We arrived unusually early at the Rock Café to find the guys soundchecking Hotel California. I suppose with Bon Jovi turning into an Eagles tribute act on their last album it was inevitable that the Jaggies would go the same way.
The crowd was slow to arrive, but by kick-off the place was reasonably busy. The Rock Café doesn’t seem to get as much passing trade as it used to – the young, beautiful people seem to prefer the delights of Queen and Cross Church Streets these days - but that means that all but a handful of those present are there to see the band. This should be a good thing.
The sound was as good as the venue permits so, although the first set was fairly standard content-wise, it was very enjoyable. Dann was complaining that he couldn’t hear his monitor, but we’d never have known – the Miss A Thing and Comfortably Numb solos were awesome, as always.
Comment from DB which might or might not have been serious – Eloise as a potential new track. Is he going goth on us? If he dyes his hair black then I’m going to start watching Band Of Oz…
Second set had a few decent surprises; former Jaggie (and now Storm) drummer Neil sat in on Summer of ’69, but DB was stood up by Ian Roper so had to do the vocals himself.
Annoyed at not getting to sit down and watch for five minutes, DB then surrendered the mic to wee Jo Shorten for Sweet Child O' Mine. Good stuff.
Unheard in ages, the Sweet’s (Love is Like) Oxygen got an airing then the Whitesnake slot was filled, not by Gimme All Your Love Tonight, but by Is This Love? And it was great. And I’m sure someone suggested that recently…
Big Dave was on blisteringly entertaining form. Terrific vocal on Separate Ways (he’s really made that song his own) and blew the roof off with the encores as usual. All this despite having consumed an industrial quantity of alcohol.
Ah, alcohol. Some folk just shouldn’t touch the stuff. It’s my other quibble with the Rock Café as a venue – that’s not a dance floor, it’s the main thoroughfare. This annoys the missus because she can’t have a decent bop. It annoys me because pissed birds who are old enough to know better spend the night spilling beer on me, banging into me and generally getting in my way.
How's the hangover, Amy?
Thursday, 21 February 2008
Monday, 21 January 2008
Jagged Edge - Shipley Tramshed - Jan 2008
More years ago than I care to remember, we had a burst pipe in the playground at primary school which, of course, was a magnet for us little'uns. I recall the dressing-down I got from the janitor while, soaked to the skin, I sat shivering next to the heater in his office. "I warned you. You'll catch your death..." I haven't felt that small in a long time.
"No-one cares about drummers. No-one loves us. We don't matter."
Alan was a couple of steps away from going down to the garden to eat worms after last night's show at The Tramshed. Thing is, like the jannie all those years ago, he was dead right; apart from a couple of oblique references, he and DS have been conspicuous by their absence from these musings. Due credit has not been paid.
Bad Tommy.
Hey, these reviews are written, primarily, to keep track of the good times I have. They're my diary; something to spark a happy memory in years to come. I'm no professional; I have no journalistic background or training; any "style" in my writing has been absorbed from years of reading Mick Wall, Dante Bonutto and Derek Oliver. I need the occasional bollocking to keep me focussed or I'll end up sounding like Gary bloody Bushell.
What, exactly, was Alan's gripe all about and why was it justified? Well, you'll have heard the TV and radio pundits talking about football referees and how they're considered to be at their best when you don't notice them. To those of us who don't actually know as much about music as we'd like to think, the same applies to drummers, bassists and keyboard players. Yes, they're there and we vaguely recognise them, but we only actually notice them when they balls it up.
Think about it; the famous members of every rock band are the guitarist(s) and singer(s). Bassists are anonymous (unless it's "their" band - Pete Way, Steve Harris - or they sing - Phil Lynott, Lemmy, our very own Dave R); drummers are interchangeable (unless they're "technicians" - Neil Peart, Ian Paice, erm...); keyboard players tend to be so shy they make bassists look like glory-hunting limelight hogs (unless they're Keith Emerson).
