1966 And All That

The autumn of 1966 marked a momentous time in British history.  Never mind that England had just won football's World Cup and the Swinging Sixties were getting underway.  This period, which occurred fifty years ago, also saw the retirement from live performance of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the two biggest acts in Britain and, in the case of The Beatles, the world.

For The Beatles, stepping out of the live spotlight following their performance at Candlestick Park, San Francisco on 28 August 1966 was also inevitable and was to be permanent.  Amplification was unable to drown out the screaming of the crowds they faced night after night, making their performances unlistenable.  Even when audience members wanted to just enjoy to the music, they could barely hear a word.  Accounts of the time, including those in my book The Beatles - I Was There, suggest that the noise would abate briefly to hear the between song announcements and then rise again once the next song began.

Abandoning live performance, when the songs they were recording were increasingly complex and not capable of being reproduced by a four piece group onstage, was an almost inevitable progression for The Beatles.  But the inability to make themselves heard was the primary driver.

The Stones' musical journey from blues and R&B enthusiasts, slavishly and successfully remodelling the music of their heroes, to pop pioneers in their own right also entered a cul de sac in the autumn of 1966.  The distractions of drugs and unhealthy police interest in the group's off stage activities caused them to quit the stage in early 1967.

So it was that on 23 September 1966, the Rolling Stones embarked upon their final British tour with founding member Brian Jones.  Apart from a cameo appearance at an NME Pollwinners event in 1968, it was to be Brian's last appearances on a British stage in front of a live audience.  Less than three years later, Brian would be ousted from the Stones and, tragically, drown in a swimming pool at his Sussex home in an incident that many now believe to have been murder.  Despite the energies put into reexamining other historic cases, Brian's death is one that the police have yet to reopen.

The screaming had abated slightly for the Stones, and Mick Jagger was able to tell audiences to calm down so that the group could play quieter songs like Lady Jane, but there were still stage invasions and hysterical female - and male - fans to deal with.  The band had grown up.  Their audiences?  Perhaps not so much.

So 1966 was a momentous year. It certainly marked a pivotal one for two of the most influential acts in popular music.  British fans never got the chance to buy a ticket to see the boys from Liverpool or the London blues enthusiasts led by Brian again.

The Beatles - I Was There and You Had To Be There - The Rolling Stones Live by Richard Houghton chronicle the live histories of these iconic bands and are both available from Amazon.

Exhibitionism, Saatchi Gallery, London

I've been to Exhibitionism again today and taken a few sneaky pics, which you're not supposed to do.  But the Stones weren't averse to breaking the rules so I'm not going to apologise for it.

If you haven't already seen the blurb/hype, this is a romp through the 50 plus years the Rolling Stones have been making music and headlines and an absolute 'must see' for any Rolling Stones fan.  From the opening multi screen video montage, which you could never recreate on a TV or cinema screen, through to the 3D screening of the band tearing through (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction at Hyde Park in 2013, this is an unmissable experience.

There are criticisms.  There's too little credit given to Brian's role in the early days of the band, and not a great deal about the drug busts that have littered the Stones career either.  And a couple of the rooms have plenty to see but are not laid out well enough to allow people to see things easily.  (On both the occasions I went, there were bottlenecks at the display cases showing Keith's 1960s diaries, one of the few truly personal items on display, contrasting with The Jam exhibition currently on in Liverpool, which is crammed with stuff from the Weller family loft).

But it's a chance to see the biggest band in the world in a way you've never seen them before, and at £23.50 it's money well spent.

Exhibitionism runs at the Saatchi Gallery until 4 September.

The Rolling Stones, Beira Rio Stadium, Porto Alegre, 2 March 2016

This show was the last of the Brazilian leg of the Rolling Stones 2016 Ole tour and, if I understood Mick Jagger's Portuguese correctly, the first time they had played Porto Alegre.  60,000 Brazilians turned out to see them play this magnificent stadium on an absolute dog of a night.  You might imagine Brazil is all sun kissed beaches, but this was more like a Tuesday night away game at Accrington Stanley.  It rained from start to finish and there wasn't a lot to be cheerful about, weather wise.

But the spirits of the crowd were not dampened by the rain and neither did the Stones treat this fixture lightly.  They put out a full strength team and, all told, played eleven top ten hits plus Gimme Shelter, an extended Midnight Rambler, Sympathy For The Devil and You Can't Always Get What You Want.  There was plenty for a boisterous crowd to sing along to, and sing along they did.

