Tag Archives: Live Review

I’d been meaning to visit my brother in Swansea for months. When I read on The Storm that The Reasoning were playing their very first gig at Swansea’s Uplands Tavern on Friday, this looked like the ideal weekend to make the trip. So I braved the post-hurricane railway system and some very typical Welsh weather (i.e. wet), and set off for Dinas Abertawe

The Reasoning are one of three bands to emerge from the ashes of the original lineup of Karnataka when they imploded two years ago. While I’d heard very good things said about the original lineup of Karnataka, I never had the chance to see them live. The Reasoning feature Karnataka’s singer Rachel Jones along with former Magenta bassist Matthew Cohen. Since Rachel wrote all Karnataka’s lyrics and vocal arrangements, they’ve as much claim to the spirit of the old band as any of the other offshoots.

Uplands Tavern is a strange sort of venue. The bar is right in the middle of the room which means half the people there can’t actually see the stage. And it’s difficult to fit six people on the tiny stage, which meant that for much of the gig I couldn’t see lead guitarist Lee Wright.

If they were a little nervous at first, the energy rapidly picked up, and they soon got past the usual small venue problem of dodgy sound right at the start. As one might expect from a band with two guitars, the new material is a little rockier that Karnataka were, but nevertheless sounded impressive on first listen. Rachel Jones shared lead vocals with guitarist Dylan Thompson and keyboard player Gareth Jones, with some complex harmonies in places. We were even treated to a solo song from Gareth Jones, which sounded very Elton John to my ears, only without the oversized glasses and bad toupee. Much of the second half of the set was old Karnataka material on which Rachel was on fine form, including an excellent “Talk to Me”. Deep Purple’s “Stormbringer” seemed a very odd choice for the encore; with Dylan singing Coverdale’s vocals and Rachel singing Glenn Hughes’

I look forward to getting my hands on the new album, released next month, and seeing them again at Crewe in April

IQ are unapologetically a prog band. Their music is all swirling Mellotrons, spectacular solos and melodramatic vocals, preferably with 9/8 time signatures. You won’t hear any of that “We’re progressive, not prog” nonsense from them.

Believe it or not I’ve never seen a full set by a proper lineup of the band; the nearest I got was a gig many years ago at the old Marquee club, after Paul Menel had left, but before Peter Nicholls had rejoined. They played most of the set as a four-piece, and Peter Nicholls joined them for the encores of “My Enemy Smacks” and “Awake and Nervous”.

The final date of IQ’s 25th anniversary tour was at the Mean Fiddler, formerly the Astoria 2, a venue threatened with demolition. I have to say I won’t really miss the place provided there’s a quality replacement; it’s a bit of a grotty dive, and the beer is terrible. But there was still a great sense of anticipation as the start time approached.

From the moment IQ hit the stage at 7:15 and launched into “Breathtaker” from ‘Subterrania’, it was clear this was going to be a superb gig; a tremendously tight and impassioned performance with a crystal clear sound. For the next two and a half hours IQ stormed through a setlist covering their whole 25 year career, from “Sacred Sound” from the recent ‘Dark Matter’ to spectacular set closer “My Enemy Smacks” from their 1983 debut. They even played a couple of songs from the Paul Menel era.

They’re not just a bunch of anonymous musos letting the music speak for them; they put on a show as well. Guitarist Mike Holmes spent the entire show sporting a gigantic pair of angel wings, while the most animated had to be bassist Jon Jowett, leaping around as if he was in a punk band, while reeling off some incredible basslines at the same time. Martin Orford’s keys are a major element of their sound; from the biggest mountain of keyboards I’ve seen since Iain Jennings left Mostly Autumn he produced big washes of Mellotron and plenty of ornate moog solos. He even had Mike Holmes playing air keyboards at one point. Peter Nicholls kept the Gabrielesque theatrics to a minimum, but was an entertaining frontman nevertheless, with his comments about bootlegs (“This will be the last song on the first disk”).

Keeping with their long-standing tradition of playing bizarre encores, the first one was a cover of The Sex Pistols hit “God Save the Queen” (I’m sure there were no keyboard on the original!) leading into their own reggae song “Barbell is In”. The came back not once but twice more, finishing with an “Awake and Nervous” that included a verse of Status Quo’s “Caroline”.

I’m not going to leave it another twenty years before seeing them again.

Having sold out the smaller Academy 2 twice last year, Porcupine Tree moved up to the larger Academy 1. They didn’t manage to sell out, but still attracted a bigger audience than would have fitted into the smaller venue.

This was a rather different gig to those last two, in that PT started by playing an entire hour of completely new material. Evidently they’ve decided to road-test the songs for the next album in a live setting before going into the studio to record them.

