Touchstone and The Reasoning–The Duchess, 16/10/12

Sadly, it’s less easy these days for our group to get together as frequently as we used to. The days when we would head off to a pub to see a covers band if nothing else took our fancy are now behind us and that’s where tonight’s support act, Marc Atkinson, is found on a regular basis. But that’s just one string to his bow – as well as having released a small handful of solo albums, with another on the way, Marc is also involved with a number of “side” projects, including Nine Stones Close, Manadalaband and, with Brendan Eyre, the long-gestating Riversea which (finally) saw a stunningly beautiful album released earlier this year. Tonight, instead of his “usual” covers, we were treated to a mixture of tracks from some of these projects, with particular emphasis on his solo and Riversea material. Marc’s lyrics reflect the various aspects of life – childhood, growing up, the effects of religion – and seem to be heavily influenced by his family. His vocals are rich and full of emotion and, despite the fact that it is just him and an acoustic guitar on stage, playing stripped down versions of some of the songs, he soon has a large proportion of the crowd taking notice and applauding each song. in the past, it has been obvious that Marc is adept at entertaining a pub crowd in a party atmosphere. It’s nice to see that his own material is capable of entertaining a normal gig crowd to the same level. Hopefully, there will be more chances in the future to see him perform his own stuff. (There has even been a slight hint, not from Marc, that there may be a chance of seeing a full band version of Riversea perform live, although I’m not sure how serious that was…)
A couple of years ago, The Reasoning featured in my gig of the year. A few months ago, Touchstone played York for the first time and blew me and Roj away. Tonight saw both band’s playing York, thankfully as part of their Adventures In The City co-headlining tour, meaning that we didn’t have to choose between them.
I believe that the bands alternated which would be on stage first throughout the tour. Tonight, it was The Reasoning who played first, coming on stage to a cinematic backing track. The current line-up is quite a bit different from the last time I saw them perform – slimmed down to a five-piece and now with just one guitarist due in part to the sad disappearance of Owain Roberts and, if you believe what you read in some places, the less-than-harmonious departure of Dylan Thompson. Whatever the reasons, though, the band have, on stage at least, put these troubles behind them (or, perhaps more accurately, can ignore them for an hour or so). The single guitar sound allows Tony Turrell’s keyboards to feature a bit more in the mix and it is also Tony who now provides the majority of second/backing vocals. Unfortunately, from where we were standing, Rachel Cohen’s vocals were a little indistinct, meaning that even some of the songs I was familiar with, albeit with slightly different musical arrangements, with took a while to register. That said, there was an energy to her performance which more than made up for the muddiness and some of the crowd obviously recognised the tracks more quickly than I did - Matt Cohen’s somewhat nervously stoic face cracked into a wide grin at the reception that second song Dark Angel received. The set comprised of tracks from the full, four album history of the band, with particular emphasis on the latest album – Adventures In Neverland. Awakening, introduced by a superb keyboard solo which somehow seamlessly included the Benny Hill theme and The Thirteen Hour rubbed shoulders with No Friend Of Mine, Forest Of Hands And Teeth, with its moody opening and a mid-section which gives it a somewhat noirish feel, Adventures In Neverland, whose stunning instrumental section would have convinced me to buy the album if I wasn’t already going to (and did on the night) and Omega Point, which saw the band encroaching on Muse territory with a song about the end of the universe. Audience participation came in the form of Aching Hunger, which also saw Touchstone’s Moo Bass join the band on stage. Between songs, Rachel interacted playfully with the crowd, many of whom it appeared had been to other gigs on the tour, knowing what was coming when the new album and merchandise was being touted. Despite the vocal “issues” this was another brilliant performance by the band.
Touchstone took to the stage with slightly less flamboyance that The Reasoning and, as last time, it seemed to me that vocalist Kim Seviour took a little while to shrug off an apparent nervous air. Initially, she looked slightly wide-eyed and a little stilted in her dancing. She soon got over it, though, and by Shadow her “booty shaking” was a lot more natural. We had moved slightly closer to the stage by now and Kim’s vocals were a lot clearer than Rachel’s. With no new album to promote, this was more of a “best of” set and, again, featured songs from the band’s full back catalogue. If anything, despite being a shorter set, tonight was even better than when we saw them earlier in the year. I’m less familiar with Touchstone’s output than I am with The Reasoning’s and there are were at least two tracks played tonight that I couldn’t identify, but each song played, from Shadow to its sequel Shadows Fall, from Blacktide to Zinomorph and especially the brilliant Wintercoast comes across as an epic, containing a riot of drumming from Henry Rogers, which somehow manages never to overpower the music. Adam Hodgson’s guitar still gives the songs a slightly-more-heavy-than-prog feel while Rob Cottingham’s keyboards manage to help maintain the true prog sound. But, in all honesty, once she has got over her apparent initial nervousness it is Kim, with her banter with the band, introductions to the songs – “I don’t like nasty people, so I write songs about them and sing them passive aggressively..” – her dancing during the instrumentals or the way she peers out from behind her fringe and dark eye makeup, oozing a kind of coy sophistication despite being dressed more for a night on the town than as a rock-chick, with the only concession to the expected image being a single leather wristband, who is queen of the performance.
Finally, both bands and Marc Atkinson returned to the stage for an ensemble encore of Tears For Fears’ Mad World – perhaps the best encore ever.
At a time when femme-fronted prog bands seem to be making a bigger impact than ever, with both these bands, along with Panic Room, having recently signed deals with record labels, it’s nice to see two having such an obvious good time while touring. Hopefully, we will see more of them in the future, either together or on separate tours.

