Tuesday 13th July: Looking back to when I first started listening to music, there was a time when I was quite possessive (some might say anal) about some of the bands I liked. I'm not sure that I had even heard the term "prog rock" when I first heard Yes, Pink Floyd, Rush or Genesis, but they were among my favourites at the time and, despite all being of a genre, they all sounded different. Then along came a new band which, to me at the time, seemed to be trying to emulate the sound of Genesis. I can't say that I ever disliked Marillion, but I certainly never embraced them. In fact, metaphorically, I barely stepped forward to give them a peck on the cheek. I was aware of them (it was hard not to be) and I bought a 12" picture disc version of Lavender, but that was it. I never followed them and, until recently, I couldn't tell you when Fish left them or who was in the current line-up, let alone the names of any of the more recent albums.
Then, earlier this year, I spotted some of their albums in a bargain deal on play.com and, with my renewed (and growing) interest in prog, decided I had to buy them if only so my CD collection contained a valid historical cross-section of the genre. Imagine my surprise when they arrived and I gave them the usual cursory play only to find that I actually really liked them. One of them, Misplaced Childhood, is actually turning out to be one of my all-time favourite albums.
The similarities to the output of Genesis are still there. Fish's vocals still remind me of something halfway between Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins and some of the lyrics could have escaped from the Foxtrot era - I defy anybody to listen to "A train sleeps in a siding; The driver guzzles another can of lager" without thinking of that classic album. The way that the tracks of Misplaced Childhood merge into each other, with nary a break anywhere on the album, is reminiscent of the various live medleys that Genesis are so good at and that are one of my favourite things about their output.
But there's also so much more, including another influence that I only spotted the last time I played the CD. Does the opening of Heart of Lothian sound like Rush to anybody else? Quite frankly, the music is superb and grows in power as the album progresses. And Fish's vocals? Well, with maturity comes the realisation that he was never just a Gabriel wannabe. From the rumbling Scottish accent of the spoken word, through the lightness of tone in Bitter Suite and the suppressed power of Heart of Lothian right through to the outright anger during parts of Blind Curve, there's so much range and not a bad performance on the whole album.
Even if I hadn't reconsidered my opinion of Marillion, I would almost certainly still have been at The Duchess tonight, to see Fish perform an intimate acoustic set of (mostly) his solo material, which I hadn't previously heard any of. There are just some people that I have to see when they visit this fair city, whether I know much about them or not...
Support came from Marbled and I'm ashamed to say that I didn't pay too much attention, as I was chatting with local celebrities and their friends and family, mostly about Fish and Marillion but also about music in general. Thankfully, one of them was also willing to escort me to the merchandise table and spend my hard-earned for me, pointing out which of Fish's output was worth buying having been given a quick idea of what I already liked, while everybody else at the table played "spot the newbie". Having now listened to all three CDs that I bought I can't decide whether it's a good job or a shame that I didn't have more cash with me (the missus probably wouldn't have been impressed if I'd turned up with more or less the whole back catalogue but, then again, I would have had more or less the whole back catalogue...) Anyway, I can't tell you too much about Marbled, except that he was another "man with guitar" act, came across as a bit angry in parts but otherwise sounded OK.
Then, as pretty much the whole of the surprisingly small audience moved forward, fish took to the stage and belted out Chocolate Frogs with no accompaniment. For the rest of the two hour set, he was joined by Frank Usher (guitar) and Foss Paterson (keyboards) and we were treated to acoustic renditions of the likes of Shell Suit City, Miles de Besos, Vigil In A Wilderness Of Mirrors, Lady Let It Lie, Speaking In Tongues, Family Business, Just Good Friends and lots more, from what seems to be a varied cross section of the man's solo output.
In between songs, Fish showed what a humorous, self-effacing and, well, talkative person he is. Songs were introduced by the stories behind them, such as the bitter-sweet memories of falling in love in Chile for Miles de Besos, or the reasons for writing the likes of The Pilgrim's Address (a song which must have had special resonance for at least one of tonight's audience). Other gaps were used to give Fish's opinion on the World Cup performance of the English football team or for him to, basically, take the mickey out of his own personal life and failed relationships. Whatever he was talking about, though, he held the audience captivated. This was by far the quietest gig, in terms of unwanted audience, noise that I've ever experienced (apart from the encouraged heckling). And what an experience it was - the stripping down of the songs to their basics, along with Fish's superb vocals meant that practically every word could be heard while the music was an absolute pleasure to listen to. As for stage presence, I don't think I've ever seen anybody command a stage as well as Fish did tonight.
The set finished with the only two songs that I knew - a rendition of Kayleigh which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and nearly brought a tear to my eye, and an almost as good version of Lavender. Then after a short time off stage, the trio returned to perform Lucky with enthusiastic audience participation.
