Saint Jude

It’s not very often you come across a new band unexpectedly which completely blow your socks off! I confess that I only heard Saint Jude for the first time recently when a free CD fell out of Classic Rock magazine. Mightily impressed I was. So when I found out they were coming to town, an all out effort was made to witness this fine band.  Saint Jude frontwoman Lynne Jackaman has been described having a voice as pure as Aretha Franklin and as gravely as Janis Joplin. I’d concur and also add a sprinkling of Tina Turner. You get the picture.

Hot on the heels of performing at this year’s High Voltage Festival, Saint Jude embarked on their debut mini-tour to promote their critically acclaimed album ‘Diary Of A Soul Fiend’.  Saint Jude stormed through their set delivering a huge slab of an unadulterated mix of soulful blues combined with all out rock. A stunning performance that continually mesmerized the crowd. Tonight we witnessed a super group in the making.

Saint Jude:  http://www.saintjudemusic.com/

Full picture set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/magpie967/sets/72157629016908009/

Fighting Wolves

A blistering but short grungy set by Fighting Wolves opened the night. Even with one band member down due to illness, Fighting Wolves soldiered on with true professionalism. However, recent posts on the web say that two members of the band have gone their separate ways. Hope they all find success in the future.

Fighting Wolves: http://www.myspace.com/fightingwolvesuk

Full picture set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/magpie967/sets/72157629016536745/

An intro compilation starting with Prince’s ‘Sexy MF’ sounded out over the PA and we were instantly transported back to 1991!!  After all, we were here to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of the Wonder Stuff’s ‘Never Loved Elvis’ album. This was the album that was released when The Wonder Stuff were at their peak in their early days and gave us the classic hits ‘Welcome to the Cheap Seats’ and ‘The Size of a Cow’.

Miles Hunt led the band on stage and immediately launched into ‘Mission Drive’. Following the recently announced departure of long term guitarist Malcolm Treece, Jerry de Borg, guitarist with Jesus Jones, stood in at the last minute. This was to be no problem as Jerry easily delivered a stunning performance throughout the set. With Mark McCarthy on bass and Fuzz Townshend on drums, we were soon ploughing through the tracks of ‘Never Loved Elvis’. The classically trained and as always visually stunning violinist Erica Nockalls joined Miles centre stage. Since teaming up with Miles in 2006, Erica continues to add a great dimension to the band’s music and live performances.

The Wonder Stuff hail from Stourbridge in The Black Country and tonight’s gig in Birmingham was as close to a homecoming as it could get. Originating in a golden era of British Indie music that gave us the likes of Pop Will Eat Itself, Jesus Jones and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, The Wonder Stuff have proven that they can overcome the trials, tribulations and tragedies that have easily destroyed many a band.

Not content with just performing the entirety of ‘Never Loved Elvis’ Miles and the Wonder Stuff added more blasts from the past including ‘Red Berry Joy Town’ and ‘Mother and I’. On a cold, wet December night, the packed audience of the O2 Academy in Birmingham never tired of such an ideal night of excellent music with both bands complementing each other so much. Miles and Erica are undertaking a tour in 2012 across the UK, continuing their success as an acoustic duo which has proven extremely successful particularly at smaller venues in recent years.

The Wonder Stuff:  http://www.thewonderstuff.com/

Full picture set here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/magpie967/sets/72157628781842427/

‘There's only one way of life and that's your own, your own, your own!!’ What an iconic opening tune from The Levellers. Despite being billed as the support band for tonight, everyone knows that they are far from just a support band. Co-headliners would be my label. Full credit to Miles and the Wonderstuff for arranging this. Although we were at an indoor venue, the atmosphere was most definitely outdoor festival. However this did not detract from the Levellers superb folk-punk performance. As this is also the 20^th anniversary of their classic album ‘ Levelling The Land’ the set was heavily laden with foot stomping tracks which included ‘One Way’, ‘Fifteen Years’, ‘The Boatman’ and ‘Liberty Song’.

Mark Chadwick’s vocals were as distinctive as ever. With Jon Sevink on violin, a great performance of ‘The Devil Goes Down To  Georgia’ complimented the set. Jeremy Cunningham on bass brought his own energetic, bouncy playing to the stage together with Matt Savage on keyboards, Charlie Heather on drums and Simon Friend on guitar.

The underlying beliefs and drive of the band lie in left wing politics. This has led to them being largely dismissed by the mainstream music media. But this has not bothered the band one bit and they continue to be one of the most successful bands at gigs and festivals both at home and abroad. 2012 will see the tenth anniversary of the bands very own festival ‘Beautiful Days’ held in Devon; a low-key, non-corporate event keeping the true spirit of a music festival alive.

The Levellers:  http://www.levellers.co.uk/

Full picture set here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/magpie967/sets/72157628780778173/

I’d been told a few times that it was a good thing that I had never really heard of Marillion.  This band that has had many notable accolades in the UK, a fierce following and a reputation for pushing the boundaries of genres would get the benefit of my open mind when attending this pre-Christmas performance in Birmingham.

Hours before the show, I was initially impressed with the queue forming outside the venue in what is officially very cold winter weather.  Next, I was flummoxed by the beautiful interior of the HMV Institute main room – not a bad position in the house, architecturally striking and extremely made for live music as I was to find out.  So, in the first instance I must say that if you do get presented with the opportunity to see a gig at this venue, rest assured you won’t walk away with ringing in your ears.