From the opener Jumping Jack Flash through It's Only Rock'n'Roll, Tumbling Dice, Let's Spend The Night Together, Ruby Tuesday, Paint It Black and Honky Tonk Women, the Stones opened their treasure chest of a back catalogue and rolled out hit after hit.

Only Out Of Control, the fourth song in and (for me) still an inappropriately placed slow song this early on, didn't have the crowd singing along as fervently, but they cheered Mick when he stood toe to toe with Keith and riffed on harmonica.

When Mick introduced the band, the crowd began a chant of 'Rich-ards! Rich-ards!' which was only ended by Keith reminding the audience 'I have a show to do.'  He then gave them You Got The Silver and a heartfelt Before They Make Me Run.  In the pouring rain I was particularly affected by the line 'only a crowd can make you feel so alone.'  Keith, who increasingly seems to relish his fifteen minutes in the spotlight, is all smiles during this spot and throughout the evening.

The 'warhorses' inevitably conclude a Stones set and we get Midnight Rambler, Miss You ('do you feel like singing?'), Gimme Shelter with Sasha Allen escorting Mick to the end of the thrust stage to wail like a banshee and invoke the spirit of Merry Clayton, a pumped Start Me Up and a rousing Sympathy For The Devil. Before the gig there were around one hundred Jehovah's Witnesses outside the stadium.  From the mass singalong to Sympathy, with the crowd enthusiastically 'woo wooing' along to the chorus, I doubt there were many in the audience who were going to be walking out of the stadium to sign up for a subscription to Watchtower.

They finished with You Can't Always Get What You Want and (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, but I must admit to missing these numbers.  Soaked to the skin and unable to see without my rain splattered specs, I left the stadium to the opening riff from Brown Sugar to grab a cab back to my hotel.  Porto Alegreans were still bouncing up and down to Mick Jagger as he led them through the chorus of 'yeah, yeah, yeah - whoo!' as I collapsed into the warm cocoon of my taxi.  The Stones first performance in Porto Alegre and one that will stick in the mind - once I've dried out.

The Rolling Stones, Morumbi Stadium, Sao Paulo, 24 February 2016

This gig was never going to disappoint, as the band which pioneered stadium gigs and which (still) has the best front man in the business has been doing this for over fifty years and knows how to put on a show. Throw in a buzzing South American crowd, a slightly delayed start while the water was mopped from the stage after the early evening rain, a support band that was clearly well known to large sections of the audience and had them fist pumping along to several tunes (even if your correspondent had never heard of them) and throw in a warm and humid evening, and the sense of anticipation was palpable.  This one was nailed on from the start.  From the opening chords, we were off and running with 60,000 Paulistas singing along to Start Me Up.  The band were wreathed in smiles, clearly glad to be here (or, as Keith would have it, 'glad to be anywhere') and the atmosphere was unlike any I've ever experienced at a stadium gig.  

It's Only Rock'n'Roll and Tumbling Dice followed, and then we entered a bit of a cul-de-sac in terms of maintaining audience enthusiasm, as Out Of Control, Bitch, Beast of Burden and Worried About You follow, the last sung by Mick in a faltering falsetto that makes me Worried About Mick, so frail did he sound.

Things kicked back into gear with Honky Tonk Women.  Then Keith sang You Got The Silver and Happy.  The latter sounds a little threadbare without Mick on backing vocals, as that was part of the original song's charm.

But the Stones always unveil their nuclear weapons in the second half of the set.  The undoubted highlights are Gimme Shelter and Sympathy For The Devil.  Sasha Allen has replaced Lisa Fischer for this tour and whilst she may lack Lisa's physical presence she certainly has the pipes and duets with Mick on the thrust stage, bringing Gimme Shelter to a steamy climax. The latter, which was dropped from the Stones set list for a while, is now firmly entrenched as a centrepiece, with Mick in his L'Wrenn Scott cape and a new visual on the video screens to accompany the number.

The crowd sang heartily along to Miss You, responding to Mick's calls, and joined in on the chorus for You Can't Always Get What You Want.  Then it was the traditional romp to the finish line with Satisfaction.  Satisfied?  60,000 Brazilian fans certainly were.

Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott, The Muni, Colne, 28 October 2015

Paul Heaton must be one of the least spotlight hogging front men in music.  For most of this show in front of a packed crowd at the delightful 'Muni' (Colne's former town hall) he performed with his coat zipped up and with the stage lit in such a way that he was hard to see.  Granted, the lighting display was of the type you'd expect at an arena sized show, but he still managed to stay in the shadows for the bulk of this 100 minute appearance.