So what did the new material sound like? Well, it looks as though there’s another change in musical direction. It’s not Deadwing part II. If anything, it’s a bit more ‘prog’, less guitar-driven with a lot more keyboards. Wilson himself played quite a bit of keys, leaving John Wesley to play the lead guitar parts. (Wes sang lead vocals in places too!) It was quite a way into the set before we heard Steve play a guitar solo himself. A couple of heavier moments reminded me of parts of Dream Theater circa “Awake“; there was also one song with a soaring vocal line remiscent of Steve Wilson’s side project Blackfield. Steve Wilson thanked us for patiently listening to so much unfamiliar music before the short interval.

The audience energy level picked up during the second half of the show when the band played songs people already knew. The second set was drawn entirely from the two most recent albums, “In Absentia” and “Deadwing“, which might have disappointed those wanting to hear anything from “Lightbulb Sun” or the recently re-released “Stupid Dream“. The kaleidoscopic epic “Arriving Somewhere” was greeted with the most applause, only a year old and already an audience favourite. High spots for me were “Sound of Muzak” and the final encore “Blackest Eyes” with that massive Zeppelinesque intro.

Despite a few quibbles over the setlist in the second half, this was still a very enjoyable show. Hearing so much unfamiliar music in a show often challenging for an audience, especially for a band who’s work tends to need multiple listenings to be fully appreciated. On first hearing, though, these new songs came over as very strong, and I look forward to hearing the album when it comes out next year.

Update: The Ministry of Information has another review.

Anathema are a difficult band to pidgeonhole. They’re often classified as “doom metal”, although that label only really applies to their very early albums. Later on they moved towards the mix of goth rock and Floydian atmospherics on albums like “Alternative 4″ and “Judgement”, or the Radiohead-lite of “A Fine Day to Exit”. Their zigzagging musical trajectory might account for their failure to really break through into the big time; after eight varied albums they now find themselves without a record deal. Record deal or not, they still managed to draw a healthy crowd for a midweek gig.

First support was a short set from Danny Cavanagh’s new acoustic project “Leafblade”, just three guys on acoustic guitars, no bass or drums. Danny’s acoustic playing was quite impressive; I’ve always thought the mark of a good guitarist is the ability to play a decent solo shorn of effects or distortion.

Second support was Sweden’s prog-metallers Wolverine. They opened with the one song of theirs I recognised, “House of Plague”, which appeared on the cover disk of this month’s “Classic Rock” magazine. While musically competant, their set suffered from a muddy sound mix, and came over as a bit of a poor man’s Dream Theater; it’s possible that their music improves on repeated listenings, but with mostly unfamiliar material they seemed to lack strong hooks or riffs.

I wasn’t sure quite what to expect from Anathema’s headline set. Four years ago I saw them perform a superb show in the same venue. But last year’s support set for Porcupine Tree in the larger Academy 2 was a bit of a disappointment, in which they didn’t play nearly enough of what I considered to be their strongest material.

This time Anathema soon dispelled any lingering doubts I had as they launched into a powerful and enthusiastic set, buoyed up by an an appreciative crowd. They still played a lot from their most recent release, 2003′s A Natural Disaster, including a very impressive rendition of the title track, with Lee Douglas’ vocals far more impassioned than the studio version. This time the setlist also drew heavily from one of my favourite albums, 1998′s Alternative 4, with strong versions of ‘Empty’ (introduced as ‘a drinking song’) and ‘Lost Control’. The main set ended with Danny’s beautiful cascading solo at the end of ‘Flying’, merging seamlessly into a tape loop as he walked off stage with the guitar seemingly still playing.

They came back for no fewer than four encores including an excellent ‘Shroud of False/Fragile Dreams’ also from “Alternative 4″, ‘Sleepless’ right back from their 1993 debut, and finally a cover of Nine Inch Nails ‘Hurt’.

Good show, even though they overran the curfew which meant I had to get a taxi home. A band this good don’t deserve to languish without a record deal.

This is the fifth time I’ve seen the mighty BÖC. Last time they played the tiny Live Cafe in Peter Street; this time it was the slightly larger Academy 3, which they at least managed to sell out.

Unfortunately the sell-out crowd didn’t quite get the full Öyster experience, for Allen Lanier was missing. I don’t recall any reason being given for Allen’s absence; I wonder if the eldrich reanimation ritual that Eric and Buck have to perform before every gig failed. More seriously, I hope whatever’s wrong with Allen isn’t too serious, and he’ll soon be back.