Not convinced? Here's a quick test. The following are/were the drummers, keyboard players or bassists in three bands the boys cover - who plays what and with whom?
Jonathan Cane, Alec John Such, Joey Kramer, Steve Smith, David Bryan, Tom Hamilton - you have 10 seconds, starting now...
Whaddaya mean you've never heard of them?
Long story short - this review is dedicated to the "referees" of the show; the guys we don't notice unless they have a bad game. Alan, Dave S and the guys on the desk, take a bow because your time is now.
Depending on who you ask, The Old Tramshed is either in Shipley, Saltaire or Bradford. It's a venue I'd heard a fair bit about so I was glad to finally take in a show. As you'd expect (the name's a bit of a giveaway) it's a big, airy building but it's been very nicely converted and the balcony offers a great view of the (perhaps rather small) stage.
Right from the opening bars of Higher Place, this was a great show. The sound was fabulous with the harmony balance approaching perfection and the vocals at just the right level in the overall mix. The big 80s drum sound in Faithfully was great and Jump featured DS's keys as they should sound. This was the kind of show that makes us keep coming back for more and it completely washed away any lingering bad taste from the Hogmanay mishaps. There you go, DB, The Oracle has spoken!
The songs slipped by, one by one; Blue Collar Man, Comfortably Numb, Separate Ways and Wayward Son all benefitting hugely from the well-balanced harmonies. Throw in the aforementioned Faithfully and Adagio and that's your highlights. Yes, the usual Bon Jovi, Guns'n'Roses and what have you too, but you knew that.
By the end of the night, voices, unexercised for nearly a month, were starting to tire but, after a performance like this, that's half expected. By way of a breather, we had a guest appearance from two guys - a vocalist and a drummer who must go uncredited as DB, in his inimitable way, completely failed to introduce them.
Bad DB.
Big Dave's usual pair to close out - a great start to the year.
Oh, afterthought - soundcheck was Is This Love, a song I've never mentioned in review so it must be a while since it was played in anger. Dust that and Hold the Line off and I'll be a happy camper...
Quiz answer :
Jonathan Cane - keys, Journey
Alec John Such - bass, Bon Jovi
Joey Kramer - drums, Aerosmith
Steve Smith - drums, Journey
David Bryan - keys, Bon Jovi
Tom Hamilton - bass, Aerosmith
"No-one cares about drummers. No-one loves us. We don't matter."
Alan was a couple of steps away from going down to the garden to eat worms after last night's show at The Tramshed. Thing is, like the jannie all those years ago, he was dead right; apart from a couple of oblique references, he and DS have been conspicuous by their absence from these musings. Due credit has not been paid.
Bad Tommy.
Hey, these reviews are written, primarily, to keep track of the good times I have. They're my diary; something to spark a happy memory in years to come. I'm no professional; I have no journalistic background or training; any "style" in my writing has been absorbed from years of reading Mick Wall, Dante Bonutto and Derek Oliver. I need the occasional bollocking to keep me focussed or I'll end up sounding like Gary bloody Bushell.
What, exactly, was Alan's gripe all about and why was it justified? Well, you'll have heard the TV and radio pundits talking about football referees and how they're considered to be at their best when you don't notice them. To those of us who don't actually know as much about music as we'd like to think, the same applies to drummers, bassists and keyboard players. Yes, they're there and we vaguely recognise them, but we only actually notice them when they balls it up.
Think about it; the famous members of every rock band are the guitarist(s) and singer(s). Bassists are anonymous (unless it's "their" band - Pete Way, Steve Harris - or they sing - Phil Lynott, Lemmy, our very own Dave R); drummers are interchangeable (unless they're "technicians" - Neil Peart, Ian Paice, erm...); keyboard players tend to be so shy they make bassists look like glory-hunting limelight hogs (unless they're Keith Emerson).
