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.