It says something about the ability of the rest of the band that they still managed to pull off a decent gig as a four-piece. Sure, there were some holes in the sound on a few songs, where Allen’s keyboard or rhythm guitar were missing from the mix. I’m think they also rearranged the set a bit, dropping some numbers that they really couldn’t do justice to without Allen’s playing. The new rhythm section impressed, especially bassist Richie Castellano, who managed a bass solo that wasn’t boring. He even sang lead vocals on “Hot Rails to Hell”.

There were a lot of songs I’ve never seen them play live before, like “This Ain’t the Summer of Love”, “I Love the Night”, and oldies like “Seven Screaming Dizbusters”, “Harvester of Eyes”, and “Hot Rails to Hell”. Nice to hear them play “Harvest Moon” from their late 90s comeback album “Heaven Forbid”. Still no Astronomy. Now long will I have to wait to see this song performed live?

One think I really noticed this time was the physical resemblance between Buck Dharma and Ken Hite. Has anyone ever seen the two of them together?

Overall, good but not great. I’ve seen far better shows from the Öyster boys, but there were extenuating circumstances.

Journey, Manchester Apollo, 5th June 2006

I get the impression from online discussions that many American rock fans don’t consider Journey a serious rock band. They’re known largely for the somewhat cheesy 80s power ballads that got played to death on American FM radio. Worse still, they’re the band your younger sister liked.

In the UK, where they never had a top ten hit, the have none of that baggage. People pay as much attention to their hard rockers as their ballads.

Journey hadn’t played Britain since (I think) 1980, which is perhaps one reason for their relatively low profile over here. Since Steve Perry reportedly disliked playing outside the US, they never toured during their early 80s heyday. Which is why they’re playing the 2700 seat Apollo theatre the night after Bon Jovi (who theoretically appeal to the same sort of audience) headlined the City of Manchester Stadium.

They did, however, have enough fans to sell out the venue in five days. The atmosphere before they hit the stage was electric with anticipation. Could the band still cut it so long after their commercial heyday? What would they be like with new singer Steve Augeri? He sounded impressive on the new “Generations” album, but how would he sound on Steve Perry’s songs?

Journey hit the stage at 7:45pm, very early for a headline band, and dispelled any doubts within minutes. They launched into a storming version of “Separate Ways” leading into two hours of superb hard rock. The band were superbly tight right from the beginning, but also rocked hard, playing one great song after another.

While they played all the big hits, of which there were a great many, they also played a lot of harder-edged album cuts. The setlist included oldies like “Wheel in the Sky”, some new songs from the excellent “Generations”, and virtually the whole of the 1981 “Escape” album, but little from the more lightweight “Raised on Radio” or “Trial by Fire”. I was especially pleased to heard “Mother, Father”, and “Edge of the Blade”.

Steve Augeri didn’t disappoint as a frontman. He sounded more like Steve Perry than Steve Perry, hitting all the high notes perfectly. Drummer Deen Castronovo sang lead on several songs, which threw me for a while because I couldn’t work out where the vocals were coming from when Augeri wasn’t on stage! He’s actually a pretty impressive vocalist in his own right; he was especially good with his powerful rendition of “Mother, Father”. Naturally, Neil Schon played plenty of his amazing shredding jazz-metal guitar, ripping the place up on almost every song.

Overall a superb show, proving the band are still on the top of the game even twenty years after their commercial peak. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another quarter century before we see them over here again.

Queensrÿche, Manchester Academy, 4 June 2006.

Sunday night saw the second of my three concerts in five days. This was Queensrÿche’s Mindcrime II show at the Manchester Academy. They’d played low down the bill at the Monsters of Rock festival on the Saturday, and Sunday’s Manchester gig was their only British headline show.

Queensrÿche are an extreme case of a band peaking early. Their third release, the 1988 concept album, “Operation Mindcrime” is rightly regarded as a masterpiece of progressive metal. The followup, “Empire”, was much more commercial but still packed a punch. After reaching that stage, most bands either hit a lengthy plateau or split up. Queensrÿche did neither. Instead they released a string of mediocre albums culminating in the dismal downtuned alternative rock sludge of “Q2K”. They’d become a pale shadow of their former selves.

Sensing that they’d hit rock bottom, they decided to revisit their past, and release a followup to that classic concept album. “Operation Mindcrime II” picks up the story twenty years later. Musically it’s not a patch on it’s legendary predecessor, although it wasn’t anything like as dire as “Q2K”.

Support was Roadstar, the band formerly know as Hurricane Party. They played a great half hour set of conventional but entertaining 80s-style hair metal. Let’s party like it’s 1987!

When Queensrÿche took the stage, my first reaction was “They look like U2″. Geoff Tate in dark glasses looked like Bono, with bassist Ed Jackson in the hat resembling The Edge, and Michael Wilton looking a bit like Adam Clayton. Only when Geoff removed the dark glasses he then looked like The Office’s David Brent.