Not convinced? Here's a quick test. The following are/were the drummers, keyboard players or bassists in three bands the boys cover - who plays what and with whom?
Jonathan Cane, Alec John Such, Joey Kramer, Steve Smith, David Bryan, Tom Hamilton - you have 10 seconds, starting now...
Whaddaya mean you've never heard of them?
Long story short - this review is dedicated to the "referees" of the show; the guys we don't notice unless they have a bad game. Alan, Dave S and the guys on the desk, take a bow because your time is now.
Depending on who you ask, The Old Tramshed is either in Shipley, Saltaire or Bradford. It's a venue I'd heard a fair bit about so I was glad to finally take in a show. As you'd expect (the name's a bit of a giveaway) it's a big, airy building but it's been very nicely converted and the balcony offers a great view of the (perhaps rather small) stage.
Right from the opening bars of Higher Place, this was a great show. The sound was fabulous with the harmony balance approaching perfection and the vocals at just the right level in the overall mix. The big 80s drum sound in Faithfully was great and Jump featured DS's keys as they should sound. This was the kind of show that makes us keep coming back for more and it completely washed away any lingering bad taste from the Hogmanay mishaps. There you go, DB, The Oracle has spoken!
The songs slipped by, one by one; Blue Collar Man, Comfortably Numb, Separate Ways and Wayward Son all benefitting hugely from the well-balanced harmonies. Throw in the aforementioned Faithfully and Adagio and that's your highlights. Yes, the usual Bon Jovi, Guns'n'Roses and what have you too, but you knew that.
By the end of the night, voices, unexercised for nearly a month, were starting to tire but, after a performance like this, that's half expected. By way of a breather, we had a guest appearance from two guys - a vocalist and a drummer who must go uncredited as DB, in his inimitable way, completely failed to introduce them.
Bad DB.
Big Dave's usual pair to close out - a great start to the year.
Oh, afterthought - soundcheck was Is This Love, a song I've never mentioned in review so it must be a while since it was played in anger. Dust that and Hold the Line off and I'll be a happy camper...
Quiz answer :
Jonathan Cane - keys, Journey
Alec John Such - bass, Bon Jovi
Joey Kramer - drums, Aerosmith
Steve Smith - drums, Journey
David Bryan - keys, Bon Jovi
Tom Hamilton - bass, Aerosmith
Tuesday, 1 January 2008
Jagged Edge - Holmfirth - Hogmanay 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Jagged Edge - Hartlepool WMC - December 2007
Would you believe it? The boys just happen to be playing in the part of the country we happen to be in. Coincidence? Fate? The wife meticulously planning our social calendar? You decide...
Here's a wee confession; we've got an album playing on car journeys just now called, unoriginally, Jagged Edge Originals. It features the original (surprise, surprise) versions of just about all the tracks the boys cover and never fails to spark conversation.
* Just how fantastic would Higher Place have been if Perry sang it?
* Just how boring is ...Miss A Thing without Dan's virtuosity at the end?
* Why does It's My Life sound so 2-dimensional when compared to the Jaggie version?
It also highlights a few unhealthy traits in our collected psyche. When Dave Gilmour is playing the Comfortably Numb coda we probably shouldn't be shouting "Not like that! You missed the bit that goes diddly-diddly-weee-ow!"
Anyway...
The addition of assorted B&Q animated Christmas lights to the Hartlepool war zone hasn't made it look any less like downtown Basra but I suppose they're portable and easy to fence so I'd imagine car crime's down for a couple of weeks.
Inside The Compound, the boys started without us (not my fault - my hair doesn't take an hour to dry these days!) and were into Runaway before we got seated. The hall was pretty much full but, sadly, we knew why.
After really top-drawer performances of Blue Collar Man, Take It On The Run, Wayward Son and Separate Ways, Old Albert took over and we were treated to 40 minutes of hot, hardcore bingo action.
