It’s been a while since I wrote anything on here, in fact
the England cricket team has already landed in Australia and we’re less than a
month away from the beginning of another Ashes series, more on that nearer the
time.
In the last couple of months I’ve done a bit of fishing and
read a load of books, too many to remember right now, maybe I’ll come back to
some of those again. I’ve found my way
to a little bit of live music lately too.
In early September the good lady, Mr Green, Mr Red & I
travelled to Leicester to see the mighty Eels for a second time this year. What can I say? Eels are brilliant live and we all loved
it. Mr Red had never seen them before
and was particularly impressed. It’s
hard to pick highlights because all the songs sound great live. I love “Fresh feeling” and live this has a
very different sound. "Wonderful Glorious" was just that. The only thing
missing was the “wow factor” of previous Eels gigs. As expected it was pretty much the same set
we saw in March so there were few surprises but it was another first class
performance for the best live rock band on the planet. For a fuller review of an Eels gig, click here.
Towards the end of October I made my way to the Norwich UEA to
see “The Cult” along with Mr Red, Mr Blue and Mr Green. As is usual Mr Green drove and what should
have been a relaxing cruise north for me was blighted by nuisance phone calls,
as is also usual. The venue was rammed
and the extra hassle outside the hall made us too late to see the support band
Bo Ningen. This was a shame because I’ve
seen them twice before and enjoyed them both times.
So the Cult. Fairly
successful towards the end of the eighties I quite liked them at the time and
saw them live back then too. The “Love”
album had a bit of a gothic sound and a few stand out tracks which were bloody
good. The following album “Electric” had
more of a commercial hard rock sound, a few hits and made loads of money. I didn’t like it anywhere near as much. A few more similar albums, drug and alcohol
problems, break up & reform etc.
Following the typical rock band path to present day. Right now the Cult are celebrating their
‘Electric’ album with a 25th anniversary tour, which seems to be the
in thing for lots of old bands nowadays.
So the gig. The hall
was packed and the view wasn’t very good at all. No bother, Mr Red & I are both short
arses so well used to gigs being like this.
At one point my view was completely blocked by Mr Red himself, I found
the irony of this hilarious but I digress.
The Cult came on and played the Electric album. This was OK, I remembered a few tracks which
were pretty good. They then went off for
a few minutes and left some surreal music/video playing. This was bollocks. The Cult returned and played a selection of
songs from their other albums. “She
sells sanctuary” was the undoubted stand out, a few others were pretty good. The singer, Ian Astbury is from oop north
somewhere but you wouldn’t know it from the mid-Atlantic accent. The Cult have no connection to their
roots. There were a lot of hard rock
clichés throughout the night, the Cult are not shy telling us how good they
think they are. This is particularly
true of guitarist Billy Duffy who can surely play a bit but I can’t honestly
tell you how good he is. He’s very good
at the rock ’n’ roll pose and posture.
We all enjoyed the gig but it was not one that remained in
the memory, at all. For example,
“Sanctuary…” with Mr Duffy mastering his guitar was a great moment but the high
wasn’t maintained by what followed. The
Cult are a decent enough band but that’s as far as it goes. They’re not as good as they think they are
and they’ll never be great.
Finally in early November, Jools Holland with his R&B orchestra
at the Ipswich Regent. As we entered the
venue I began to feel uncomfortable. I’m
used to being one of the oldest people in the audience but tonight me and the
lady were definitely amongst the youngest.
This wasn’t my kind of crowd. Also
our tickets were in the circle, a good view guaranteed but the atmosphere is rarely
as good. It made a change to see the support
act which was Nel Bryden. From up in the
gods she resembled a slim Matt Lucas in a dress but apparently there was a good
reason for the hair loss and up close shes a good looking girl. I’ve seen a lot of singer/songwriter girls
with guitars but Nel Bryden was definitely one of the better ones, good songs, good voice.
Jools Holland performed with his orchestra consisting of a
twelve piece horn section, drums, bass, keyboards guitar and a couple of
backing singers. At any time there could
be up to twenty people on stage.The band was fantastic, great musicians playing
great R&B tunes as tight as you
like. Also there were guest vocals from
the awesome Ruby Turner and surprise of the night, Spice girl Melanie C. Ruby is a Jools Holland regular with a great
presence and a fantastic soul voice. Mel
C was a spice girl. To be fair she doesn’t
need the money so I assume she was doing it for the fun of it so that’s OK, I
can forgive her and the Stevie Wonder cover was blinding. But when it comes to singing both the backing
singers and Ruby Turner were different league as they showed during the encore “Enjoy
yourself”.
Musically Jools & co played a very good show which we
thoroughly enjoyed but my misgivings were justified, the crowd was content to
sit and clap and only a few danced towards the end. Good gig that would have been very good with
a different crowd.
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