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It’s my first Fall gig and my first time at Fibbers in York. I am filling a serious gap in my musical CV on both counts. It’s not that I don’t like the Fall. It’s just that I’ve never been to one of their shows and in fairness they never come to any of mine.







Fibbers is hard to find – a nondescript entrance tucked away underneath a sixties brutalist eyesore. This being York I had been expecting something Roman, or mediaeval at least. It’s a proper old-fashioned rock venue of the kind that are disappearing fast – cramped, dark and minimal. Music and beer. Beer and music. Anything else is just frippery.

The tiny stage is dominated by a huge piece of Western comic book art and several large pairs of eyes which stare down from the backcloth – possibly the five lesser known members of the Eckleburg sextuplets. The only concessions to comfort are a dozen armchairs lined against the wall. When I arrive they are all occupied by large men in black and denim who look straight ahead and do not speak to each other or make eye contact. I hope they have come to enjoy the show. They look as though they have come to collect a debt as a favour for a friend.

It’s a serious crowd – people come a long way to follow The Fall and I feel like a novice among experts. The people to my right are discussing Fall gigs from the early 1990′s. Later they play the game of identifying every song from the first few notes of the intro which is great for me because there is no way I can name every song played so I wig in and jot down the setlist. I resolve that if asked I will give the number of gigs I have attended before as seven. That’s enough not to seem like a dilettante without the risk of anyone saying Well I’ve never seen you. Some people here will have been to hundreds if not thousands of Fall gigs and own even more albums. I also resolve that I will on no account mention the rather favourable review I have just given the new Tullycraft album.

Openers are York garage punk duo And The Hangnails – loud, abrasive and fast paced, great percussion and some compelling riffs and they get most of the crowd to their feet and listening. This is quite an achievement – I have been on the bulletin boards and seen how scathing Fall fans can be of the local support – George Formby at Clitheroe didn’t go down well.



At ten sharp The Fall amble onto the stage – launching the set with Victrola Time from the new album Re-Mit, followed by Strychnine and then Hot Cake from 2010’s Your Future Our Clutter. Re-Mit songs dominate the set as the single Sir William Wray, Hittite Man and Loadstones all make appearances along with crowd pleasers such as White Lightning and Bury.

The present Fall line up is now five years old and according to many fans they’re one of the best. Certainly on the night they are impressively tight and Mark E Smith is in a playful, benevolent mood, sharing the microphone and getting into conversation with the crowd mid song, leaning in to add a few bonus notes on Elana Poulou’s keyboards, occasionally disappearing from view altogether to take a seat in the wings, warbling and chuntering more or less incomprehensibly.

Smith is one of those performers that you just can’t take your eyes off – constantly in motion, getting tangled in the equipment, teasing the crowd with a wide range of gestures and facial expressions. Sometimes he adopts an almost schoolmasterly posture, arch and ironic, with his head tilted back and eyebrow raised as if listening for the hundredth time to a dog and homework story, at others he snarls and spits lyrics venomously or surveys the assembled company with a look of amused bewilderment as if he has momentarily forgotten why we are all here and he is wondering why all these people are in his living room. But there is always a sense of deliberateness and knowingness to his performance – for a man who is the studied antithesis of the preening and posturing rock star it seems pretty certain that very little of what he does is spontaneous or accidental. You don’t become this casual without working hard at it.



Highlights include Loadstones which is embellished with some funky bass from Dave Spurr while Smith leans into the sea of hands clutching the microphone two-handed like a loud hailer and a rocking I’ve Been Duped with Poulou taking the vocals anddelivering some heavy feedback from the keyboards. White Lightning gets the room singing along – I am aware that it’s the song first timers love but real afficionados are somewhat sniffy about, so I try to look as though I’ve seen it played loads of times before and would really rather have something obscure that no one has ever heard before.



The set is punctuated on several occasions when the band leave the stage without warning, (leaving the crew to wrestle the equipment from the eager hands of the front row), only to return after two or three minutes rest, until they bring the show to a close with Sparta, a potent Mr Pharmacist and Blindness after which they leave again and they don't come back.