The second half was the usual song-and-dance-athon with all of the band on top form. The guys on the desk, meanwhile, were experimenting with some new lighting effects (very Phantom Of The Opera) and possibly some sort of cross-fade-side-to-side-phasing thing (sorry about the technical jargon there) on the sound (though that might just've been my ears playing up).
There was a sad absence of authentic mad dancers although one lass seemed keen to audition for the part. Unfortunately for her, the bar has been set very high and shaking your arse sub-Tina Turner style just doesn't cut it.
Hartlepool is a strange, strange place but that's two cracking performances we've seen at King Ozzy (as it seems to be known locally) Drive. Bingo or no bingo.
Here's a wee confession; we've got an album playing on car journeys just now called, unoriginally, Jagged Edge Originals. It features the original (surprise, surprise) versions of just about all the tracks the boys cover and never fails to spark conversation.
* Just how fantastic would Higher Place have been if Perry sang it?
* Just how boring is ...Miss A Thing without Dan's virtuosity at the end?
* Why does It's My Life sound so 2-dimensional when compared to the Jaggie version?
It also highlights a few unhealthy traits in our collected psyche. When Dave Gilmour is playing the Comfortably Numb coda we probably shouldn't be shouting "Not like that! You missed the bit that goes diddly-diddly-weee-ow!"
Anyway...
The addition of assorted B&Q animated Christmas lights to the Hartlepool war zone hasn't made it look any less like downtown Basra but I suppose they're portable and easy to fence so I'd imagine car crime's down for a couple of weeks.
Inside The Compound, the boys started without us (not my fault - my hair doesn't take an hour to dry these days!) and were into Runaway before we got seated. The hall was pretty much full but, sadly, we knew why.
After really top-drawer performances of Blue Collar Man, Take It On The Run, Wayward Son and Separate Ways, Old Albert took over and we were treated to 40 minutes of hot, hardcore bingo action.
The second half was the usual song-and-dance-athon with all of the band on top form. The guys on the desk, meanwhile, were experimenting with some new lighting effects (very Phantom Of The Opera) and possibly some sort of cross-fade-side-to-side-phasing thing (sorry about the technical jargon there) on the sound (though that might just've been my ears playing up).
There was a sad absence of authentic mad dancers although one lass seemed keen to audition for the part. Unfortunately for her, the bar has been set very high and shaking your arse sub-Tina Turner style just doesn't cut it.
Hartlepool is a strange, strange place but that's two cracking performances we've seen at King Ozzy (as it seems to be known locally) Drive. Bingo or no bingo.
Friday, 7 December 2007
Jeremy Hardy - LBT - December 2007
I first encountered Jeremy Hardy during a brief flirtation with Radio 4 back in the early 90s. He was presenting a lecture titled "How To Know Your Place" which had me doubled up with laughter but which was the last episode of his series; Radio 5 became 5Live shortly after and I didn't listen to Radio 4 again until the new Douglas Adams adaptations aired.
Consequently, to me, Jeremy was a vaguely familiar face who appeared occassionally on the They Think It's Quite Buzzcocky For You circuit until, a couple of years ago, I discovered BBC7 and the full glory of Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation was revealed to me.
Speaks to the Nation was the series that early lecture came from and is possibly the most consistently hilarious radio series I have ever encountered; I was therefore with excitement and a little trepidation that I set out to see the wee guy live.
Trepidation only because I've now got all seven series (that's about 18 hours) of Speaks to the Nation constantly present on my Rio Carbon; would I have heard it all before?
Not a bit of it. Jeremy presented two straight hours of unthemed stand-up to an appreciative, if slightly reserved, sell-out crowd. Subjects ranged from the expected right-on stuff about homophobia and racism to parenthood and music festivals (I went to Glastonbury. A bloke in his forties in a field in a tent. I felt I should be judging leeks).
