Tonight I have travelled on the Highway To Hell. No really. The M6 is not my favourite place at the best of times, but tonight it exceeded itself to make my life miserable. Some of it was flooded. Some of it was on fire. This meant the bits of it that weren’t closed were moving incredibly slowly, oh and just for laughs there was also torrential rain to contend with. Deep joy. 2 hours later and I am in Blackpool just in time to catch most of openers Heartbreak Remedy’s set.
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You know what my first thought was about tonight’s bill when I was asked to come out and watch it? Any of the three bands playing could actually be headliners. Despite their different styles and their different strengths and weaknesses,I am genuinely amazed at the quality of some of the bands knocking about on the club-sized venue circuit in the UK at the moment. Tonight we are treated to three who are all different, yet also share an eagerness to make music and perform it, a keenness, a hunger. It’s good to see that although not a sell-out there is a decent-sized crowd gathered, and also good to see that most of them get in early and stay to watch all three acts.
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It’s always nice when you see bands that are starting to do well for themselves give a hand up to those coming up behind them, and that’s exactly what Gin Annie have done on this tour. Although White Raven Down have been their support on most of the dates, they have also opened up a third slot at some venues, which has gone to a local band.
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Have I mentioned before how much I hate the M6? Picture the scene. The dancing shoes are on. The rum is poured. I’ve got both bands’ new albums on the car stereo to listen to on the way. I even managed to get away from work a bit earlier than usual. Only to come to a total standstill on the M6 for no apparent reason, aaargh. The reason I am telling you this is because tonight’s bill advertised 3 bands, the first being an outfit called The Event, but the motorway gods ensured that I got to the venue at 8pm just as StOp,sToP! hit the stage. I have no idea if this band played, or even if they exist. Sigh. So whoever they are, you’ll have to wait for another time to find out if I liked them or not!
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This gig has been a long time coming! It was first mooted before there was even a hint of covid in the air – Sam Millar had got the band together and recorded a couple of EPs and they were itching to get out on tour and play live. The possibility of a date at the Waterloo was mentioned, we were waiting for confirmation and then the world stopped. When things started to open up again there had been some shifting of band members, and the Waterloo show was originally booked as the band’s second ever gig. It was to be a socially-distanced event in October last year but sadly it got cancelled for the first time when we went into lockdown again in the autumn. Tickets in hand we waited eagerly for a new date.
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16 months! 16 months since the Tivoli closed its doors and was then not able to open them again until this show. It feels like forever. But hey ho, here we are, and after imposing seated limits on the Tiv that would have meant they couldn’t break even, the Welsh Government have allowed tonight’s show to go ahead unrestricted as a pilot. This means that everyone who came had to show proof of a negative lateral flow test taken within the last 24 hours, and also bring photo ID. Masks had to be worn whilst queuing outside the venue but once we were in it was business as usual.
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Gigging In The Living (Room) - A New Reality? How Live Music Might Survive Covid-19
Featuring Tony Wright, Takeaway Thieves
Mamama my corona….. yep, that damned virus is really taking hold of the world now, and unfortunately a major side effect of social distancing is that gigs are getting cancelled and venues are having to close their doors all over the place.
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When your show is part gig and part theatre, it must be quite hard to find an appropriate support act. Tragedy tonight gave us a couple of local bands, kicking things off with the scouse humour and somewhat weird sound of Mr Ted. I’ll be honest, watching all the man-buns and hipster beards nodding along to their rather strange mishmash of sound made me feel really old. It was a bit avant-garde, a bit, well, odd really.
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I’m still buzzing from interviewing Phil X as Ryan and I rock up to Rebellion for tonight’s gig so, rum in hand, I settle down for what I expect to be a good night of rock. I’m not disappointed either.We start the night with Western Sand, a band I’m not familiar with. They play upbeat southern blues, in a ZZ Top kind of style. Their songs are catchy and hummable, and the drumming is superb. There was a standout track, a cover of Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” that I particularly liked, and although this is not my favourite genre they were really good at what they did and I enjoyed watching them.
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Anvil. Could a band name actually be more heavy metal than Anvil? A band from Canada that have been going for some 40 years through good times and bad. Some times so bad in fact that someone made a documentary about them. Yeah, this band is special alright. But more about them later, first let’s have a quick look at the two supports.
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Last time I went to watch Attic Theory I managed to miss most of them due to parking issues. This time I was there for the whole set but I might as well not have been. it was somewhat spoiled by some serious sound issues. They came on dancing, but despite there being 3 guitars on stage I couldn’t really hear them distinctly, it was just a wall of noise. I moved about the room a bit and it did improve, but not enough I felt for me to be able to get the full Attic Theory experience.