Down to the Central Hall for The Billy Fury Years show starring the excellent Michael King as the king of British rock and roll - a terrific show and well worth a visit if it comes your way.

The new wave of British metal isn’t that new anymore but with their most recent albums, 2011’s Call To Arms and 2013’sSacrifice, Saxon have succeeded in breathing new life into a genre many considered past its prime, earning themselves the Metal Hammer Golden God Award for the best band of 2012 in the process, and their show at Leeds 02 Academy on Wednesday, April 24th, confirmed their pre-eminent position as the leading exponents of British metal.





The show was opened by New Zealanders Redline and main support slot was taken by The Quireboys – a fine performance including hits “Hey You”, “There She Goes Again” and “7 o’clock”. Vocalist Spike, sporting a blue bandana stumbled occasionally during the set, one would have liked to believe it was due to overindulgence but it was in fact the result of a broken foot acquired during a game of football against Saxon – less rock ‘n’ roll, but they didn’t let it interfere with the show.



Saxon’s set took in the best of their new material – including title track “Sacrifice”, “Made in Belfast” and “Guardians Of The Tomb”, as well as old favourites like “Motorcycle Man”, “And The Bands Played On” and “Conquistador”. The show started off at a gallop, full of bombastic power and posturing, and slowed down only briefly for an affecting acoustic version of “Wheels Of Steel”, dedicated to all the members of the audience whose families had worked (as did vocalist Biff Byford) in the mining industry.
Almost 35 years at the top of British metal means that the band are masters of stagecraft, switching positions, striking poses singly, in pairs and threes and rocking out with plenty of high energy hair swirling throughout a show which was never static. Drummer Nigel Glockler, invisible but for a bobbing George’s Cross bandana behind a drum kit as big as a small house imposed himself on the proceedings with a fine display, which included an extended solo on “Conquistador” while Nibbs Carter at stage left was much more energetic than most bass players, and Paul Quinn and Doug Scarratt shared guitar duties taking turns to produce Saxon’s trademark ringing solos and high powered riffs.



Byford himself remains a hugely impressive front man, his vocal range undiminished, and his ability to play an audience is second to none. With long flowing grey hair and an imperious demeanour, he dominated the stage with his voice and his extravagant gestures, stepping back from the spotlight only during the guitar solos to rock out, his hair a swirling silver storm as his head banged. At times he addressed the crowd almost like a headmaster, arch and knowing, one foot on the monitor, hand behind his back. “I’d like to thank all the people who’ve bought the album … (pause for cheers) … and all the people who are going to buy it to-morr-ow.” If he had threatened detention for non-compliance it wouldn’t have been entirely surprising.



Playing Leeds is a bit of a homecoming gig for Saxon, Barnsley’s favourite sons, so there was plenty of local pride on display. A chorus of “Yorkshire, Yorkshire” rang round the auditorium when lead singer Biff Byford announced that he was looking forward to spending a night at home for a change. “Last night we were in Manchester” he continued – drawing a chorus of boos. “The night before that we were in Glasgow.” More booing. Before that it was Newcastle. The boos verged on hysteria. Nottingham fared the same. Leamington Spa got off quite lightly – it’s hard to feel a meaningful antipathy for Leamington Spa, and anyway no one had brought their atlases with them. “‘The week before that we were in Venezuela.” That was safe ground – Venezuela was dealt with severely. “And the point I’m making,” Byford continued, “The point I’m making is that in Yorkshire we fucking hate everyone.” It was fair comment.

The show closed with a run of crowd pleasers including “747”, “Denim and Leather” and “Wheels Of Steel” with Byford orchestrating some enthusiastic community singing – a stomping end to an excellent show for Yorkshire’s very own heavy metal conquistadors.

Funeral For A Friend have always had a reputation for great live shows and there was a buzz of expectation at the Welly on Friday night, April 19th, when they brought their tour to Hull, supported by Guildford hardcore five piece Polar and energetic stage diving local favourites The Colour Line for a show that did its level best to shake the building to its foundations – a powerful exhibition of post-hardcore at its best.