He touched on current affairs (The police should be allowed to strike - just imagine them hunched around their brazier, burning their truncheons, and a hundred former miners arriving on horseback) and stuck up for Amy Winehouse, pointing out that she's probably a lightweight in the contolled substances stakes compared to the Keefs and Lemmys of a world so keen to criticise her.
His political rants were as confusing as ever - Jeremy wants to protect people from themselves and doesn't try to reconcile his support for bans with his more liberal tendancies (thus alienating himself from both the libertarian and authoritarian camps).
Labour, the political party he fell out with many years ago, came in for some well deserved stick over all the right-wing stuff (ID cards, PFI, fuelling the credit boom) and corruption (cash for honours); Don't they understand? When we said, "You're the same as the Tories" it wasn't a challenge, it was just something to say.
Departed friends (Alan Coren and Linda Smith) were paid tribute to, Jeremy suggesting that I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue contestants seem to have a longer life expectancy than those on The News Quiz. His observation that his fanbase comprises largely of Radio 4 listeners and one harsh winter might see them all off raised many nervous giggles.
He threw in a few bars of a song or two - unaccompanied he doesn't sound half as bad as he does on ISIHAC; he can carry a tune, just not one he's been given - and demonstrated a previously unknown (to me, anyway) talent for mimicry; his John Reid Lanarkshire accent was spot on - I could've been visiting family.
He left us with (in his words) some real jokes which had come to him from his old friend, the late Alan Coren. Under any other circumstances they'd probably be derided as stereotypical, even anti-semitic; but they did come from Alan...
A Jew, an Englishman, a Frenchman and a Russian were crossing the desert. Obviously the Englishman, Frenchman and Russian might've been Jewish as well but, for the purposes of this joke, that's unimportant.
- The Russian said, "I'm hot and I'm parched; I must have vodka"
- The Frenchman said, "I'm hot and I'm parched; I must have wine"
- The Englishman said, "I'm hot and I'm parched; I must have beer"
- The Jew said, "I'm hot and I'm parched; I must have diabetes"
A flasher opened his mac to an old Jewish woman in the park.
She said, "That's a lining?"
A comedian's agent called him and said, "I've got you a great charity gig - be careful, you mustn't blow this one, it's with the Paranoia Society."
He hung up and the comedian's phone rang again; "Hi, this is Steven, I'm the secretary of the Paranoia Society".
"Oh, hi there. I was just talking about you..."
Mighty fine show.
Consequently, to me, Jeremy was a vaguely familiar face who appeared occassionally on the They Think It's Quite Buzzcocky For You circuit until, a couple of years ago, I discovered BBC7 and the full glory of Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation was revealed to me.
Speaks to the Nation was the series that early lecture came from and is possibly the most consistently hilarious radio series I have ever encountered; I was therefore with excitement and a little trepidation that I set out to see the wee guy live.
Trepidation only because I've now got all seven series (that's about 18 hours) of Speaks to the Nation constantly present on my Rio Carbon; would I have heard it all before?
Not a bit of it. Jeremy presented two straight hours of unthemed stand-up to an appreciative, if slightly reserved, sell-out crowd. Subjects ranged from the expected right-on stuff about homophobia and racism to parenthood and music festivals (I went to Glastonbury. A bloke in his forties in a field in a tent. I felt I should be judging leeks).
He touched on current affairs (The police should be allowed to strike - just imagine them hunched around their brazier, burning their truncheons, and a hundred former miners arriving on horseback) and stuck up for Amy Winehouse, pointing out that she's probably a lightweight in the contolled substances stakes compared to the Keefs and Lemmys of a world so keen to criticise her.
His political rants were as confusing as ever - Jeremy wants to protect people from themselves and doesn't try to reconcile his support for bans with his more liberal tendancies (thus alienating himself from both the libertarian and authoritarian camps).
Labour, the political party he fell out with many years ago, came in for some well deserved stick over all the right-wing stuff (ID cards, PFI, fuelling the credit boom) and corruption (cash for honours); Don't they understand? When we said, "You're the same as the Tories" it wasn't a challenge, it was just something to say.
