finish, with an interval at the point where the second disc has to be played. No staged encores, or replays of favourite bits, the show finished at the second epilogue, as it does on the album.
To complement the music there was background screen displaying CGI animation portraying the story, live singers/actors who interacted with a hologram head of Richard Burton and a 35 ft Martian Fighting machine.
On the downside the sound technicians seemed to be having trouble getting the balance right between the spoken words, the singing and the music. The Richard Burton hologram and the actors were drowned out a couple of times by the music/singing, when they should have been speaking over the top of it.
The sound improved a lot by the second half, so it could have been a symptom of this being the only performance at this venue.
The CGI wasn't the greatest I've seen, but this isn't a cinema performance, and the heat ray scenes interacted well with pyros and flash bombs going off on the stage. It was a warm night, so you really felt like you were getting blasted and scorched.
At the start of the gig a new scene was displayed, showing the Martians plotting their invasion of earth. Personally I thought that this preview of the Martians lessened the impact of the later classic scene, as described by H.G Wells and narrated so well by Richard Burton when the cylinder lid unscrews, and a Martian is seen for the first time.
The fighting machine was quite impressive at first, when it descended from the lighting rig - although most of us had seen a much better mechanoid just outside on the steps last September :) This tripod was animated by chain motors, rather than the hydraulics and was a lot more cumbersome in it's movements. It reminded me a little of the old Motorhead Bomber lighting rig which was "flown" in a similar manner.
The Richard Burton hologram head is a bit weird at first. It's projected onto a clear plastic backdrop stage right and carries out the narration, as heard on the album. The weird thing is that the hologram is of a much younger Richard Burton than you might have expected him to look (the voice sounds older than the image).
The singers/actors all performed their parts well. We were amused at the start by the performers being introduced on the screen, which reminded us of an American mini-series intro - particularly "The voice of humanity" who was punching the air with his fist. They reacted to the hologram well, which in turn reacted to them.
Justin Hayward played the journalist - getting on a bit, but singing well - the right voice for "The Eve of the War" and "Forever Autumn". I didn't think that the other performers would top the original voices from the album, and I was mostly right, but surprisingly, for me, Jennifer Ellison as the preacher Nathaniel's wife did. I've only really seen her on the cover of FHM, and other magazines of that ilk, so I'd assumed that she was only famous for her other assets.
So a great musical piece, well performed, but not perfect. The complementary special effects are not for the CGI/Video games generation, but make a good piece of theatre all the same.
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