Jacqui Abbott is equally unassuming as a front person.  She arrives on stage waving furiously to her audience and taking selfies on her phone, looking for all the world like she's starting a holiday in Magaluf and wants to post pictures of the beach on Facebook.  Throughout the show she waves to fans dancing up in the balcony as though she's spotted a long lost friend.  This is hardly Van Morrison type behaviour.

Their non rock star image is part of Heaton and Abbott's charm of course, but what has drawn the crowds is a back catalogue of hit songs penned by Heaton in various guises and the chance to hear two of the most beautifully blended voices in modern music.  They harmonise so well that it really is as if they were meant for each other.

Drawing heavily on the recently released Wisdom, Laughter and Lines (which Heaton explains has dropped from 3 to 4 in the album charts) the pair, backed by a four piece band, run through several songs that are getting their first live outing plus a gamut of hits.  The key to Heaton's success - from The Housemartins and The Beautiful South through to now - is his ability to lace the sweetest of melodies with the most acerbic of lyrics.  So we get When Love For Woman Stops and I Don't See Them, both on the themes of love changing as people age, as well as the joyous Caravan of Love, the Isley Brothers cover and a number one hit from almost thirty years ago.

A sad omission from the set is Song For Whoever but other than that, and Heatongrad from the new album which Paul introduces as 'my Imagine' despite being one of the weaker new songs, it's hard to complain about the choice of material.  A highlight both of the album and on the night is Sundial in the Shade.

The encores include Keep It All In, Perfect 10 and Housemartins fave Happy Hour.  

Colne Muni normally plays host to C list bands and tribute acts (the Rollin' Clones were scheduled to appear two days later) but on this occasion it provided a showcase for two unassuming stars and a reminder that Heaton has produced some of the brightest and sharpest pop songs of the past thirty years.

Faces, Hurtwood Polo Park, Surrey, 5 September 2015

Was this a Faces reunion?  Can you even have a Faces reunion without Ronnie Lane and Ian McLagan?  Well, Mac thought so and spent a good bit of time in recent years trying to get Rod Stewart to rejoin his old muckers on stage.  Sadly, Mac died before this could come to pass and maybe Rod finally agreed to Kenney Jones' suggestion that they and Ronnie Wood perform live together out of a sense of guilt that he hadn't made the effort before.

Whatever the motivation, the three surviving Faces appeared at a chilly Hurtwood Park polo club in Surrey to perform a 45 minute set in front of an eager audience of 5,000.  They were augmented on stage by two keyboard players, backing vocalists, a horn second and a bass guitarist and second guitar.

But the stars of the show were Rod and Ronnie.  They stumbled on stage, the wrinkles deeper but the hairstyles still firmly rooted in the early 1970s, like a couple of overgrown schoolboys bunking off class early to go and hang around the bus stop in order to meet some girls and cadge a cigarette or two.  They joked about the lack of rehearsal time before launching into Big Bill Broonzy's I Feel So Good, a song which sounds like it could have been written for the Faces.

They followed this with You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything, introduced by Ron as one of his favourite songs and with Rod looking to the heavens to thank Lane and McLagan.  There might only have been three Faces physically on stage but the spirit of all five were present.  The opening bars of You Can Make Me Dance was a real hairs on the back of the neck moment for me - I never thought I'd get to hear this song live.

Ooh La La followed and then I'd Rather Go Blind, the Etta James song that appeared on a Rod solo album as recorded by the Faces.

Then it was (I Know) I'm Losing You, the Temptations song which tonight featured an unduly long Kenney Jones drum solo.  But in Kenney's defence he pulled the event together and so could perhaps be permitted his three or four minutes in the spotlight.

They finished with a glorious Stay With Me, the audience singing along, and Sweet Little Rock'n'Roller including a false start and then they were gone.  Only seven songs but forty five minutes of rock'n'roll magic.

Was it a Faces reunion?  I don't know, but a good time was had by all.  Will they do it again?  Well, Rod seemed keen to get off that stage as soon as it was over so I wouldn't put money on it.  Were they worth the price of admission?  Absolutely.  Ronnie Wood looked like he was having far more fun that he ever does playing with the Rolling Stones.

Sing it again, Rod'n'Ron.  Sing it again.

Ron Sexsmith, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 27 June 2015

When a performer draws heavily on material from his or her new album, that's often a signal for a mass exodus to the bar.  But Ron Sexsmith's latest CD, Carousel One, adds a fine selection of songs to a twenty year recording history and no one was rushing to leave their seats as Canada's finest singer songwriter under the age of 60 (I have to be careful not to upset Neil Young fans here) trotted out Getaway Car, Lucky Penny, Sun's Coming Out and Nothing Feels The Same Any More.