Trail Of Dead–Fibbers, 14/10/12

“Tonight’s show will be loud. Earplugs are available at the bar,” was the gist of the sign on the door to Fibbers. It wasn’t long into the support set that Andy wandered back to said bar to get some. I decided to tough it out.

Maybeshewill are a five piece, instrumental band from Leicester who have been around since 2005 and have released three albums. They came on stage to a piano backing track, and played atmospheric, moody rock, inevitably bringing forth thoughts of Engineers or York’s own Lost From Atlas and Tears Of Ishtar, the latter especially given that two tracks also featured voiceovers, which were a feature of Ishtar the first time I saw them (if not any longer). However, their performance was much more energetic and less shoe-gazing than any of those bands. Imagine something halfway between the hippy space-rock of Ozric Tentacles and grunge. Keyboards featured heavily, especially during the third track which featured a lovely interval before the music swelled back to its previous, pseudo-orchestral heights. Even behind two guitars the keyboards were never swamped and were allowed to both breathe and accentuate the tracks even through the heaviest sections. The only track that was introduced by name was To The Skies, From A Hillside – a somewhat appropriate title, given that it was this evening that Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner jumped from a balloon twenty-three miles up. The band paid tribute to him, pointing out that it was like falling all the way from York to Leeds and that he had done, “pretty well. He’s not dead…” I’m reliably informed that the band’s musical style is not original – Andy compared them to Godspeed You! Black Emperor – but, compared to similar bands that I have come across, they are are one of the best at what they do. If this hadn’t been a busy period of gigs for me, with CD purchases already planned, I would definitely have taken the plunge at the merchandise table. As it is three more albums have made it to my wish-list.

It’s evenings like this that make me realise how out of touch I am with music. Not the “popular” stuff (I quite like being out of touch with that…) but with what, apparently is truly popular with, apparently, the student-aged audience. I only stumbled across …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead when their 2011 album Tao Of The Dead was reviewed in Prog magazine, a review which piqued my interest by mentioning that the album was going to be accompanied by a comic (comics being another interest of mine). Eventually, I picked up an on-offer copy of the album, sans comic, and it ended up being one of my favourites of last year. Given that the band hail from Austin, Texas, I never thought I would have an opportunity to see them play live. After all, how many people in the UK, let alone in the York area, would have heard of them? Well, it turns out that quite a few had and Fibbers was about as full as I have seen it since it was re-opened a couple of years ago. Most of the audience was (you guessed it) of student age, with a surprising number of groups of females, making me not only feel old, but also slightly less smug about having come across the band.

