Rock 4 Kids Charity Gig - Slaithwaite, March 2007

Rock 4 Kids - Colne Valley Leisure Centre, 24 March 2007

Ah, dear, dear Slawit. It's a funny place; whenever I visit, I feel as if I've just doubled the gene pool.

And labels are funny things, especially when applied to music. If you've never heard a band before, all your preconceptions are built on the label someone has stuck on them. We all do it; music is one of the few things which haven't been "PC"ed yet - it's still acceptable to dislike various types of music; you don't have to tolerate other people's (lack of) taste and accommodate their wishes; you can just tell them to **** off and turn your Walkman up to 11.

Hence, without fear of imprisonment, I can state that hip-hop makes me run screaming from the room, that opera leaves me cold and that MariahHoustonDion is the three-headed beast in the Gospel According to Tommy.

Two labels always make me nervous, though. The first is "alternative"; alternative to what, exactly? The second is "Indie".

Now, I'm old enough to remember what "Indie" meant; it was a post-punk thing, independent record labels releasing material the big boys wouldn't touch. It was Postcard (Orange Juice, Aztec Camera), Rough Trade (Scritti Politti, Spizz Energi) and Factory (Joy Division). Not any more; "indie" these days seems to mean blokes with guitars playing vaguely 60s-revivalist stuff; The Answer and Kaiser Chiefs have a lineage that goes back through The Jam to The Small Faces and The Kinks; a very London-centric commercial sound; and the big labels love it. What's "indie" about that?

So you see, Friends of Dave had all this to contend with before they'd even played a note, and all because of a label. They opened the show with a Snow Patrol number and, right away, you could tell they were enjoying themselves (even if they looked as if they should be in the pub along the road watching the England game). What's not to love about a band with Lee Hurst's long-lost brothers playing lead and rhythm guitars? Material was as you'd expect - Kaisers, Killers etc - a good start to the night.

Next up was Vital Signs. They were billed as "Colne Valley's answer to The Commitments". Now, there's another label for you. One which displays a singular lack of ambition. You wouldn't get a comedian calling himself "Lindley's Jim Davidson"; you wouldn't get on the shortlist at Home FM if you called yourself "The Simon Bates of Dalton".

Simon Cowell would have had a field day with them; this was really, really bad karaoke. Hook up a dynamo to the recently-departed James Brown because he's spinning in his grave a damn sight faster than those turbines on the Civic Centre roof; "I Feel Good" appeared to start in 3 different keys. They almost rescued the set with a politically-corrected "Sweet Home Alabama" but, from there on in, they clearly started making it up as they went along. The random song selector threw up Coldplay, Kaiser Chiefs, Bryan Adams (I giggled at the thought of Dave hastily rewriting the Jaggies' setlist), Oasis and - horror of horrors - REM (the appearance of a mandolin onstage these days has the same effect a saxophone used to because, just as "sax = Baker Street", "mandolin = Losing My Religion"). The cherry on the cake was the inclusion of "Pride" by the most over-rated band in living memory, U2. This was clearly shoe-horned in because the singer thinks he's Bono. Someone needs to tell him he isn't.

I thought the mini-moshers in the crowd were really cute. Everyone should have one as a pet, but they're messy little critters, aren't they?

It's over 20 years since my college mate, Brian, started raving about this new, super-charged rock music he called "thrash". He dragged me along to a gig in Glasgow (2 quid, if memory serves; bear in mind that it used to cost a fiver to see the top bands at the Apollo at this time, kids; none of your £80-to-stand-in-a-field nonsense back then) featuring two up-and-coming acts of the genre. Anthrax were really funny. Noisy as hell, but heavy on the humour. Metallica scared the living bejesus out of me.

Icarus very much reminded me of Anthrax. The image is straight out of 1985 - Dom should have arrived on a skateboard! Thrash musicianship is under-rated; the key and tempo changes are legion and unpredictable to the casual ear but Icarus were very tight; a very talented bunch of guys (much more so than they deserve to be at that age). I was particularly impressed by the brave but expertly executed cover of Maiden's "Phantom of the Opera" (even if it was a bit rushed to begin with; it's fast enough guys, you don't need to prove anything!) and the great Sabbath medley. Nice touches of humour; they didn't take themseves too seriously under the lights, though singer/lead Sam could smile a bit more off-stage! Oh, bassist Dan looks like Captain Caveman.