All in all, this was an absolutely brilliant, thoroughly entertaining performance. It may have been the first time I've seen Fish, but I fervently hope it won't be the last. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a couple of back catalogues I need to peruse...
Wednesday, 14 July 2010
Monday, 12 July 2010
They Think It's All Over...
Friday 2nd July: Hello, all - it's been a while, hasn't it? I haven't been away. Quite the opposite, in fact. The World Cup has kept me more or less glued to the settee and a lack of interesting (to me, anyway) gigs in York hasn't provided me with much incentive to get off my backside and get out. Nor have I had much chance to listen properly to any recent CD purchases. So, not a lot of point in blogging, unless I was to join in the general condemnation of the eleven or so over-paid English footballers who seemed to believe that the trophy would jump into their hands if they simply turned up to the games. Better luck next time lads. What? This was the last chance for some of you? What a shame! Maybe whoever is in charge next time should look to use some Championship players - at least they'd wear the shirt with pride and, probably, put a lot more effort in. Rant over...
...as is the World Cup itself. In a strange, Doctor Who-like temporal phenomenon I'm writing this over a week after the above date and music can, once again, become a big part of my life. As I type, I'm listening to Prognosis 9 - one of a series of CDs that come free with the Classic Rock Presents Prog magazine and serves as both a sampler for a variety bands, only a small fraction of which I've heard of, and an incredible piece of subliminal advertising. I swear I can hear, "buy the album this comes from," in the background of a lot of the tracks. It's probably time to lock the credit card away for a while.
But I digress (twice already, I think). I did forgo one football match for a trip into the city for much musical goodness. In order to give Debbie a night of from what must have seemed to her to be "endless bloody football", I met up with the gang at the Roman Bath to see the ever-excellent Mojos. The reasons were many - I'd almost forgotten what the rest of the guys (and gal) looked like; I needed some fresh air; Debbie wanted to plump up the settee cushions; I always enjoy the Mojos and, more importantly, we had tickets for upcoming gigs to swap around. The latter has now been completed with the indispensable help of a stamp, an envelope and a postman...
We've seen the Mojos a few times now and they never fail to put on a varied and entertaining show. Tonight was no exception. The Bath was incredibly warm and the band had all opted for shorts, proving that talent and sartorial elegance don't have to go hand in hand. (Guys - if you are reading this, and I know you have in the past, I'm joking...) We had positioned ourselves close to the door, which gave us access to the slight cooling breeze and a good view along the stage area but, perhaps, not the best sound as we were behind most of the speakers and next to another. Tonight's set was comprised of old favourites from the likes of Dire Straits (Money For Nothing and the superb Sultans Of Swing), Kings of Leon (Sex on Fire), Whitesnake (Here I Go Again), and Toto (Hold The Line), alongside some that don't really float my boat such as The Kaiser Chiefs (I Predict A Riot) and some that I'd not heard them cover before including a more than passable attempt at Muse's Uprising.
Sadly, there was an inordinate amount of funk in the form of Jamiroqui and Queen (not that I'm averse to Queen, but One Vision is the funkiest rock song I can think of...) and disco/soul, with Chic and Jackie Wilson. Although the latter's Higher And Higher did get me and Andy a mention from lead singer John when he spotted our backing singer style dancing (damn that alcohol stuff), which was strange given the rather more attractive sight that was more or less directly in front of the band all evening. Overall, though, there was more for me to like than not and it was another very entertaining evening from one of York's best covers bands.
...as is the World Cup itself. In a strange, Doctor Who-like temporal phenomenon I'm writing this over a week after the above date and music can, once again, become a big part of my life. As I type, I'm listening to Prognosis 9 - one of a series of CDs that come free with the Classic Rock Presents Prog magazine and serves as both a sampler for a variety bands, only a small fraction of which I've heard of, and an incredible piece of subliminal advertising. I swear I can hear, "buy the album this comes from," in the background of a lot of the tracks. It's probably time to lock the credit card away for a while.
But I digress (twice already, I think). I did forgo one football match for a trip into the city for much musical goodness. In order to give Debbie a night of from what must have seemed to her to be "endless bloody football", I met up with the gang at the Roman Bath to see the ever-excellent Mojos. The reasons were many - I'd almost forgotten what the rest of the guys (and gal) looked like; I needed some fresh air; Debbie wanted to plump up the settee cushions; I always enjoy the Mojos and, more importantly, we had tickets for upcoming gigs to swap around. The latter has now been completed with the indispensable help of a stamp, an envelope and a postman...