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I’ve not been getting my usual Wagons fix recently, so when the opportunity came up to pop along to their first “breakin outta the studio” tour date, I jumped at it. After all, who doesn’t want to drive down the M56 in a storm so bad it’s got a name, just to see them? Well, me actually. So I brought the Grumpy Husband along to do that bit.
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Do you know who CKY are? I didn’t. I vaguely remember their logo and had them firmly placed in my head as being part of the post-grunge American punk explosion of the late 90s. Not familiar with their output but doing my homework like a good little reviewer I thought they would be loud, shouty, brash, fast-paced and funny. After all, the drummer is Bam Margera’s brother, so they had to be a little bit Jackass, right?
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First gig of the year and I am starting my review, as usual, by complaining about the traffic. Well actually not so much the traffic this time as the parking. Jimmy’s is a cool little basement venue under a bar/restaurant just on the edge of Liverpool’s China Town, which means that there is limited on-street parking nearby which was all full, and an incomprehensible one-way system of little streets that saw us drive past 3 times before we finally found our way to a pay and display within walking distance. Sadly this meant that my enjoyment of openers Attic Theory was restricted to their last song. This was frustrating because on the strength of said song they appear to be a decent band. They have two vocalists, some nice whoa-oh-oh chorus and a hint of Chilli Peppers. Hopefully I will be able to check them out properly at some point.
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I’m starting this review in a slightly different way – with an apology. You see it’s now been a month since I trotted down to the Academy 3 to attend this little seasonal shindig, so you’re probably wondering why you’re only reading about it now? Nope, I don’t know either. Life, the universe and everything got in the way and although I kept meaning to sit down at the laptop and start scribbling, somehow it just didn’t happen. So I’m sorry you’ve all been kept waiting for so long. Normal service will shortly be resumed!
Right! Now that’s out of the way, what did I actually get to see on the night in question? Well, a stonking night of traditional British Metal to be fair.
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Sometimes you can go to watch a band and they sound really similar to someone else, and you go “Oh they are just like <insert band name> aren’t they”? Whereas sometimes you go to watch a band and they have captured a genre just right, and although they don’t sound exactly the same as anyone you can definitely hear their influences and get where they are coming from. Hand Of Dimes fall into that second category.
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REWS are a three-piece pop/rock band hailing from London despite there being a distinct Norn Irish twang about the vocals. They are bubbly, with catchy songs, and the female vocals are OK. There’s nothing that reaches out and grips me about them, but nothing I particularly dislike either. They do sound a lot like Scotland’s Amorettes though, to the extent that from my position at the back I had to squidge a bit closer to the stage just to check that this wasn’t them under another name. (It wasn’t).
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Sheffield. City of steel, birthplace of my favourite band in the world ever, and a bit of a pain to get to for an all-day festival if you live on the other side of the Pennines to it! Accordingly I manage to arrive at The Corporation just in time to totally miss the first two bands, sorry. This is my first visit to the venue and I am impressed. It’s normally a nightclub, and is a bit of a rabbit-warren of a place with one big main room and several smaller ones. Today one of the smaller ones was put to use as a merch room, and one of the upstairs ones was the site of the second stage. Stage times were staggered so there were no overlaps which was great, if a little tiring trying not to miss anyone!
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It’s another bleeding Wednesday gig, bah. Sometimes I think the Universe conspires against me, other reviewers get to go and do nice no-need-to-juggle-work weekend gigs but for some reason all the best gigs that I get to go to are on Wednesdays at the moment. I do cheat a bit tonight though by accepting a lift from my ROCKFLESH colleague and ace photographer Johann, so at least I don’t have to tackle the M6 again and I can have a couple of rum & coke for *ahem* medicinal purposes when I get there. The Waterloo itself when we arrive is warm and welcoming. It’s really starting to take off as a venue now and some class acts are queueing up to play here. Ian and his team have done a superb job of making it into a venue that’s a good experience for both bands and fans, and if someone you like announces a gig at the Waterloo I highly recommend that you pop along and see for yourself. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed with the décor, the atmos, the sound or the bar prices!
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It’s Friday, and tonight I am off out to re-live my childhood by watching one of the best pop/rock bands that the 70s managed to thow at me. As a young and impressionable pre-teen my musical journey pretty much started in the early 70s, and tonight’s headline band were a big influence on shaping my taste.
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