For much of the set they were joined by guest vocalist Pamela Moore. She had played the part of hooker-turned-nun Sister Mary on the original album and reprised the role (as a ghost) on the followup. As well as the parts she sang on the records, she added a lot of backing vocals throughout the set. In songs like “Spreading the Disease” and “Operation Mindcrime” itself, she sang many of Geoff Tate’s lines, perhaps an indiction that Tate’s voice doesn’t have the awesome range of 20 years ago.

The Mindcrime II tour was billed as the two albums played back to back. I had some misgivings about this, fearing that the weaker “II” songs would make the second half a bit of an anticlimax. But the 90 minute set meant that they didn’t play the whole of the two albums. They played all of the original “Mindcrime” bar ‘The Mission’, ‘Breaking the Silence’, and the instrumentals, but only half of the weaker sequel. They moved the closing number of the original Mindcrime, ‘Eyes of the Stranger’ to the end of the set, which balanced things out a bit.

The quality was a bit variable. Opener ‘Revolution Calling’ sounded a bit thin, but the energy levels picked up considerably as the set progressed. The high spot was a theatrical version of “Suite Sister Mary”, a reminder that Pamela Moore was trained as an actress before becoming a singer. The hit ‘I Don’t Believe In Love‘ was a pretty powerful version as well.

For encores, they played a couple of numbers from “Empire”, the title track, and a decidedly messy version of ‘Jet City Woman’. Then they annoyed the audience by waiting for ages before turning on the house lights, making us think they were coming back for a third encore, since there were still ten minutes to go before curfew.

I’ve since read a really bad review of their performance at Monsters of Rock the day before. I don’t think they were anything like that bad in Manchester, but it was definitely a case of good rather than great.

Zappa Plays Zappa, 1st July 2006, Apollo Theatre, Manchester

When is a tribute band not a tribute band? When it’s lead by the late bandleader’s son, and includes several members of the original band? Zappa Plays Zappa is such a band.

Frank Zappa’s eldest son Dweezil put together a band including Zappa alumni Stevie Vai and Napoleon Murphy Brock, plus a bunch of young unknowns picked for their chops rather than name recognition, then, in the best tradition of Zappa senior, rehearsed them solidly for three months.

I only discovered Frank Zappa’s music in the 1990s, after he’s stopped touring. I can’t think of anyone else who’s successfully thrown rock, jazz, pop, classical and comedy into a blender in quite the way he did, and I never expected to be able to hear his music performed live. Until now.

The support was a 1973 concert film of Frank himself. As the film ended the eight musicians walked on stage and launched straight into the opening number (which was one of the few in the set I didn’t recognise!)

The setlist covered much of Frank’s lengthy career, but concentrated very heavily on the mid-70s, especially the Apostrophe(‘) and Roxy and Elsewhere albums. Since this is probably my favourite Zappa era, I’m not complaining. They played flawless renditions of favourites like “Let’s Make the Water Turn Black”, “Peaches en Regalia”, “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow”, “Zomby Woof” and “Cosmic Debris”, as well as dazzlingly complex instrumentals like “The Black Page” and “Echidna’s Arf”. No “Dangerous Kitchen”, but with FZ’s vast back catalogue there’s now way they could possibly play everything.

Although it was probably Stevie Vai’s name that helped sell tickets, for my money the star was Napoleon Murphy Brock. He handled pretty much all the lead vocals, not just his own, but a lot originally sung by Frank himself, as well as some mean sax. Dweezil himself has matured into pretty impressive guitar player in his own right. To be honest I preferred his playing to Vai’s, which sounded a bit too clinical for my tastes.

The show was unfortunately marred by equipment problems part-way through, when Dweezil first lost his guitar signal, then got an electric shock of the microphone. “That wasn’t a nine volt battery!”, he exclaimed. It’s a tribute to the skill and showmanship of the band that they kept on playing, slotting in the keyboard and sax driven “Pound for a Brown” which didn’t need Dweezil’s guitar while they tried to fix the problems. They finally bypassed whatever box of tricked had failed and plugged the guitar straight into the amp, for a superb rendition of “Inca Roads”. Then there was a short interval while they checked the electrics for safety, before the band came back and played right through to the curfew without going offstage and coming back for an encore. Dweezil told us that “Sofa” was supposed to have been the end of the set.

The ghost of Frank returned for what was supposed to have been the first encore, as we were treated to archive footage of Frank soloing accompanied by the live band on stage; shades of the recent Frank Sinatra show in London.

A superb show, showing how a great band can still rise above equipment problems and still bring down the house. They head for America next.