We've seen the Mojos a few times now and they never fail to put on a varied and entertaining show. Tonight was no exception. The Bath was incredibly warm and the band had all opted for shorts, proving that talent and sartorial elegance don't have to go hand in hand. (Guys - if you are reading this, and I know you have in the past, I'm joking...) We had positioned ourselves close to the door, which gave us access to the slight cooling breeze and a good view along the stage area but, perhaps, not the best sound as we were behind most of the speakers and next to another. Tonight's set was comprised of old favourites from the likes of Dire Straits (Money For Nothing and the superb Sultans Of Swing), Kings of Leon (Sex on Fire), Whitesnake (Here I Go Again), and Toto (Hold The Line), alongside some that don't really float my boat such as The Kaiser Chiefs (I Predict A Riot) and some that I'd not heard them cover before including a more than passable attempt at Muse's Uprising.
Sadly, there was an inordinate amount of funk in the form of Jamiroqui and Queen (not that I'm averse to Queen, but One Vision is the funkiest rock song I can think of...) and disco/soul, with Chic and Jackie Wilson. Although the latter's Higher And Higher did get me and Andy a mention from lead singer John when he spotted our backing singer style dancing (damn that alcohol stuff), which was strange given the rather more attractive sight that was more or less directly in front of the band all evening. Overall, though, there was more for me to like than not and it was another very entertaining evening from one of York's best covers bands.
Sunday, 6 June 2010
Battling Bands
Sunday 31st May: 2010, and the last weekend in May sees a major music competition, a multitude of bands descend on one venue and play their hearts out in front of a large, screaming audience in order to gain the votes of a panel of experts, resulting in one being crowned winner with prizes including some high-profile gigs.
No, I'm not talking about Eurovision. That was last night. Tonight is the final of the Fibbers Battle of the Bands contest. To be fair, the two events are fairly similar. Except BotB is a lot smaller than Eurovision, there's less cheese, a lot less Lycra, very little silly dancing, a lot less (I would hope) political voting and an act from the UK has a very good chance of winning.
Oh, yeah, and the music is orders of magnitude better.
As I understand it, bands reach the final through a series of knockout heats and semi-finals, during which it is the audience which votes for the winners. So, the more fans, friends and family members the band brings along, the more chance of progressing. I think one finalist is put through by a judging panel. This year, this method resulted in five very different bands making it through to tonight's final.
Sadly, Kill The Captain had to drop out at short notice. A shame as I'd not heard them before. Some other time maybe.
The running order was decided on the day and first to take to the stage were The Littlemores, a band I had seen and enjoyed earlier this year, despite their music not being to my usual tastes. Ska-like, I stand by my earlier description that they sound like The Jam gone pop. As last time, they were joined on stage by multi-instrumentalist Ben Crosthwaite, who added the accordion to the previously featured trumpet. Ben adds a different dimension and a large degree of originality to the band's songs, which deal largely with aspects of youth and contain a degree of humour. My favourites from tonight's set were For The Lads, which tells the "story" of a young man who ends up joining the BNP, to the disappointment of others and something whose title begins with "O" (I'm writing this a week after the event and can't read my notes...) which featured the aforementioned accordion and some strangely Santana-like guitar-playing. The overall feeling is one of fun and The Littlemores had their large and somewhat vocal support bouncing.
It was all change in the audience as the next band took to the stage and fans of Scarborough boys The Shadracks moved to the front. If the Littlemores embody fun, the more traditionally indie sounding Shadracks could be said to represent cheekiness. There's lots of Cheshire Cat grins and more than one audience-involving gimmick, such as getting a volunteer to play tambourine on stage or keyboard-player Joe running into the audience with a small hand-held keyboard. Sadly, the vocals weren't as clear and the songs a little less memorable, but the set did include a reasonable drum solo (not something you see very often from local bands). It was, however, another very good performance.
Third up were Lost From Atlas and regular (hah!) readers will know that I really like this band. (In fact, they were one of the two reasons I was here tonight.) Unusually, the Atlas boys broke up their set a bit so that Danny could speak although, to be honest, he did look a little uncomfortable doing so and I can't help but wonder whether they thought it was expected of them to engage with the audience a bit. I'm fairly certain that there as some new material in the set which was another excellent one from an outstanding band who were described by tonight's host (Alexander King who, it has to be said, did a particularly good job as compere) as "bewilderingly good".
Finally, and with quite a disparity in age to the rest of tonight's acts, Maybe She's A Clone took to the stage. Described to me as "loud guitar rock", they are listed on the link above as "rock / emo / indie" What is emo anyway?? This was another new band to me, despite knowing one of the members. They follow the twin guitar pattern of one of my favourite local bands but manage to sound very different. Although I thought I detected a little Southern Rock (a la Black Stone Cherry) in the first song, that soon disappeared and the overall impression I was with was something more akin to The Engineers as, even without keyboards, they managed to produce a similar soundscape. Again, the vocals, shared throughout the band, weren't that clear from where I was standing but the riff-driven guitar-playing was superb. Highlight for me was the brilliantly melodic Breathe Again.