Since the release of 2003’s Casually Dressed & Deep in Conversation, which saw them launch themselves fully formed upon the world and become ‘the most important band in Britain’ overnight, Bridgend’s finest have been through several changes of style as well as personnel, evincing a tendency to drift towards the more melodic end of the musical spectrum. Having parted company with drummer and screamer in chief Ryan Richards one might have expected that the trend would continue but that was not to be the case.



Their most recent album Conduit has taken the band back to their post-hardcore roots, with lead vocalist Matthew Davies-Kreye extending his vocal style to encompass Funeral’s trademark aggressively unclean vocals and they brought their newly remade sound to Hull in spades for a show which showcased their new material while giving their fans a chance to hear old favourites once again.

New drummer Pat Murphy, formerly of Rise To Remain, seemed to have added some heavy metal inflections to the FFAF sound, but although that sound was louder and rawer than some recent versions have been, the band are much more than just cardboard cut out noise mongers and they still managed to incorporate some of the melodic qualities of 2005’s Hours into the set.



They’re also too long in the tooth to think that there is any merit in looking angsty and miserable on stage. According to Davies-Kreye, Conduit is an album about the experience of being in a band and if the lyrics are anything to go by that experience can be pretty miserable. But if playing is such a drag the band didn’t let in show on the night.

They roared through a high energy set with Davies-Kreye coordinating activity in the pit and there seemed to be a mismatch sometimes between the existential bleakness of the songs and the obvious pleasure the band took in performing – a pleasant change from some gigs where the headliners sometimes look as though only contractual obligation keeps them from heading home after fifteen minutes.



Kicking off with the title track “Conduit”, which looks back to an age of innocence and casual musicianship, and following with “Distance”, with its evocation of the hardships of van life, the set list took in “Roses For The Dead” and “Recovery” from Hoursbefore heading back to Conduit for “Travelled”. As the opening lines, “I’m fucking sick / So sick and tired of coming back to these broken places,” rang out, it has to be said that actually they looked quite pleased about it. Maybe they’re feeling better.
The highlight of the evening was “History”, performed with suitable venom in celebration of the death of Margaret Thatcher and biggest cheers of the night were for the early hits “Juneau” and “Alvarez”. The evening ended with a rousing “Escape Artists Never Die” – a storming end to a great show.

Off to Alfords bright and early for a shoot for the magazine cover - everything is a month late but it's all starting to fill with colour now.

The stage looked conventional enough. Four microphone stands in a row stage front, drum kit and keyboards on risers behind. The violins and brass instruments indicated that there might be more to this show than the usual drums, bass, guitar of course, but strings and brass aren’t unique. We’ve seen them before. Trees less often. But there they were, great twiggy outcrops scattered around the stage, springing up behind the drums and up the side of the sound desk, like Birnam Wood in search of Dunsinane. And the lights were unusual. Every vertical surface (and the trees) had been covered with chains of long narrow fairy lights – from a distance it looked as though they had been swathed in razor wire. But that was all. If you discounted the blue glass penguin and the moose antlers taped to the top of the speaker. Other than that it was all perfectly ordinary.








Welcome to British Sea Power at Leeds Met on Tuesday, April 9th – a show by a band who refuses to take themselves seriously delivered to a packed house of people who take them very seriously indeed. Two things were very noticeable about the audience at Leeds – firstly the age range, which was as wide and evenly spread as ever seen at a gig, secondly the number of people who clearly knew all the words to the songs, even to the most recent album which had only been released a week earlier. This was a serious audience.



BSP opened the show with a semi acoustic session before handing over to Manchester guitar drum duo Brown Brogues and then returning for their main set, which kicked off with the cheerful poppy “Machineries of Joy” followed by a bluesy “Lights Out For Darker Skies” from 2008’s Do You Like Rock Music? and the melodic “Bear: from the 2010 EP Zeus.

Their set followed a similar pattern throughout – an eclectic survey of their output from the past ten years, with plenty of tracks from their new album but many from their earlier recordings, especially their debut Decline of British Sea Power, and the pace constantly changing with louder rock influenced tracks alternating with deft guitar pop.