Y'know what? I'm going to let someone else write up the Jaggies' set. I'll only make one comment; "Faithfully" has the potential to be very, very special, but that's my school disco memories you're playing with, boys - it needs a bit of polish yet...

Whatever happened to number 48?

Jagged Edge, Waterloo, February 2007

Waterloo Bowling Club. It's not the first place you'd think of for a romantic assignation but, way back in 2000, that's where my then-girlfriend wanted to spend Sunday afternoon.

"There's a really good band playing - I've seen them before; they do all the sort of stuff you like!"

I recall being quite impressed by the turnout and laughing when I heard Journey's "Escape" album being played beforehand. Did this lot really think they should have Journey supporting them?

The band - named "Impossible Dream", or something equally banal - hit the stage to a decent response and proceeded to turn in pretty good versions of a variety of AOR and soft rock classics. To be honest, they weren't that memorable; the singer could hold a tune and the guitarist desperately wanted to be Eddie Van Halen. They should have let him do "Eruption" and get it out of his system, but he had to settle for "Jump".

After an hour or so, the singer announced that they were taking a break and that, later, he'd be joined onstage by some old friends for a reunion of sorts. The buzz picked up.

The band which took the stage in the second half was a different kettle of fish altogether. The chemistry between then was plain to see; a tight, cohesive sound with strong vocal harmonies - now I was sold.

Six and a half years later, Jagged Edge are back at the Waterloo. The crowd's big again, but now the faces are familiar. The setlist is as strong as ever, with the usual numbers from Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Thunder and Pink Floyd jostling for space with more than usual from Journey (as the boys perfect their set for the Journey Convention later this month) and a couple of not-played-in-yonks numbers ("Jump" and "Summer of '69") on which the band were joined by their former bassist (an increasingly regular occurence - there seems to be a never-ending stream of ex-Jaggies!).

The lightshow seemed to work particularly well on this occasion, but the main thing was the sound - absolutely top-drawer; the best I've heard the boys sound in ages (hangovers not withstanding!)

Oh, and that girlfriend? She hasn't been for quite some time. These days I go to gigs with my wife.

Funny, they look a lot alike...

Some blokes from work, escaping the day job

A few of my friends are musical and take part in the sort of band-based incest which made Pete Frame a millionaire.

Dave and Stuart (both gtr/vox) are both 60s nuts and fancy themselves as Huddersfield's Lennon and McCartney but have become rather reclusive of late. Phil (drums) normally plays with D&S and just likes hitting things. He looks about half of his 38 years when he's got sticks in his hands. Pat (bass) takes himself way too seriously but is more talented than I'd ever tell him.

Pat plays in 3 different bands - a swing outfit (which he started about a year before Robbie had the idea but which has got a lot of bookings in the back of Mr Williams' popularity), an Irish band (he really is a "Pat") and a rock/blues band.

It was the last of these which played at the weekend, with Phil sitting in for their usual drummer. The two guitarists wouldn't look out of place in the Queen Vic - very Mitchell bruvvers.

Opening with "Dancing In The Moonlight" was a bit of a miss-step, I thought. The pub wasn't overly full and a fair few of the younger ones looked blankly at each other before heading for the trivia machine. Can't fault the sound balance, though; the twin guitars were excellent and Phil's "rat-a-tat-tat-a-tat-tat" fills were wonderfully authentic!

The set was a really good selection of songs with the usual pub band standards mixed with a few unexpected tracks I hadn't heard in years. For every "All Right Now" there was a "Can't Fool The Blues" (a song by Bruce-Baker-Moore), for every "Black Magic Woman" a "Renegade" (yep, a Styx cover version. What would HMHB make of that?)

Highlight of the night - "Shooting Star". The old Bad Company track which was a staple at our students' union rock discos back in the day. Great song, great memories.

