Saturday Night Hair Of The Dog

Saturday 17th March: OK, in hindsight, twenty quid may have been just slightly beyond justification for tonight’s gig. Originally, I would have had no problem paying it as the support band being advertised was Deborah Bonham, sister of the late, great John. I had bought her debut album (on vinyl…) back in 1985 and was looking forward to the opportunity of seeing her live. However, almost immediately, the support band was changed to Juall (who I’ve never heard of) and then, nearer the date to…

…The Bowden And Williamson Band, named after Mike and John respectively, with Brian Marston (bass) and Big Vern (drums) completing the line-up. Introducing Four Penny Rope, the third song of their set, Mike said they were going to slow it down some, do something a bit more “bluesy”, which was kind of strange as, the first thing I noted down for this review was that very word. Admittedly, the un-introduced first song and Jump Up On The Line were more blues-rock than out and out blues, but there was no denying the influence. Vocals were shared between the two main men, while John also sent forth some rather impressive guitar solos which brought to mind early Dire Straits. There was an air of the tongue-in-cheek through a portion of the set, with The AM/PM Blues (there’s that word again) highlighting how Williamson isn’t exactly a morning person and the wonderfully titled Jesus Walks On Water But I Crawl On The Wine being an example of a new musical genre – that of “Perverted Gospel”. The too-short set was rounded off with the superb Rock And Roll Dream, featuring a near- rap, spoken mid-section and the equally excellent Outlaw Romance during which Williamson showed just how easy guitar playing can be made to look.

Nazareth are another band whose name I remember from when I first got into music back in school, but whose music seems somehow to have bypassed me completely. If you’d asked me before tonight’s gig, I definitely wouldn’t have been able to name one track by them. In fact, I only recognised one track that they played and even then I would have got its name wrong – Hair Of The Dog is the title track of their 1975 album, but I thought it was called Now You’re Messing With (A Son Of A Bitch), due to the repeated lyrics, which tonight’s large audience sang along to with gusto.

As with most groups with such longevity, you aren’t seeing the original line-up any more. In the case of Nazareth founders and constant members Dan McCafferty (vocals) and Pete Agnew (bass) are joined by Lee Agnew (Pete’s son) on drums and the mean and moody (and, to be frank, quiet scary looking) Jimmy Murrison on guitar. With the latter two being members since 1999 and 1994 respectively, Nazareth are one of the most stable long-time bands around.

Unfortunately, for me at least, tonight’s performance wasn’t quite as good as those of two other similar bands (Uriah Heep and Tygers of Pan Tang) that I have seen in York recently. It might be that Uriah Heep come out on top because their use of keyboards gives them a slightly more proggy sound, in which case it would have been interesting to hear one of the keyboard-enhanced Nazareth eras (1980 – 82 or 1995 – 2002) to compare the two. That doesn’t really explain why I enjoyed Tygers more, though. Just to be clear, there was nothing actually wrong with tonight’s performance (not that I could put my finger on, anyway) except that it seemed to lack something. I still enjoyed it overall, though, as did the rest of the crowd and, it seemed, the band themselves.

McCafferty’s vocals were heavily reverbed in places (which may have hidden a multitude of sins) but had a power that belied his age. Strangely, though, despite being reasonably close to the front, I struggled to hear his between songs banter with the audience, which in turn led to the impression that his vocals were getting electronic aid. There were times towards the end of the evening when he looked tired between songs or during instrumental sections, but that look melted away when he returned to the microphone. Agnew (senior) played with a more or less constant grin, until somebody pointed a camera his way – then he just pulled faces – while Murrison’s guitar solos impressed, especially his work with the twelve-string, and Agnew junior’s drums laid a solid foundation for the songs. I’m guessing that the seventeen song, nearly two hour, set spanned a large portion of the band’s back catalogue, but there were a few songs from the latest album – Big Dogz – of which the atmospheric When Jesus Comes To Save The World Again was my favourite.

Favourite song, that is. My favourite part of the set came when McCafferty looked as though he was about to play the bagpipes during Hair Of The Dog. In fact, the pipes turned out to be a talk box (and, therefore, perhaps more pleasing to the ear than actual bagpipes…)

Overall, as I say, enjoyable if not quite up there with some others. I would see them again, but perhaps not for twenty quid.

A Conceptual Rug

Friday 2nd March: After last week’s gig, over a quick pint before heading off home, Andy and I were bemoaning the apparent lack of the “four bands for a few quid” gigs that were so prevalent a few years ago, back when I first started taking an interest in the local music scene. So, it was with a modicum of relief that I realised that tonight gave us the opportunity to attend just such a gig, even if Andy was slightly put off to read that the bands involved were all some ort of heavy metal. I prefer gigs where the bands share at least some musical attributes – for one thing it means that the audience are more likely to stick round for the full gig rather than turn up for the band they may know and leave when the next band takes to the stage.