Highlights included “When a Warm Wind” with its urgent drum intro, “Light Above Descending” which features bursts of static laden feedback, “Loving Animals” and “Mongk II” for which Hamilton (who swapped vocal duties with brother Yan through the night) put aside his bass and adopted a fine looking cherry red f-hole guitar and an explosive “Apologies To Insect Life”.



Of course in every show there comes a moment when you think, ‘I wish they could end this with a bear fight’ – and tonight was one of those all too rare nights when it actually happened, the band being joined on stage for the encore by a large polar bear (Ursus maritimus), which quickly found itself embroiled in a skirmish with a black bear (Ursus americanus). Anyone who has children will know the ‘which would win?’ question, and if they could have got a rhinoceros on stage one of the recurring debates in our house might have been resolved, but it was not to be. Eventually the band managed to separate the animals, after which the polar bear led the dancing from the pit while its black relative took out its frustrations on Noble, the guitarist.

And of course all of this happened as if it was perfectly normal and usual, which for BSP it probably is.

review to go here

A fab party up at Cabourne Parva with Joe and Josie.

Rock City, Nottingham is a proper old fashioned, no frills rock venue, cavernous and industrial, a mass of cast iron beams, pillars and staircases, exposed pipework and ducting. There are no concessions to comfort. What seats there are are just painted wooden boxes. No one tells you off if you stand on the tables. It takes a lot to shake a building like Rock City.







Black Rebel Motorcycle Club managed to make the place buzz though, on Friday night, March 29th, when they played to a packed house – and that’s a literal buzz. At times the whole building shook with the sheer remarkable power of the band and it was sometimes hard to believe that there were only three people on the stage playing music every bit as dirty and stripped down as the building itself.

Opening with a cover of “Let the Day Begin” (in tribute to bassist Robert Been’s father, Michael Been of The Call) the band set out it’s stall early as drummer Leah Shapiro provided a beat that seemed to fill the whole venue, Been added a layer of booming bass across the top for Peter Hayes to finish off the trademark BRMC sound with his feedback laden guitar. The three interacted remarkably little on stage, as this was all about the music; they don’t really do showmanship. Apart from a few words at the end and a moan about the cold the band didn’t speak much to the crowd either – they had more important things to do. Been’s on-stage persona is one of extreme intensity, all angles and postures, twisting into complex shapes with this bass, while Hayes seems more relaxed and at home and as the powerhouse of the band’s new rockier sound Shapiro puts in an extraordinary amount of work at the back.

At the stage front it went mad right from the word go, of course, but looking around the hall it was clear that almost everyone in the 2000-strong full house was dancing in their fashion, even the shy ones at the back. Not since the heady days of the Emperor Caligula have so many heads bobbed in unison, and most appeared to be singing along too. “Whatever Happened To My Rock ‘n’ Roll?” was welcomed with a huge roar as was “666 Conducer”, which featured a long feedback filled intro before Hayes launched into a growling bluesy vocal.

A three song acoustic and piano solos section gave Shapiro a well earned break in the middle of the set, and the second half was delivered with even more intensity than the first – with “Lullaby” the pick of the songs from the new album Specter At The Feast and an encore of “Sell It” and “Lose Yourself”. A great night at one of the best rock venues in the U.K. – fantastic.

The Black Delta Movement, Just Mammals and Kismet Ryding performing at the Yardbirds Club.

Congratulations to Ellie for organising a fantastic Battle Of The Bands and raisng bucketloads of cash for Humberston Park School in the process. Eventual winners were The Weisers but everybody was so good maybe winning didn't matter too much. If you believe that you'll believe anything.

No pictures of mine here - just a link to my review of the new Deptford Goth album on Louder Than War.

It's here.

A great fun night in loads of venues in Hull raising funds for this year's Hull Pride festivities.

Coventry's very own Rob Halligan playing an excellent set at The Oasis Academy, supported by Brad Arliss and Dec Handscombe. Thanks to Simon Cross for the invitation.