Lowlight of the night - "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". Urgh! Better than the original but still fucking shite. Ufucking2 didn't write a decent song after their second album. I am right about this. In years to come, I will be lauded as the person who showed the world that Ufucking2, The Office and Chris Morris were the turn-of-the-millennium emperor's new clothes.

We don't get out much these days, but I think we're going to have to make the effort to take in some of the other bands playing locally. There seems to be quite a thriving scene going on largely built, it would appear, by ageing rockers whose kids have finally flown the nest. It might only be nostalgia, but at least it's good nostalgia because, as we all know, rock achieved perfection in 1974. It's a scientific fact.

Fozzy Live at Bradford Rio - October 2005

I wanna tell you a story...

Once upon a time there was a young man (well, he's a couple of years younger than me) named Chris Irvine. Born in America (his dad was New York Rangers' star Ted Irvine) and raised in Canada, young Chris had two loves in his life - professional wrestling and heavy rock (remind you of anyone?).

Chris trained to become a wrestler at Stu Hart's famous "Dungeon" wrestling school and, in 1996 at age 26, having paid his dues with many minor wrestling companies, made his debut with Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling. He used the name "Chris Jericho", taking it from the Helloween album "Walls of...".

A few years later, Jericho (feeling he was being "held back" by backstage politics) left WCW to join Vince McMahon's now dominant WWF. His "heel" persona, arrogant yet whiney, got him "over" with the fans and his in-ring abilities left them spell-bound. It looked like "Y2J" was about to become a megastar.

Then disaster struck - a seriously sprained ankle sidelined Jericho for four months.

During this time he struck up a friendship with Stuck Mojo guitarist Rich "The Duke" Ward, a wrestling fan and HUUUUGE Jericho "mark". Jericho told Ward that he'd always wanted to be a rock star and Ward told him about a side project he was involved in when he and friends would get together and play club gigs consisting entirely of covers of their old favourites. He called the "band" Fozzy Osbourne.

Jericho signed up instantly and his boyhood dream came true when he played his first rock gig a few days later.

Knowing that there were a multitude of covers bands about, the guys decided to come up with a wrestling-style "angle". The story went that Fozzy (now Osbourne-less) had been signed to a Japanese record company throughout the eighties and nineties which had stopped them playing in their homeland. Instead, many of the top acts of the day (Twisted Sister, Ozzy Osbourne, Dream Theatre) had covered their songs. Dee Snider, Zakk Wylde and numerous others were happy to play along!

Securing a record deal, they recorded an album of covers then, over the next few years, two albums, increasingly of their own material. All sold well.

Last night [Wed 12 October 2005], Fozzy opened their latest UK tour to promote the album "All That Remains" in Bradford.

MrsD and I arrived half-way through opening act Flux Capacitor's set. Their lead singer obviously fancied himself as the next Scott Ian, but his band were significantly more musical than his vocal style - thrashy, yes, but there were a lot of melodies trying to get out.

Second act might've been called Rico or Recoil or something like that. A three piece from the West Country, they looked like Will Young's backing singers; the bassist and guitarist both looked as if they'd have to be up for school in the morning. The singer/guitarist was a TERRIBLY polite young man; all "good evening" and "thank you very much". Not very rock'n'roll.

Oh, but the NOISE!!! Very reminiscent of Rage Against The Machine. I suspect they were terribly good at what they do, but they don't live on my street. The finger gymnastics of the bassist were quite spectacular, but the runs were lost in the mix. Not a band I'd go chasing, but if you're into that kind of thing then keep an eye open for them.

Fozzy finally hit the stage at about 10 o'clock. The crowd (maybe 300) were stoked and the band blistered through a couple of numbers before Jericho started working his promo magic. The guy could charm the birds out of the trees, I swear.

Jericho, in the words of MrsD, was looking "mighty fine" - he's lost the goatee. Chris, fashion advice. Some people suit facial hair. I'm one of them, you're not.

A "cheap pop" was obtained by favourable comparison of Bradford curry with London (boo!) curry and Manchester (BOOOOOO!) curry then it was into a blistering "Wanderlust".

Jericho noted that Helloween (remember where he got his name?) are due to play Bradford shortly and said he'd had his picture taken with the poster advertising both them and Fozzy. "We've definitely hit the big time!" he crowed.