Departed friends (Alan Coren and Linda Smith) were paid tribute to, Jeremy suggesting that I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue contestants seem to have a longer life expectancy than those on The News Quiz. His observation that his fanbase comprises largely of Radio 4 listeners and one harsh winter might see them all off raised many nervous giggles.
He threw in a few bars of a song or two - unaccompanied he doesn't sound half as bad as he does on ISIHAC; he can carry a tune, just not one he's been given - and demonstrated a previously unknown (to me, anyway) talent for mimicry; his John Reid Lanarkshire accent was spot on - I could've been visiting family.
He left us with (in his words) some real jokes which had come to him from his old friend, the late Alan Coren. Under any other circumstances they'd probably be derided as stereotypical, even anti-semitic; but they did come from Alan...
A Jew, an Englishman, a Frenchman and a Russian were crossing the desert. Obviously the Englishman, Frenchman and Russian might've been Jewish as well but, for the purposes of this joke, that's unimportant.
- The Russian said, "I'm hot and I'm parched; I must have vodka"
- The Frenchman said, "I'm hot and I'm parched; I must have wine"
- The Englishman said, "I'm hot and I'm parched; I must have beer"
- The Jew said, "I'm hot and I'm parched; I must have diabetes"
A flasher opened his mac to an old Jewish woman in the park.
She said, "That's a lining?"
A comedian's agent called him and said, "I've got you a great charity gig - be careful, you mustn't blow this one, it's with the Paranoia Society."
He hung up and the comedian's phone rang again; "Hi, this is Steven, I'm the secretary of the Paranoia Society".
"Oh, hi there. I was just talking about you..."
Mighty fine show.
Monday, 26 November 2007
Grumpy Old Women - York - November 2007
The past cast of Grumpy Old Women reads like a who's who of HRT - the genius co-author Jenny Éclair, Linda Robson, Rhona Cameron; these are not ladies in whose presence a man feels at ease, so it was with some trepidation that I acquired tickets for my grumpy old lady's birthday.
Man, oh man, oh, man. Yep, I think that's it; three other blokes in the York Grand Opera House; you can taste the oestrogen (at least I hope it's oestrogen). Is it legal for so many women to be drunk in one place? It's like Glasgow city centre in A-line skirts.
Our hosts this evening are Denise Black (formerly the second most glamorous barmaid at the Rovers Return), self-styled "Posh Grump" and only remaining GOW "original" Dillie Keane and, wait a minute, that can't be right…
About 25 years ago I had a poster of Mary Goodnight on my bedroom wall. Clad in a bikini, it was the "aren't we a little overdressed?" scene from The Man With The Golden Gun.
Britt Ekland can be as grumpy as she likes but, like David Cassidy, Rod Stewart and others of her generation, she'll never be old. Not to these eyes.
The girls (I can call them "girls", can't I?) mesh wonderfully to deliver a slick script which is, in turn, inspiring and thought provoking but always hilarious. Britt, resigned to her fate as a GOW, reminisces about her dalliances with film and rock stars; Dillie, revelling in her GOW status, shouts and screams in a frighteningly authentic manner; Denise, clinging to her youth and refusing to grow up, slowly embraces her GOW-hood.
From list obsessions to the Lakeland catalogue, the show skips smoothly through a whole range of subjects which, in the grand scheme of things, don't matter but, when taken together, just wind us all (GOW and GOM alike) up.
So many highlights - the GOW manifesto; Dillie trying to channel Meg Ryan but knowing the immersion's been left on; Denise's oh-so-familiar experiences with her teenagers; Britt telling fart jokes.
The world is a slightly better place for Britt Ekland telling fart jokes.
Great show. Right, I'm off to buy some biscuit carriers. Has anyone seen my Lakeland catalogue?