Opening act was a Swindon-based, overtly prog band called Tin Spirits, featuring XTC member, Dave Gregory on guitar. Currently, the band is flogging a new album Wired to Earth of which they featured a couple of songs mixed in between a series of fitting covers from Genesis, Edgar Winter, Rush and XTC.  The band on the whole was extremely versatile and although people would think a warm up band just playing covers a bit cheesy, the approach worked very well.

Marillion appeared on stage to strong beams of cascading light and applause. Steve Hogarth was handed a novelty cricket bat guitar and the opening song was the emotional, Splintering Heart. 

Hogarth addressed the crowd with sincere utterings of “love you…” and led the fans in a sing-a-long of Cover of My Eyes intro.  At this early stage in the performance, I was awed by the massive response of the audience and Hogarth’s vocals seem to be in fantastic shape in comparison to some of his contemporaries.

Next, the band nearly gave me a heart attack as Hogarth shaking, held a Rickenbacker above his head for the dramatic intro of King.  This song had more of a 90s feel coming from critically acclaimed, Afraid of the Sunlight.

Some technical hitches with the keyboard caused a little improvisation in the set list but as you’d expect from a true professional band, they handled it with a cheeky one liner.  An intricate and playful, Fantastic Place was followed by what would be the first song that actually reminded me of a neo-progressive sounding Genesis – the band that Marillion are historically, often compared to.

And this was the first time that I started to notice that the song was significantly enhanced by backing tracks – non-existent female backing vocals, guitar fills and strange MIDI type sounding drums. 

But the enhancements left the audience completely undeterred and to Marillion’s credit, they clearly have a loyal and appreciative fan base.  Generally, I preferred the late 90s tracks like Man of a 1000 Faces and This Strange Engine with the classically constructed melodies and melancholy lyrics.

Marillion rounded out the main set with the another epic, progressive synth laden, Neverland before appearing for a set of encores spanning from new to old with 2004’s release Invisible Man to 80s Kayleigh and to late 90s with a crowd pleasing Three Minute Boy.

In conclusion, this band is an acquired taste of which I didn’t get but despite all of that, they command an endearing audience demonstrated by its consistent sold out shows and this is most certainly, completely down to their lead man, Hogarth’s entertainment value and a repertoire of diverse, artistic tracks.

Photography by Stephen Turner

Full picture sets here:  Marillion   Tin Spirits

Deep Purple

What can I say about Deep Purple that hasn’t already been said? The legends that are Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Ian Paice, Steve Morse and Don Airey brought their ‘Songs That Built Rock’ tour to Birmingham complete with a 38 piece orchestra. With such a huge back catalogue of tunes to choose from, it must have been a hard choice when deciding the tour set list. However, we were not to be disappointed one bit.

With an all seated audience and the orchestra playing the intro, you could be forgiven for thinking we were at a full-on classical gig. I’m not a fan of seated rock gigs as we all know it changes the dynamic of the night, but Deep Purple soon exploded on stage with ‘Highway Star’ and reminded us where we were. With a band history of over forty years and a seemingly endless change of line ups along the way, Deep Purple showed no signs of wavering on delivering a blistering performance from start to finish. The unmistakeable vocals of Ian Gillan powered through the classics such as ‘Strange Kind of Woman’, ‘Woman From Tokyo’, ‘Perfect Strangers’ and the timeless ‘Smoke on the Water’.

Moving through hit after hit, the 38 piece orchestra accompanied and added an unusual angle to the night. However, this did not play down the power of the performance that was delivered by Deep Purple. This was no unplugged set!  Instrumental solos are always a firm favourite at any gig and tonight was not going to be any different.  Don Airey’s prog-tastic keyboard skills, Ian Paice’s master drumming, Roger Glover’s pounding bass and Steve Morse’s screaming guitar were all put through their paces. Even conductor Stephen Bentley-Klein found time for a short violin solo. ‘Hush’ and ‘Black Night’ brought the audience to its feet for a fantastic encore. At last they found the excuse to stand up and properly rock out!

http://www.deeppurple.com/

Full picture set here:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/magpie967/sets/72157628262666799/

Cheap Trick

Cheap Trick hit the stage in support of Deep Purple and started the night’s proceedings. Despite being one of the most known bands on the planet, millions of albums sold to date and also being in their 4^th decade of existence, I must confess to only knowing the two iconic songs that are ‘I Want You to Want Me’ and  ‘Surrender’. However, I did not let that detract from the fact that Robin Zander on lead vocals, Rick Nielsen on lead guitar, bassist Tom Petersson and touring drummer Daxx Nielsen were in town to entertain.

Even in the shorter time given to the support, Cheap Trick still found time to squeeze in enough of their pop rock repertoire to keep everyone happy, including their tribute to the Beatles, ‘Magical Mystery Tour’. Rick Nielsen must have thrown the most amount of guitar picks towards the crowd that I have ever seen. Whilst in the photo pit, a handful seemed to fly by every couple of minutes. Lots of happy souvenir hunters that night!

http://www.cheaptrick.com/

Full picture set here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/magpie967/sets/72157628262251553/