Music Blog

Official announcement from Twelfth Night:

So as promised before the summer hols, we are now able to confirm the line-up for the November shows!!!!

We are delighted to say that original members Andy Revell and myself, will both be joining Clive Mitten and Andy Sears, along with new boy Mark Spencer.

Which means it’s now officially a ‘Twelfth Night’ reunion !!

Rev & I have actually been involved in the project from the outset, but had simply needed some time to convince ourselves that we would be able to play again – as both of us ‘retired’ from active musical service a long time ago !

Mark has been drafted in, as Rick wasn’t able to join us, to take on keyboard / guitar and backing vocal duties, multi-talented chap that he is. (If you think his name is familiar – beside being a long-standing friend of the band – he was the singer in 80s prog band LaHost).

Our first full band rehearsal weekend went very well considering it was the first time we had played together for more than 20 years !! And although we can’t guarantee to be quite as brilliant (ahem !) as we used to be !! ……….. we are confident that it will all be ‘alright on the night’, and that both gigs will be a ‘night to remember’ ……… to use but two of our old clichés !!

We expect news of the reunion line-up will accelerate the sale of tickets – which are going well already, with both venues reporting strong advance sales !! …………….. so if you want to make sure of seeing us, PLEASE get your tickets as soon as possible. Details can be found on our web-site. www.twelfthnight.info

Talking of which we are only playing the 2 already announced gigs (Kingston 17th, & Deptford 24th) as we have been unable to agree a suitable gig in the North this time. However if these gigs go well …….. who knows what the future holds ?!

We are all looking forward immensely (albeit with some nervousness) to playing together and seeing so many old friends again – and are sure that we’ll all have a great time!

This is the news I’d hoped for. Brian Devoil had been participating in the Yahoogroup, so I’d sort of assumed he’d be involved. But Andy Revell’s participation with his very distinctive guitar sound means that it will be Twelfth Night.

Just after he released a blinder of an album (I’ll post a review tomorrow), things start going pear-shaped again.

Tonight’s gig at Manchester was cancelled 15 minutes before he was due to go on stage, because he’s lost his voice yet again. It’s been rescheduled for Monday 1st October, which little compensation for anyone that’s paid a lot of money for travel and accomodation.

Update: The full story on Fish’s website

I knew I had to conduct an extended warm up and ran through a 15 minute session which didn’t fill me with confidence. At this point it was 7.30 and doors were open. I had 90 minutes to pull it together. I left it for twenty minutes and ran through another warm up. The voice wasn’t opening up and in fact it was shutting down even more. I let my concerns known to Yatta. It was now 8 o’clock. The support band was on and they were told to extend their set to give me time. I tried again to loosen up and by this time my voice was fading quickly and I was struggling to speak. I lost my entire top range in a matter of fifteen minutes. I made the decision to pull the gig and to pull the Sheffield show as I knew from experience that whatever I had was not a simple vocal strain.

I’ll be there for the rematch on 1st October.  Hopefully his voice will behave itself for the remainder of the tour.

Music meme from John Kovalic.

Copy this list. Leave in the bands you’ve seen perform live. Delete the ones you haven’t and add new ones that you have seen until you reach 25. An asterisk means the previous person had it on their list. Two asterisks means the last two people who did this before you had that band on their list.

My list is skewed towards acts I’ve seen live in the past few years, with a smattering of legends from festivals in the 1980s

• Anathema
• Blue Öyster Cult
• Breathing Space
• Bryan Adams (I only went to see the support act!)
• Deep Purple (Once with Blackmore, twice with Morse)
• Def Leppard
• Dweezil Zappa
• Hayseed Dixie
• Iron Maiden
• Jethro Tull
• Journey
• Karnataka
• Marillion (4 times with Fish, 5 with Steve Hogarth)
• Mostly Autumn (14 times!)
• Odin Dragonfly
• Opeth
• Pink Floyd *
• Polish October
• Porcupine Tree
• Queensÿche
• Rammstein
• Rory Gallagher
• Styx
• The Reasoning
• Thin Lizzy (with Phil Lynott!)

Just one act in common with John’s. My list is marked by the complete absence of 80s new wave or current indie/alternative bands; genres that just leave me cold.

… was my first ever ‘proper’ gig, the 1980 Reading Rock Festival. Headliners were Rory Gallagher, UFO and Whitesnake, with special guests Gillan, Iron Maiden and Def Leppard. Highlights (for me) were Gillan, Maiden and the barnstorming comeback performance by, of all people, Slade.

I’ve seen two artists this year who were on that bill 27 years ago, Ian Gillan, now back with Deep Purple, and Magnum. Both look a lot older and wrinklier now, but can still cut it live even after all those years.

25 years ago, at the 1982 Reading Festival, was the very first time I saw Marillion, a fact that marks me as ancient amongst Marillion fandom (One even said “I didn’t think there was anybody alive who’s heard them play ‘Grendel‘) . I don’t think it occurred to me that I’d still be a fan of theirs a full quarter of a century later.

I’m off to see Odin Dragonfly in York tomorrow night, and again in London on Saturday. I’m expecting both to be the sort of gigs where I recognise at least half the audience, which always results in a great atmosphere. I’m really looking forward to these two gigs.

And speaking of Odin Dragonfly, Planet Rock have been playing tracks from Fish‘s new album, 13th Star. While my feelings about the man himself are well-known to anyone that reads this blog, I have to say the songs they’ve played have been the strongest I’ve heard from him for many, many years; dark and powerful with a very strong emotional charge. Hardly going to be comfortable listening, especially as I know who the songs are about. There’s no way I’m going to be wearing any Fish t-shirts to either Odin Dragonfly gig.

I’m still on the distribution list for Fish’s email blog thingy. Today’s email contained this line:

I still had most of the afternoon in my hands and headed back into Soho past the pub we slid into after the Astoria show. Memories rallied – ‘stolen smiles across a crowded mews, desperate eye contact, lingering looks, polite interrogations from whisky breathed, drooly bearded, stoat eyed acolytes with beer bellies stretching black t-shirts as they wait on the bus and the trek back north with the troops pillaging their last orders for the knock out blow to take them painlessly home’

I presume this must be Mostly Autumn’s Astoria launch party back in February. I’m probably the only person there that managed not to recognise him. I’m trying to work out who these “whisky breathed, drooly bearded, stoat eyed acolytes” might be. I can think of at least one candidate

A post in The Guardian Music Blog sets up a challenge. It’s based on a late-night pub discussion where Guardian journo Jon Wilde was challenged by Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller to name his ten favourite songs in just one minute.  He wondered if he should include his real favourites, or list what he thought those two would like. Not that I would have considered them to the ultimate arbiters of taste in the first place.

This is the list I came up with.  I  expect that Weller and Gallagher would think as much of this list as I think of the music of Weller and Gallagher.

• Led Zeppelin – Immigrant Song
• Yes – Parallels
• Blue Öyster Cult – Astronomy (1977 live version)
• Rainbow – Stargazer
• Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb
• Fish – Plague of Ghosts
• Marillion – This is the 21st Century
• Karnataka – Talk to Me
• Mostly Autumn – Carpe Diem
• Porcupine Tree – Anaethetize

My list seems to be equally divided between the 1970s and the 2000s (well, almost. Plague of Ghosts is from 1999), with nothing from the two decades in-between. Not sure what that says about me.

(Psychochicken has also had a go at this, and let it loose on the Blogosphere)