The Old Time String Band played the Minster as part of their lunchtime music season and a great time was had by all. The Leeds based duo of daisy and Martyn Roper treated the audience to a fine set of jazz and blues standards including my personal favourite, Blind Blake's That'll Never Happen No More. Terrific stuff.

A great night at The Gilson - music from the P45s and Leroy Vickers - great food and of course lovely people! Happy birthday Michaela.

An excellent night with Frank, Sam and Dean recreating the atmosphere of the Sands Ballroom right here in Freeman Street. Great stuff.

Some things they do better in France. Football, cigarettes, unpasteurised cheese and appreciating their rock and roll heritage. In France Johnny Hallyday remains a bona fide major star more than fifty years after his first hit record and draws crowds of all ages wherever he plays, including last year’s sold out two night stand at the Albert Hall. Refusing to grow old gracefully Hallyday still takes to the stage in full black leather, struts and swaggers his way through his set and stares broodingly into the camera for his publicity shots.





Who do we have in the UK who can match up to le grand Johnny? On the evidence of his current tour I would suggest that we might offer the great Joe Brown. Brown had his first hit in 1960 with The Darktown Strutters Ball, the same year as Hallyday’s first single Laisse Les Filles, and is still going strong with a hectic touring schedule that sees him playing more than a hundred shows a year, but there the similarity ends.

One of Brown’s most endearing qualities has long been his refusal to take himself too seriously. Not only does he eschew the leathers, but it seems that barely a photo of him exists where he is not giving that well known cheeky chappy smile and these days many of his biggest hits have been excised from his set because in his seventies he finds it hard to relate to the teenage angst and romantic shenanigans of their lyrics.

In Grimsby this week his set was made up of a mixture of his hits, such as Picture Of You, That’s What Love Will Do and Henry The Eighth and covers of songs drawn from a wide variety of genres, all performed with considerable panache by a band who shifted from 1920’s hula music to rock and roll to country and gospel at the drop of a hat, and included Phil Capaldi (brother of Traffic founder Jim) on drums, Ben Lee on guitar, Mike Nichols on electric and upright bass and Brown’s son Pete on guitar and vocals.




Brown himself is a fine musician and over the course of the evening he switched between a bright yellow f hole Gibson, a cherry red resonator, bass and standard ukulele and violin, giving a fine display on them all while also content to hand over the spotlight to other members of the band for instrumental or vocal spots. The ukulele has become a major feature of Brown’s gigs in recent years – he was at the forefront of its re-emergence as a fashionable instrument and both he and Ben Lee gave a display of just how versatile and tuneful this much under rated instrument can be.

It is traditional in reviewing gigs of this kind to assure the reader that the performer showed no sign of advancing years and was still as athletic and youthful as when they first took to the stage but although it is true that Joe Brown is remarkably youthful and the set proceeded at a cracking rate the highlights of the show were the occasions when he allowed the pace to slow and sang almost unaccompanied. On a version of U2’s I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For his voice seemed suddenly fragile, wavering slightly and investing a song which many people loath cordially with emotional resonances that no one would have suspected it possessed, and his version of Rowland Salley’s Killing The Blues was every bit the equal of better known versions by Shawn Colvin or Plant and Krauss.

Highlights of the night included a version of George Harrison’s Any Road from the posthumous Brainwashed album, (George was a close friend of Brown’s and was best man at his wedding), a spectacular skiffle rockabilly version of Ace Of Spades (yes really) and the delicate closer I’ll See You In My Dreams. All in all an excellent night of diverse songs from a group of fine musicians and what it lacked in black leather and moody strutting it more than made up for in quality and charm. Terrific.

Sam Lee clearly loves great songs, unusual musical instruments and the joy of collaboration and when he brought an evening of British gypsy songs to The Brudenell in Leeds all of these passions were on show. Backed by a group of sympathetic and talented musicians who wove complex musical motifs behind his vocal Lee reshaped his material with stylings that invoked variously the spirits of cool jazz, free jazz, world music and funk as well as of the folk tradition.