Man, oh man, oh, man. Yep, I think that's it; three other blokes in the York Grand Opera House; you can taste the oestrogen (at least I hope it's oestrogen). Is it legal for so many women to be drunk in one place? It's like Glasgow city centre in A-line skirts.
Our hosts this evening are Denise Black (formerly the second most glamorous barmaid at the Rovers Return), self-styled "Posh Grump" and only remaining GOW "original" Dillie Keane and, wait a minute, that can't be right…
About 25 years ago I had a poster of Mary Goodnight on my bedroom wall. Clad in a bikini, it was the "aren't we a little overdressed?" scene from The Man With The Golden Gun.
Britt Ekland can be as grumpy as she likes but, like David Cassidy, Rod Stewart and others of her generation, she'll never be old. Not to these eyes.
The girls (I can call them "girls", can't I?) mesh wonderfully to deliver a slick script which is, in turn, inspiring and thought provoking but always hilarious. Britt, resigned to her fate as a GOW, reminisces about her dalliances with film and rock stars; Dillie, revelling in her GOW status, shouts and screams in a frighteningly authentic manner; Denise, clinging to her youth and refusing to grow up, slowly embraces her GOW-hood.
From list obsessions to the Lakeland catalogue, the show skips smoothly through a whole range of subjects which, in the grand scheme of things, don't matter but, when taken together, just wind us all (GOW and GOM alike) up.
So many highlights - the GOW manifesto; Dillie trying to channel Meg Ryan but knowing the immersion's been left on; Denise's oh-so-familiar experiences with her teenagers; Britt telling fart jokes.
The world is a slightly better place for Britt Ekland telling fart jokes.
Great show. Right, I'm off to buy some biscuit carriers. Has anyone seen my Lakeland catalogue?
Saturday, 3 November 2007
Vampires Rock - Blackpool - November 2007
Past Times With Good Company
Linda and I aren't really antisocial. We comment regularly that we don't "do" people but, in honesty, this is a reaction to the fact that, thus far, we have achieved what we have in spite of, rather than thanks to, others. It's not that we don't like company, we just don't need it; we've got each other and that's a lot, y'know?
One upshot is that it makes our occasional nights out with like-minded friends that little bit more special.
So, Vampires Rock at the Blackpool Opera House; where to begin?
Steve Steinman is a jammy bastard, will that do? Talk about being in the right place at the right time. For the uninitiated, Steve was a losing contestant on an early series of Stars In Their Eyes, but he made a good enough impression (pun intended, obviously) to launch himself onto the circuit and become Britain's number one Meatloaf tribute act.
Thing is, he looks about as much like Meatloaf as I do; Steve looks more like Alexei Sayle, or maybe the wrestler Kane. This hasn't, however, stopped him building a sizeable and loyal fanbase and he sells out venues up and down the country with what is, in effect, a glorified pub covers band.
Linda and I aren't really antisocial. We comment regularly that we don't "do" people but, in honesty, this is a reaction to the fact that, thus far, we have achieved what we have in spite of, rather than thanks to, others. It's not that we don't like company, we just don't need it; we've got each other and that's a lot, y'know?
One upshot is that it makes our occasional nights out with like-minded friends that little bit more special.
So, Vampires Rock at the Blackpool Opera House; where to begin?
Steve Steinman is a jammy bastard, will that do? Talk about being in the right place at the right time. For the uninitiated, Steve was a losing contestant on an early series of Stars In Their Eyes, but he made a good enough impression (pun intended, obviously) to launch himself onto the circuit and become Britain's number one Meatloaf tribute act.
Thing is, he looks about as much like Meatloaf as I do; Steve looks more like Alexei Sayle, or maybe the wrestler Kane. This hasn't, however, stopped him building a sizeable and loyal fanbase and he sells out venues up and down the country with what is, in effect, a glorified pub covers band.
None of these guys look any more like Meatloaf than I do.