First up tonight were Rugosa, hailing from Halifax and comprising of Nicola Rainford (vocals), Jonathan Burr (keyboards), Stuart Moxon (bass, vocals), Thomas Riley (guitar) and Jamie Abbott (drums). Their short but impressive set included four original songs and two covers – Iron Maiden’s Trooper and Manowar’s Thor. For once we saw a band who didn’t allow the drums to overpower the music. In fact they were at times quite understated for a rock band. The first song, which I don’t remember being introduced, contained some nice guitar work but didn’t bode well for Nicola as her vocals were a little drowned out and strained. That was to change during the much heavier From The Shadows which included a well-balanced mixture of Nicola’s much clearer vocals and death growls courtesy of Stuart. The latter led to a post set discussion on the merits of the vocal style after which Andy, who is very much not a fan, admitted that they worked well in this song. Shadows also included more prominent keyboards, giving a more prog-metal sound reminiscent of Dream Theatre. Revolution had a pounding bass-line and very slick keyboards to guitar switch in it’s mid-section but the band really seemed to hit their stride with Within, with Nicola enthusiastically trying to get the crowd involved. Trooper had appeared in the middle of the set and Thor ended it, with the song’s challenging vocals providing us with Nicola’s best performance of the set. It’s a shame it had to end there, as the band seemed to be just warming up. Hopefully, we’ll see them back in York (and higher up the bill) soon.

As Dimension took to the stage, I realised that I had seen them before. (So much for research – I had thought all tonight’s bands were new to me.) When I saw them at the end of 2011, I noted that the band members seemed to be forever wandering about the stage tuning each others instruments. Tonight saw a much slicker performance but, sadly, one still lacking a bit of individuality between songs and, because of that, suffering a bit in comparison to tonight’s openers. As with last time, I struggled to hear some of the song introductions (and, it has to be said, vocals) but the hint of promise that was apparent then is starting to bloom a bit more. I vaguely recognised some of the songs from last time, although the second song of tonight’s set, which saw an abrupt change in style in the middle, was introduced as a new one. One Last Chance includes a nice guitar riff and Take Me Away, with its much slower opening, hints at the individuality I would like to see. It’s not that the songs aren’t different, as evidenced by the more “indie” sound of Miles Away, it’s just that they take a “wall of sound” approach throughout, with short (if any) solos not really breaking them up. The band ended their set with their best song which included a number of time changes and multi-vocals and further evidencing that the band are capable of much more than the rest of the set promises. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t like Dimension, or think that they are (ahem) one dimensional. It’s more that I think they could be better.

When Andy and I were having the aforementioned discussion about death growls, we had no idea what was to be in store from Terra Omnia. A York-based band, they started their set with four members on the stage – Carl Barker (guitar), Shaun Wainman (guitar), David Walmsley (drums) and Imogen Galloway (bass) producing a wonderfully dark, doom-laden and melodic piece of music. Uniformly dressed in black the band had a well-defined image and things looked promising for the first few minutes. Then Fran Klempner arrived to take up the microphone and any hopes of me being able to produce an objective review went out of the window. I’m afraid that, despite the music, the vocals meant that there was no chance I was going to like this performance. We’ve all heard of “screamo” but a more accurate term for this band would be “grunto” or, perhaps, “cougho” as despite a few instances of a lighter touch, including when Fran was speaking between songs, most of the vocals just sounded like guttural grunts, prompting Andy to, at one point, comment that it was like listening to something from Jurassic Park. There was a lot of metal posturing from the musicians but Fran seemed to have worked herself up for tonight’s performance by perfecting the art of looking either as though she wanted to be somewhere else – anybody that is old enough to remember Kevin Turvey would have recognised her surly look - or that she had a headache (as opposed to giving me one). Despite my opinion, Terra Omnia garnered the biggest crowd of tonight’s four bands, so they must have their fans. Unfortunately, though, the whole isn’t anywhere near my particular choice of hot drink. Sorry.

Thankfully things vastly improved again with tonight’s headliners. Faraday Concept are from York and Driffield and the line-up is Rich Weston (drums), Alan Oakden (bass), Ollie Brant (guitar) and Samantha Cox (vocals). Cox has a great voice, a slightly enigmatic aura and a dress-style that brings to mind what Stevie Nick could have looked like in a heavier band. Great use of lighting gave her a washed out, mysterious look while emphasising her lipstick to give her a vampirish look, while the rest of the band almost seem to disappear into the background. Opening with a heavy drum and bass line before adding guitar and, finally, vocals, the band had me hooked from the start while the second song contained echoing guitars and more strong, if slightly indistinct (the bane of a lot of bands) vocals. Again song introductions were hard to hear, one particularly being drowned out by the Alan’s bass, but those that I did pick out were Seasons Of.. something and Game Of Fools, with its doom-laded instrumental leading into crashing guitars. Despite Samantha’s excellent vocals throughout, it was only the last song of the set, with it’s lovely change of pitch, that finally showed, if briefly, exactly what a femme-fronted band are capable of. Overall, this was a return to the individuality, inventiveness and slight progginess that had been lacking since Rugosa left the stage. Recommended.