To an architecture geek like me, the Picturedrome is a great gig; the building itself is a classic Arts & Crafts theatre and its interior shows little flashes of all the fashions which theatres and cinemas went through in the last century.
It's easy, then, for me to ignore the scaffolding which holds the place together these days, but the guy who bounced into the upright halfway through Whole Lotta Rosie would probably take issue with me. I suspect he's currently wondering where the black eye came from and vowing never to go out in Holmfirth again.
It's harder to ignore bar staff lacking a fundamental grasp of arithmetic. God help them if they ever have to deal with prices which aren't rounded up to the nearest 10p.
Hogmanay 2007 and the mirror ball over the dancefloor gives a nice 1960s heyday feel to the old place (it spent most of the latter half of the century as a bingo hall, y'know - Picturedrome was actually the name of Holmfirth's other cinema... am I boring you yet?)
DJ's doing his best to wind me up, mind; Motown, Queen, Pulp and Abba grind against each other and leave me whistling the refrain from the old Smiths song, Panic; hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ...
There's no support this year (last year's wonderful Cosmic Doris never played another show together after a good old-fashioned fall out within the band - rock'n'roll, baby!) so we get a bit more of the boys than usual.
Set one opens with the 2007 standard Journey/Jovi/Aerosmith combo and careers through Styx (Dann - almost twelve months into these reviews I've finally got the "official" spelling - is loaded with the cold, poor lamb, but you wouldn't know), Boston, Thunder and the like to Comfortably Numb. The lighting is excellent (apart from the dark stage corners) but the sound is slightly "odd"; the bass and snare drums are there but I'm not picking up the cymbals and the keyboards are just "lost" (thanks for putting the finger on that, Jason!)
Staff have a jar for "tips" on the bar by now. Here's two - learn to count and sort your prices out.
Honestly - £1.60 for half an orange-and-lemonade? You get away with London prices for pissed punters, but you can be reasonably sure that those of us on "softies" will notice.
Second set opens with It's My Life and DS's keyboards are suddenly very conspicuous in the mix; shall we just apply the old footballing cliche here? On occasions like this, the result (a seriously partying crowd) is more important than the performance.
A fair few rarities are aired - Final Countdown, Jump, Summer of '69 - but there's no Kansas and I was hoping for a bit of Sweet or Toto.
LingalongaJovi takes us up to the bells and Auld Lang Syne (hey DB - I can teach you the proper words before next year, if you like!).
No solo spot for Dann (somehow, I don't think the Holmfirth massive is ready for Yngwie) but he and his big brother bring the show to a great climax with the Rock'n'Roll/Rosie doublet.
Happy New Year.
Yeah, to all of you - the three Daves, Alan and Dann; Tracie, Val and Jodie; Phil and Jason; the familiar faces, the random liggers and, as they say in the best magazines, "all my readers" - hope you all have a fantastic 2008 and look forward to seeing you at a show or five.
May the best ye've ever seen be the worst ye'll ever see.
May a mouse ne'er leave your girnal wi' a teardrap in its e'e.
May your lumb keep blythely reekin' 'til your auld enough tae dee.
May ye aye be hale and hearty as I wish ye now tae be.
No comments:
Post a Comment