New drummer Eric Sanders played an impressive (and, thankfully, not over-long) solo which got him a huge response then noted fusion guitarist Mike Martin played possibly the best solo I've seen outside the Glasgow Apollo - truly awesome.

Closing out the solo, the band reconvened and Jericho channelled the ghost of Linda McCartney. Really, there's something just plain WRONG about a wrestler playing a tambourine!

Plenty more banter with the audience followed, CJ asking us to promise not to tell his "mom" as he had a beer. Demands from the audience to "chug! chug!" drew a surprising response - a young lady was invited to try to down a bottle. She happily climbed up on stage (early twenties, blonde, pretty - rather too well scrubbed to be a mosher) but failed miserably in her attempt. Jericho rounded on the crowd for booing which led to Rich Ward morphing into Beavis (or Butthead); "Hur! Hur! I can't believe you told them off for booing a hot chick! That's, like, so cool!"

Bridget (for that was her name) was urged to stage dive back to her place. The look on her face was a picture (confirmation of her non-mosher status! Ha! I'm right again!) but she DID actually do it and seemed to rather enjoy the brief surf which followed.

Before the "official" last song, Ward and Jericho debated who was the craziest person in the audience. CJ narrowed it down to one of four who'd been bouncing around in front of me all night, but while they argued amongst themselves as to who was craziest, Ward picked out another young lady (surprise!) and had her join the band on stage. Her reward? To sit onstage in the "Crazy Chair". All very corny, but it works...

The band went straight to encore without leaving the stage - a rousing version of "Enemy". Then it all went mondo bizarro.

You know when a couple of loonies manage to get up on stage and hang around the singer's shoulders before being dragged off and beaten half to death by the bouncers? That didn't happen. First two, then three, four, five guys were on the stage. Suddenly we were in double figures. By half way through the song there must've been forty or fifty fans on stage - we couldn't see the band!! Really weird. Really cool. A great visual and a fab way to end the show.

Funny to see a couple of the girls trying to get a kiss out of Jericho. Being happily married and a relatively new father, he was having none of it!

Overall, a very entertaining show. Personally, I'd've liked a few more of their excellent covers in the set - they do great versions of "Stand Up And Shout" and "L.O.V.E. Machine" - but they're doing this for the love of the music and to enjoy themselves so it would be petty to criticise the choice of material.

Consider: there was a Pink Floyd tribute band playing in Huddersfield who were charging £15 admission. I saw Chris Fucking Jericho for a tenner!!

Oh, and it was great to come away from a show with my ears ringing again. It's been too long.

Friends don't let friends listen to hip-hop.
It's a metal thing - you wouldn't understand - Slogan on Fozzy T-shirt

Photos from Rios by Droogie_Will

Once In A Lifetime - Manchester MEN - June 2005

Hot, Hot, Hot!

Summer's here and the time is right for good old fashioned rock'n'roll.

The show is billed as "Once In A Lifetime" and one can't help but wonder what anarchy might have ensued had this tour happened 30 years ago. Teenage girls might have achieved the sort of overthrow of society punks dreamed of.

The Bay City Rollers - The Osmonds - David Essex - David Cassidy

Any one of these acts could have (actually, did) fill venues twice, three times this size back in the first half of the decade that taste forgot and here they are on one bill; a bit older, a bit greyer, a bit wrinklier (despite botox), not much wiser. Let's rock...

Les McKeown, for me, was the Rollers. See, I wasn't a wee lassie, my primary school self actually liked the music and Les was the singer - he was the band.

Today he's surrounded by a new band - they're all much younger than him and (unlike his previous cohorts) can actually play. We get a package of hits from Summerlove Sensation and Saturday Night to Bye Bye Baby by way of a somewhat unexpected medley of Shang-a-Lang with Deep Purple's Black Night (obviously included to give the guitarist a chance to show off his considerable skills).



Les' voice isn't what it used to be - years of abuse (he's up on drug charges after this tour) have robbed him of his range so he leaves the top notes to the backing singers and the audience. I suspect I'm the only person who notices this.

Great start.

A quick change-over and a familiar chant starts.