And then, after a short deliberation on the part of the judges, the results were announced. Perhaps a little unfairly, the acts were announced from three to one, leaving fourth place somewhat unrecognised. The full order was:
4th: Maybe She's A Clone
3rd: The Shadracks
2nd: Lost From Atlas
1st: The Littlemores -a result which went down well with what seemed to be the majority of the audience.
Personally, I wouldn't have ranked the bands in that order. Based purely on personal taste, Lost From Atlas would have been winners, followed by Maybe She's A Clone, The Littlemores and, finally, The Shadracks.
That's not to take anything from any of the bands - despite two of them not being my "thing", all of them were thoroughly entertaining and, overall, it was a fantastic evening.
No, I'm not talking about Eurovision. That was last night. Tonight is the final of the Fibbers Battle of the Bands contest. To be fair, the two events are fairly similar. Except BotB is a lot smaller than Eurovision, there's less cheese, a lot less Lycra, very little silly dancing, a lot less (I would hope) political voting and an act from the UK has a very good chance of winning.
Oh, yeah, and the music is orders of magnitude better.
As I understand it, bands reach the final through a series of knockout heats and semi-finals, during which it is the audience which votes for the winners. So, the more fans, friends and family members the band brings along, the more chance of progressing. I think one finalist is put through by a judging panel. This year, this method resulted in five very different bands making it through to tonight's final.
Sadly, Kill The Captain had to drop out at short notice. A shame as I'd not heard them before. Some other time maybe.
The running order was decided on the day and first to take to the stage were The Littlemores, a band I had seen and enjoyed earlier this year, despite their music not being to my usual tastes. Ska-like, I stand by my earlier description that they sound like The Jam gone pop. As last time, they were joined on stage by multi-instrumentalist Ben Crosthwaite, who added the accordion to the previously featured trumpet. Ben adds a different dimension and a large degree of originality to the band's songs, which deal largely with aspects of youth and contain a degree of humour. My favourites from tonight's set were For The Lads, which tells the "story" of a young man who ends up joining the BNP, to the disappointment of others and something whose title begins with "O" (I'm writing this a week after the event and can't read my notes...) which featured the aforementioned accordion and some strangely Santana-like guitar-playing. The overall feeling is one of fun and The Littlemores had their large and somewhat vocal support bouncing.
It was all change in the audience as the next band took to the stage and fans of Scarborough boys The Shadracks moved to the front. If the Littlemores embody fun, the more traditionally indie sounding Shadracks could be said to represent cheekiness. There's lots of Cheshire Cat grins and more than one audience-involving gimmick, such as getting a volunteer to play tambourine on stage or keyboard-player Joe running into the audience with a small hand-held keyboard. Sadly, the vocals weren't as clear and the songs a little less memorable, but the set did include a reasonable drum solo (not something you see very often from local bands). It was, however, another very good performance.
Third up were Lost From Atlas and regular (hah!) readers will know that I really like this band. (In fact, they were one of the two reasons I was here tonight.) Unusually, the Atlas boys broke up their set a bit so that Danny could speak although, to be honest, he did look a little uncomfortable doing so and I can't help but wonder whether they thought it was expected of them to engage with the audience a bit. I'm fairly certain that there as some new material in the set which was another excellent one from an outstanding band who were described by tonight's host (Alexander King who, it has to be said, did a particularly good job as compere) as "bewilderingly good".
Finally, and with quite a disparity in age to the rest of tonight's acts, Maybe She's A Clone took to the stage. Described to me as "loud guitar rock", they are listed on the link above as "rock / emo / indie" What is emo anyway?? This was another new band to me, despite knowing one of the members. They follow the twin guitar pattern of one of my favourite local bands but manage to sound very different. Although I thought I detected a little Southern Rock (a la Black Stone Cherry) in the first song, that soon disappeared and the overall impression I was with was something more akin to The Engineers as, even without keyboards, they managed to produce a similar soundscape. Again, the vocals, shared throughout the band, weren't that clear from where I was standing but the riff-driven guitar-playing was superb. Highlight for me was the brilliantly melodic Breathe Again.
And then, after a short deliberation on the part of the judges, the results were announced. Perhaps a little unfairly, the acts were announced from three to one, leaving fourth place somewhat unrecognised. The full order was:
4th: Maybe She's A Clone
3rd: The Shadracks
2nd: Lost From Atlas
1st: The Littlemores -a result which went down well with what seemed to be the majority of the audience.
Personally, I wouldn't have ranked the bands in that order. Based purely on personal taste, Lost From Atlas would have been winners, followed by Maybe She's A Clone, The Littlemores and, finally, The Shadracks.
That's not to take anything from any of the bands - despite two of them not being my "thing", all of them were thoroughly entertaining and, overall, it was a fantastic evening.
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