Trail Of Dead have already released seven albums with an eighth being released imminently and, while I didn’t recognise any of the tracks played tonight, the rest of the audience seemed to know a fair few of them. Although covered by Prog magazine, there is more than a hint of punk in their music, which is often complex but rarely subtle, with the bass-line delivered by Autry Fulbright II (looking like a more sinister version of Kid Creole) occasionally managing to vibrate your skull. I particularly liked his somewhat original style of playing during towards the end of the set, when he alternated between helping out the drummer and playing bass by hitting the strings with a drum-stick. The note on the door was right – but it wasn’t just that the music was loud and the vocals unintelligible, even though rarely below shouting level (except for one quieter song during which they were slightly more audible). The band were energetic, ploughing through songs with barely a breath taken to introduce the next one. Guitarist Jason Reece and drummer Jamie Miller swapped roles a number of times and the band swigged “medicinal” Jack Daniels from the bottle before, just prior to the last song, handing it into the crowd where it eventually made its way to the girl standing right in front of me. Sadly, she seemed not to grasp the concept and didn’t really know what to do with it… If all this reads as though I didn’t enjoy the gig, it’s not meant to – OK, I didn’t know the songs, couldn’t begin to piece together a set-list and, for the most part, couldn’t understand the lyrics, but I had to admire the overall performance. And it seems that the rest of the audience did as well – this is the first time I’ve seen a proper mosh-pit at Fibbers.

…and, at the end of the night, I was slightly surprised that my ears weren't bleeding…

Chantel McGregor–Fibbers, 12/10/12

After commenting on a recent post that I always try to arrive on time to gigs, in order to support the support bands, I was a little disappointed that a combination of fixing an amplifier problem at home (the DVD that the rest of the family were watching had no sound) and an earlier than usual stage time meant that I missed the start of Barcode Zebra’s set.

I didn’t recognise front-woman (and Joan Armatrading look-a-like) Jess Gardham, who supported Chantel back in February 2010 and I’m not sure whether this is a new version of the Jess Gardham Band as the line-up is three quarters the same, with the energetic Ruth Wilde replacing Michaela Winship on bass. The line-up is completed with Charlie Daykin on keyboard (I eventually remembered that I had recently seen him playing with Plumhall) and Emma Whitehead effortlessly playing drums. As I arrived, the band were starting the title track from their new EP. Into The Night has a slightly reggae feel to it, with Jess eschewing her guitar and simply providing vocals over Charlie’s keys and the rhythm section. The next track song started with a drum intro which, surprisingly, reminded me of Iron Maiden’s Run To The Hills before changing into a very bass-heavy upbeat, but slightly funky number. Devil On The Shoulder continued the upbeat mood but there set contained a nicely mixed bag of sounds – one song had Charlie’s keyboards more in evidence while another allowed Jess’s guitar to come through more. It might have been “support band syndrome” but I thought the vocals were a little thing, until the last, slightly slower song, when a little echo gave them a fuller sound. Barcode Zebra’s brand of “soul-tinged pop funk” may not be my cup of tea, but the playing was tight and the performance good, with the band clearly enjoying themselves. Definitely worth a look if you like that sort of music.

Chantel McGregor, on the other hand, definitely plays music that is my cup of tea and it’s a shame that we don’t get the chance to see her as often as we used to do, even it that is because she is enjoying more and more success, recently scooping Female Vocalist of the Year at the British Blues awards. Thankfully, that success doesn’t seem to be going to her head – before tonight’s gig she could be found sitting at the merchandise table, chatting to fans (and, it seems, being showered with gifts) and she still maintains her slight “dizziness” on stage, beguiling us with random thoughts between songs and, every so often, throwing in one of her trademark Yorkshire “Ta”’s.

The set tonight was the now usual mix of covers and songs from debut album Like No Other. The likes of Voodoo Chile and Up In The Sky mixed well with the album’s title track and the more “pop” sounding Fabulous. Her rendition of Red House, after the story of how she had gone through “amp hell” this week meant that she was thinking of taking up the triangle (I wonder if the British Blues Awards would include a Best British triangle player next year…), brought forth a comment along the lines of, “She’s just showing off now” from somewhere to my left while fan favourite Daydream, which featured not just stunning guitar work but some astounding and varied drumming, held the audience spellbound for fifteen minutes. The now usual mid-set solo section featured Chantel’s own I’m No Good For You, with its dirty Blues guitar sound counterpointed by soft and sweet vocals, before she switched to an acoustic guitar for covers of Gold Dust Woman and Bonnie Raitt’s beautiful Can’t Make You Love Me and her own Not Here With Me – the latter two being delivered with heart-rending vocals. In fact, it seems that Chantel’s vocals are getting better and better. The louder, more rocky songs may have drowned out the vocals tonight, but the quieter ones showed just how good she has become.