"We want The Osmonds!"

I was never really a fan. I liked Jimmy (he was the same age as me) and Crazy Horses, but all the lovey-dovey stuff made me want to pull the legs off spiders. Tonight, thankfully, there's no Donny or Marie, just the moshing part of the family.

OK, a bit of an exaggeration, perhaps, but compared to Puppy Love or Morning Side Of The Mountain, opener Having A Party is speed metal, baby!

Merrill takes stage front as current family patriarch - he looks remarkably like Kenny Rodgers these days - and is flanked by Jimmy and Wayne on flame-throwing guitars (not quite Ace Frehley, you understand, but credit for the showmanship) while Jay pounds away on drums.



The set includes all the hits (including ones I'd managed to expunge from memory like Goin' Home). Down By The Lazy River is every bit as cheesy as you remember and the boys look just like those evangelists on cable telly. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Having gone out of their way to annoy me (by making me sing along, goddamit!) they then excel themselves by giving us a drum solo. I haven't seen a drum solo in years! And now I've seen the Osmonds do one! Even weirder than shang-a-lang-a-black-night!

Of course, they finish with Love Me For A Reason and Crazy Horses. Better than I expected, enjoyable if not exactly likeable.

David Essex. The heartthrob it's OK for straight blokes to like. He was one of my first heroes and was the act I was most looking forward to tonight.

What a bloody set - Rock On, Lamplight, Gonna Make You A Star, Hold Me Close, Oh What A Circus, Silver Dream Machine, Imperial Wizard (complete with rather barbed comment on the War On Terror), Winter's Tale...



He even managed to fit in a new song, It's Gonna Be Alright, to prove he's still an awesome songwriter.

Stunning, simply stunning.

Manchester, please welcome onstage, from the United States of America -   David.   Cassidy.

Bedlam.

OK, I've taken MrsD to see her childhood hero a couple of times before, so I know what to expect.  It still takes me by surprise, though. You can taste the oestrogen as the years fall away from fifteen thousand 40-somethings and they are transported back to a time before pelvic floor exercises and HRT.

David Cassidy works the stage and the audience like an old pro - he's Frank Sinatra, he's Shirley Bassey, he's Louis Armstrong all rolled up into one (slightly nipped and tucked but still horribly well-preserved) package.



For all the stars who went before, this is his audience - they hang on his every word, eat from his hand, jump at his command.

The music is almost incidental - Cherish, Daydreamer, Could It Be Forever (with near-hysteria accompanying the "but..."), I Woke Up In Love This Morning...

He reads his audience well and plays the "normal" version of I Think I Love You rather than the down-tempo mix then launches into a long story about his friend John Lennon before covering Blackbird.

Now, I'd have dropped the chat and included Some Kind Of A Summer but then, I'm a greedy bugger.

He might've started out as a manufactured pop star, but Cassidy has become the consumate showman - one of the genuine greats of the age.

And after the show? Well, for all I said about the Osmonds, Love Me For A Reason is the song I'm singing in the car home!


David Cassidy with the Osmonds - Pic from Merrill Osmond's website

The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King

The Lord Of The Rings : The Return Of The King

A Review, by T. Degenerate esq.

Let me put my cards on the table. I was a Subbuteo player, not a D&Der. I rate the original Star Wars trilogy as the ultimate fantasy experience and, though I thoroughly enjoy Terry Pratchett, I don't get the Tolkein references because I've never read the LOTR.

So, how am I to react to Peter Jackson's trilogy?

The first film was, well, dull. We're walking, and we're walking, and we're walking. For fuck's sake do something. OK, the wraiths were pretty cool and the character development was spot-on but, really, number two better pick the pace up a bit.

The Two Towers was more like it. A finely-tuned balance between plot and character development with some genuinely jaw-dropping scenes. Still not exactly my pint of Stella, but enjoyable hokum nonetheless.

And so we come to The Return of the King. We're promised a feast of storytelling which will tie it all together. We're promised that we won't be disappointed.

So, when did Alastair Campbell get the PR gig, then?

Opening with Gollum's transformation was OK if a bit out-of-place (was this part of the narrative elsewhere in the books, I wonder?). Then we're walking again.