His current show tries really hard to recapture the spirit of Rocky Horror but falls desperately short. The narrative can be summarised as follows;
Our narrator, Stringfellow, guides us through the tale as Baron von Rockula (Steinman), a vampire who owns a nightclub, auditions singer Pandora Honey Rosiebox (yes, there are lots of weak "box" jokes throughout). She falls for him (without even putting up a fight), gets turned into a vampire and they marry (these last two steps might've been the other way around).
That's it. No twists, no turns, just boy meets girl and they bonk happily ever after.
I mean, come on! Baron von Rockula? Even Eurovision metal monsters Lordi would turn their noses up at a name like that!
This flimsy script links together an assortment of songs from The Greatest Rock Cliche Album In The World... Ever! to give us the world's first hair-metal pantomime. Strangely, it kind of works.
The backing band is competent if not earth-shattering, though their harmonies could do with some work. Lead vocal duties are shared between Rockula, Pandora and Stringfellow.
What quickly becomes apparent is that Steinman can only sing "as" Meatloaf; consequently, we learn what the inevitable 'Loaf covers album (everyone else seems to be doing one) is going to sound like.
For the record - Welcome to the Jungle (surprisingly good), If You Want Blood (likewise), Since You've Been Gone (disappointing), Here I Go Again (fair-to-middling), Highway to Hell (laughably bad).
It's ironic that he sounds least like Meatloaf when he's singing - you guessed it - Meatloaf songs. He simply hasn't got the range for Deadringer For Love or Bat Out of Hell.
Pandora (played by a second Stars In Their Eyes failure, Emily Clark) first appears as a dowdy Su Pollard lookalike but is then transformed into a vamp-y (again, pun intended) rock chick. She takes centre stage for Holding On For A Hero (her "Stars..." moment - a straight copy of the original), Don't Stop Me Now, Alice Cooper's Poison (nice rework) and Devil Gate Drive.
Sadly for Emily, I met Suzi Q a few weeks back and I'm afraid that the divine Miss Quatro is far sexier, fully clothed and nearly sixty, than "Pandora" could ever be.
Stringfellow is the Buttons/RifRaf character and isn't nearly as funny as he should be. The over-egged "joke" that he likes Abba falls a bit flat since, let's be honest, everyone likes Abba. He takes vocals on a few songs but I'm buggered if I can remember any of them - largely forgettable.
Vocal highpoint of the show was the Pandora/Rockula duet version of Total Eclipse Of The Heart which made way more sense than the original and had me wondering what a genuine Meatloaf/Bonnie collaboration might sound like.
Then there was Fingers.
If Steinman has struck it lucky, the losing hand must've been dealt to Eddie Ojeda. What is Eddie Ojeda doing touring a show like this? This guy has been with Twisted Sister for over thirty years; he played on Hear'n'Aid; he's a real, live icon! He must be getting paid well, must be.
We get precious little demonstration of his talent - just a couple of short solos - but enough to show he is far and away the most talented guy on the stage (if not in the auditorium ~taps nose knowingly~). Eddie closes out the show by leading the crowd in a rousing version of Sister anthem We're Not Gonna Take It.
Oh, and we got a drum solo.
Look, can we stop pretending now, please? For nearly 40 years rock fans have been subjected to five minutes (somethimes, heaven forbid, more) of rat-a-tat-fucking-tat in the middle of gigs.
We know drummers are talented guys and that the sound would be rubbish without you, but it isn't a solo instrument. Drumming is pretty crap without all the other guys (you know, the musical ones) playing along so just DON'T DO IT, OK?
Just Say NO to drums, kids.
Am I glad I went? Hell, yeah! Would I pay to go back? Well, the wife enjoyed it.
And the company was good.
Right. It's nearly December. I'm off to dig out the Twisted Sister Christmas Album and annoy the family for a while.
Two Twisted Sisters - Linda'n'Eddie
One of these guys is a mind-blowing guitarist
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