There was, tonight, some insights into what had prompted some of her own songs – I’m No Good For You was inspired by the True Blood T.V. show while Caught Out was written in response to some nasty comments on a forum. (Checks back to make sure that I haven’t written anything nasty…)

Once again, another brilliant performance from a still-rising star. Nearly two hours of quality music which, even without any new material from the lady herself, managed to remain fresh by the inclusion of different covers that hadn’t been heard for a while, whilst still showcasing her own songs and retaining the fan favourites. I know that at least three people had come to see her for the first time tonight (one on my recommendation). I doubt they went away disappointed.

The Zombies–The Duchess, 06/10/12

I had forgotten that Heather Findlay and Chris Johnson were tonight’s support act, so it was a pleasant surprise when I walked into The Duchess and spotted Heather’s small merchandise table. (Not least because I had been intending to pick up the Heather Findlay Band’s latest release – Songs From The Old Kitchen – at the earliest opportunity, which I thought was still over a month away.)

Heather and Chris might initially seem a strange choice to support an iconic sixties band but, somehow, at least some of their songs are reminiscent of that decade’s music. As usual when they perform as a duo, this was an acoustic set, with Chris playing guitar and vocals being shared between them, with some lovely warm harmonies in evidence during most of the songs. The set was relatively short, just six songs and none of them new – most taken from the pair’s Live At The Cafe 68 album, via their previous solo and/or band projects. And that’s the “problem” – while the songs are mostly reworked versions of the originals, there’s no completely new material for fans to hear. It was a nice set, played and sung well – particular highlights are Chris’s Out Of Season and The Dogs – but it’s getting a bit familiar now. I suspect that the duo picked up a few new fans, but longer term ones are beginning to yearn for new material.

Earlier this year, I was at The Duchess to see Colin Blunstone and, in writing about that gig, I mentioned the fact that I’m not a big fan of 60s pop music. So, why was I back there tonight to see The Zombies, the band that Blunstone has fronted in every incarnation since 1961? Two reasons, really – the first being that I actually quite enjoyed the earlier gig and the second because, while that solo performance included a fair few Zombies songs, this time the also-legendary Rod Argent would also be on stage.

There can’t be many bands celebrating their 51st anniversary, still with two-and-a-half original members (the current bass player, Jim Rodford, drove the band to their first gig, but wasn’t in the line-up due to being in a different “successful local band”) who perform for nearly two hours. As with Blunstone’s gig, the material came from a number of sources – after all, even though they have been together, in one form or another for over twenty years, The Zombies have only released five studio albums. As well as the classics from the debut album (She’s Not There, Summertime, I Love You) the set was peppered with tracks from 2011’s Breathe Out, Breathe In, (the title track, Show Me The Way, Any Other Way and A Moment In Time) a well received album which, on the basis of the live tracks, brings 60’s pop into the 21st century. There was also a mini-set of songs from 1968’s Odessey And Oracle (A Rose For Emily, Care Of Cell 44, This Will Be Our Year and I Want Her, She Wants Me), an album cited as either a favourite or influential by such diverse sources as The Vaccines and Dave Grohl. In fact, “name-dropping” was to be a feature of the set, with Argent also mentioning Rod Stewart and Def Leppard’s Joe Elliot, among others, as part of his between-song stories, which not only gave a potted history of the band itself, but also gave the impression that you could spend hours listening to him speak and not get bored.

The set also included solo efforts and past collaborations from Blunstone (I Don’t Believe In Miracles, What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted, with Dave Stewart, and Old And Wise, from The Alan Parsons Project), who seemed a bit more animated than during his solo gig even while leaving most of the talking to Argent and sharing the vocals. As well as great vocals from both singers, there was also some superb guitar playing from Tom Toomey and Argent himself added a certain flair on the Hammond organ, especially during what was to be one of my highlights. In 1969, after The Zombies first split up, Rod Argent formed Argent and tonight the band performed what are probably their two most famous songs – Hold Your Head Up and God Gave Rock And Roll To Us (perhaps better known as a cover version released by Kiss). It was during the former that Blunstone left the stage for a while while Argent played and extravagant solo which, I am told, included a sample from Bach as well as a few other sections that I recognised but couldn’t name. Both Argent songs provided a chance for the audience to sing along and being more rock than pop were more my type of music.

Having said that, I enjoyed the whole evening (again), proving perhaps, once again, that live music done well has an added dimension to recorded stuff. I don’t know whether a Zombies album will ever make it into my CD collection, but I wouldn’t hesitate to see them live again.