Y'know, I can't actually remember what happened when last night? Stunning visuals for sure (with the exception of one scene which I'll come back to) and, yes, I suppose the story did unfold in a sort-of-logical way, but my over-riding impression when the lights went up was that it was the duff stuff that had stuck in my mind.

1) Battle of Big Cliff-Side City. Oh look! The orcs are knocking the walls down with rocks! Don't they fall easily? Why don't they just knock out the bottom layer and watch everyone get buried in the rubble?

2) Battle of Big Cliff-Side City (contd). Looks like the end for our heroes. What's that? Oh, it's Rohan and his, what did he say? 6000 men? Against a quarter of a million ugly orcs on angel dust? Not going to last long, is it?

Huh? WHY THE FUCK ARE THE ORCS RUNNING AWAY?? JACKSON YOU FUCKER, EXPLAIN THIS TO ME!!!! No? Oh well...

3) Battle of Big Cliff-Side City (contd contd). Ah! The orcs' reinforcements (some sort of buccaneer creatures) have arrived! Or have they? No! It's Aragorn and Legless and a cast of thousands of Mummy Returns extras. So, they hijacked the ships did they? When? How?? WHY WON'T YOU TELL ME, PETER????

4) Battle of Somewhere Else. By 'eck, lad, these flying dragonny things are funky and they're making mincemeat out of our heroes! Ah, but HERE COME THE EAGLES! THE EAGLES ARE COMING!! Gonna scare off Sauron's hoards with a 35 minute version of Hotel California, no doubt. Please, please can someone please explain the significance of the eagles???

5) Meanwhile, in Mordor. Oooh!! FUCKING big spider!!! See that, love? When you get one like that in the bath then you can come running out screaming for me to get rid of it (but not kill it coz that would be cruel). Good scene.

6) Mount Doom. Yeah, yeah, so Frodo and Sam get rid of the ring then do a mean Indiana Jones impression to get out of the mountain. They run out of the door and jump clear of the lava flow and.... Hang on, how much did the special effects cost?? Coz that jump scene was the most obvious blue-screen since the seventies. Trust me - watch out for it, I half expected Judith Hann to come on and explain this "wonderful new technology".

7) Big Eye Thing. That's Sauron? Scarey my arse, it's not like he's going to hide under your bed, is it?

8) Maybe Big Cliff-Side City, maybe Somewhere Else, can't remember. Pretty bird (Rohan's daughter?) and annoying Hobbit killed monster awfully easily. If he'd been an end-of-level boss in Tomb Raider then he'd have lopped off a Hobbit foot at least.

9) The End. Nice scene at Big Cliff-Side City. Aragorn's King!! Everyone loves Hobbits!! Aaaawww!!

10) No, Wait, There's More. Back to the Shire and the SuperHobbits drive in like they've been off camping for a weekend. No ticker-tape welcome. I don't think anyone even bought them a drink. Ungrateful fucking Hobbits, WE SAVED YOUR FUCKING ARSES FROM THE BIGGEST, BADDEST, erm, EYE THING EVER AND YOU WON'T EVEN BUY US A PINT?? Ah, but Sam's gonna shag that little bird he fancies. Oh look, they're getting married. They all lived happily ever after, The End.

11) Oh No, My Mistake. Yeah! Guest appearance by Bilbo!! He's going away with the Elves. So's Gandalf. So's Frodo. erm, why? PETER!! YOU MISSED A BIT OUT AGAIN, DIDN'T YOU?? Bye then. The End.

12) For Fuck's Sake, It's The Film That Never Ends. It's getting like Bill Withers' Lovely Day. Stop it now please, OK, Sam's got babies, he's going to live happily ever after.

TITLES

erm, Peter, I don't mean to be a pain or anything, but WHAT HAPPENED TO THE DWARF??? Blame Tolkein if he didn't give you any clues, but you showed us what happened to everyone else, man!!??

CONCLUSION:

The fanboys'll love it, it won't win any converts.

Biggest difference between LOTR:ROTK and Love, Actually?

I enjoyed Love, Actually

Christmas is all around me, come on and let it snow...