According to the press there’s a folk revival going on in the UK at present, led by the likes of Noah and The Mumfords, but Lee represents a strand of the folk scene that simultaneously breaks new ground while remaining diligently and respectfully close to its source material. He is clearly an enthusiast of the songs of the people and the oral tradition and he speaks with reverence of his teachers and of those in the traveller communities up and down the country from whom he has learned.

His vocal is very much in the English folk style, careful and clearly enunciated and rhythmic but he also seems to incorporate ideas from other musics, sometimes recalling plainsong and sometimes Islamic traditional music. The overall effect of his collaboration with the band was constantly innovative and surprising. Songs like Over Yonders Hill There Is An Alehouse, The Tanyard Slide and The Ballad Of George Collins seemed to take wings and fly when given this unfamiliar treatment, both new and ancient at the same time.

 

For a headliner Lee is very modest - he seemed equally happy to be singing himself or letting others take the spotlight. The show opened and closed with performances by the remarkable Irish traveller singer Tom McCarthy performing material from his repertoire of little known folk songs about mad women and men with no balls at all and Lee also frequently allowed the band to come to the fore as he danced hepcat style with eyes half closed at the microphone, while the instruments, an unusual combination of percussion, cello, violin, banjo and trumpet took turns in taking the lead. The trumpet in particular gave the songs a whole new feel - at times we might have been in a cellar bar in 1950’s Paris or New York rather than a social club in Leeds.



As for instruments a highlight of the night was the koto, a large Japanese stringed instrument but the Jew’s harp also featured prominently as did the shruti box, an Indian accordion on which Lee accompanied himself on several songs. Since these were mostly gypsy songs that we were hearing and they and the instrument shared a geographical origin it served to neatly symbolise the mix of the ancient and modern which was on show and the interconnectedness of the many apparently diverse genres from which Lee draws inspiration. At the end one was left with the happy knowledge that while these songs may not get a lot of play on the media there is certainly no danger of them withering and dying away so long as they are refreshed and delivered so lovingly by performers of the calibre of Lee and his associates – a fine night indeed.

Lincoln’s Engine Shed was packed for the return of the Stranglers on their Feel It Live Tour and the band turned it a tight performance as they delivered a set packed with hits to an appreciative crowd. The band have maintained their reputation for delivering high quality live performances and if they have lasted better than many of their contemporaries it is probably for the same reasons that seemed to set them apart from the crowd in the heyday of punk, most importantly the fact that in an era when the prevailing ethic was to buy a guitar, learn two or three chords and then form a band (possibly in the opposite order) , the members of The Stranglers were talented musicians and songwriters already. It was a difference which showed in the inherent musicality of their early output and in the vein of dark humour in their lyrics which was often viewed with distrust by other bands.



Many bands which continue after the departure of their ostensible front man seem to go into gradual but irretrievable decline but since the departure of Hugh Cornwell in 1990 The Stranglers have remained stable and strong – their most recent album, 2012’s Giants, was an excellent return to a sound akin to that of their 1970’s heyday. Cornwell’s vocal and guitar place is now taken by Baz Warne who has been fulfilling the role for fifteen years and this line definitely feels like the real thing even for the first half of the show when the drum seat was taken by an alternative drummer. For the second half of the show founder member Jet Black resumed his proper place at the skins – much to the delight of the fans who chanted his name as he arrived and throughout the rest of the show.



In fact what the show made clear was that the core elements of The Stranglers sound remain firmly in place – with Black’s jazz tinged drumming, Jean-Jacques Burnel’s elegant bass lines and the swirling keyboard riffs of Dave Greenfield at the heart of the music. Highlights included the obvious choices, including Golden Brown (which featured a fine vocal from Warne and brought a huge cheer and an outbreak of exuberant pogoing from the crowd ), a raucous Bring On The Nubiles, Skin Deep, Peaches and of course Heroes but there were many other smaller delights along the way. In particular Greenfield’s arpeggios on Duchess and scratchy riffs on the reggae tinged Nice’n’Sleazy, and the swirling solo on Straighten out were standout moments, as was the way that Burnel’s bass seemed to make the whole hall vibrate on Heroes.