Anneke Van Giersbergen–Fibbers, 21/09/12

As we walked into Fibbers tonight, slightly late due to the two “quick” pints of proper beer at a nearby pub, the first support had just started and, from what I initially heard, I feared that we might have been better staying for a couple more. (I’m joking, I always try to get to gigs on time to see the support – there can’t be much worse for them than seeing a venue fill up shortly after they have finished playing to a near empty room.)

Death Letters are a duo from The Netherlands – Duende on guitar and vocals and Victor on drums – who opened their set with a very heavy sound which all but drowned out the vocals before slowing down to a much quieter section which showed just how good a voice Duende has, then reverted back to something much louder where even his near screamed (I assume) vocals were swamped by the music. The set continued with occasional moments of quite contemplation and atmosphere being broken up by swathes of huge sound and frantic and enthralling drumming. Coming across as a smaller, heavier version of Tears of Ishtar, Death Letters recorded output may never find its way into my CD collection but they are one of the most exciting support acts I have seen for a long time.

I last saw Mojo Fury supporting Amplifier down the road at The Duchess and sort of enjoyed their set, despite the mix not doing them any favours. Tonight, they seemed to be playing to a completely non-responsive audience. Theirs is a mix of shoe-gazing rock, indie guitars and, at times, white rap vocals which reminded me of The Beastie Boys. (Last time, I compared the vocals to Talking Heads based on the one song in which the vocals came through…) Sadly, the 80’s reminiscent electronic backing track still features in their set and still does very little for me. The set started to get more interesting with a track which was introduced as being from their new album – I didn’t catch the title but it was the best so far, energetic with some nice interplay between guitar and drums. Something bordering on funkiness followed before that backing track put in an appearance for the last song of the set. Still not quite gelling for me, this was a better performance than the previous time I saw them and tonight’s set did get better (and the audience more enthusiastic) as it went on.

I freely admit that the only reason I was at tonight’s gig was because it was first brought to my notice by a Facebook post from Prog magazine. I had never heard of Anneke Van Giersbergen or The Gathering, the Dutch prog-rock band she fronted until 2007. But the fact that she had been in a prog band was enough to pique my interest. As, it seemed, it was for a portion of the audience – which was much bigger than I was expecting. T-shirts featuring the names European prog (Ayreon) and symphonic metal (Within Temptation, as well as the UK’s own Winter In Eden) bands were very much in evidence and the audience was heavily made up of long-haired males. So, it was quite a surprise when a large portion of the set was more pop than prog orientated, while still retaining rock roots. A look at the set-list here (which looks accurate, although I don’t remember her dancing amongst the audience) shows that it featured songs from The Gathering, a Devin Townsend cover and a Eurythmics cover, as well as her solo project Agua de Annique and the latest album – Everything Is Changing - which was released under her own name. Throughout the set Anneke’s gorgeous vocals, slightly accented and occasionally warbling, were only matched by her great smile and perhaps the prettiest guitar I have ever seen, personalised for Anneke herself and only used for one song, the much slower and achingly lovely Beautiful One. With the pop leanings, it was no surprise to see Anneke giving it all on stage, dancing throughout the set while, amusingly, the audience were much more restrained, with some vague head nodding being as much as some members were willing to partake in. Equally at home with quieter, more melodic songs such as Circles, which opened with just vocals and guitar, giving the rhythm section a breather and eventually utilising a strings backing track, as she was with the more powerful songs such as Saturnine, Anneke’s performance was only hampered by something completely out of her control – early on I mentioned to Andy that the sound seemed to be fading between the two banks of speakers and, eventually, the vocals at least were only coming from one set, giving the gig a slightly one-sided feel. (I have since been told that the pre-amp had gone on one set of speakers.) It’s a shame as this marred the gig a bit, making it a good one, rather than the excellent one I think it could have been if the sound had been right.

Kudos to Anneke, however, she not only battled one – perhaps not actually realising what was happening but definitely seeing the sound engineers frantically working away behind the speakers trying to fix the problem – but she also came straight off stage to “man” her own merchandise desk after the gig. There was no hint of precociousness as she made her way through the crowd (without a “minder” unlike at least one female artist I can think off) and happily chatted to each person as they got to the the table. I just have one slight complaint… £15 for a CD, when it’s less than a tenner on Play.com??? Of course, I still bought one. And got it signed.