Saint Bernard also gets an airing and Ron has a giant cardboard cut out of a Saint Bernard on stage with him whilst his drummer sports the face of another such dog on his bass drum.

The band is tight and muscular and handles Ron fluffing the lyrics to one song and wanting to restart it mid intro without any fuss.

But the show takes a particularly poignant turn when Ron performs unaccompanied firstly on the acoustic guitar and then at the piano.  He doesn't look like a rock star and at times his delivery of songs he has himself written, such as Tomorrow In Her Eyes, Gold In Them Hills and Brandy Alexander, makes him sound as though everything's about to fall apart.  This vulnerability is part of his charm and the reason why the audience brings him back for two encores when Ron and the band want to get away for their Glastonbury appearance the next day.

Other highlights are Strawberry Blonde and Sneak Out The Back Door.  Ron finishes with a stunning Can't Get My Act Together from Carousel

One and Lebanon, Tennessee from his debut album, bookends to his career.  The audience is loud in its appreciation.  Ron is amongst friends and the crowd knows it is in the company of a rare and self effacing talent.

Support was provided by singer songwriter Sam Palladio, who hails from Cornwall by way of Nashville.  He's in the TV show Nashville, which he managed to reference three times.  He could have done with giving the audience fewer mentions of the TV career and allowed his songs to do more of the talking.  There were a couple of beauties in his set which will hopefully feature on his soon to be recorded first album.  Think Peter Case with additional twang.

The Wedding Present, Concorde 2, Brighton, 23 & 24 August 2014

At Glastonbury Michael Eavis has to worry about whether the cows have been milked.  Down in Brighton at the sixth At The Edge Of The Sea festival David Gedge has to deal with punters' gripes about the lack of food ('there's a cafe literally just across the road') and make sure drummer Charlie Layton's Wedding Present Bingo ('like ordinary bingo but with Wedding Present songs instead of numbers') doesn't eat into valuable sound check time.  The musician turned festival organiser also finds time to raffle off test pressings of George Best and Kennedy, aided by his Dad and by partner Jessica.  And on top of all that he has to perform four times, twice each with Cinerama and The Wedding Present, who open and close each day.

The annual gathering of Wedding Present connected performers (formed from musicians Gedge has worked with or admires) now spreads over two days and this year drew acts from France, Turkey, Germany and - Yorkshire.  With appearances by Art Brut, The Membranes, Black Light Ray and Emma Pollock, who accompanies Gedge on vocals on two songs on Sunday's This Is Cinerama performance, there was a wide variety of acts to choose from.

But the aficionados were here to see the two 60 minute sets by The Wedding Present (most of the crowd had bought a two day ticket) and by the time the headliners were due to come on to close proceedings both evenings the atmosphere was heavy with anticipation.  Saturday night saw a performance of the 'lost' Wedding Present album Watusi plus Nobody's Twisting Your Arm, Brassneck and Flying Saucer while Sunday featured a reprise of the 1996 EP Mini, with a thunderous Go Man Go and a delightful Sports Car, followed by a fiery Kennedy and the rare delight of a new song (Secretary).  Backed by Charlie Layton (threatened with the sack for garnering too much applause), guitarist Samuel Beer-Pearce, bass player Katharine Wallinger and keyboard player Danielle Wadey, this brace of performances left the crowd calling for more.

The Wedding Present will be touring Watusi in the autumn.  At The Edge Of The Sea will be back in 2015, replete with Wedding Present bingo.  So will the faithful.

Difford & Tilbrook, Brewery Arts Centre, Kendal, 15 July 2014

If Difford & Tilbrook were a bowling partnership you'd want them opening the attack for the England cricket team. Song after song that they played at the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal was a hit they'd written for 80s chart fixtures Squeeze and each was absolutely on target.

Their on-off relationship over the years (when Glenn left mid way through the first half of the set with two of Chris's guitars it wasn't clear whether he - or the guitars - were coming back) adds a piquancy to their sharing a stage. But tonight it's definitely all smiles, with a freshly shaven Glenn (courtesy of the Turkish barber round the corner) and a neatly dressed Chris stripping their vast collection of aural vignettes back to their acoustic bones and giving the audience a reminder of why they were once tagged the new Lennon & McCartney.

Sharing tales of their early days gave the back story to some of the songs, and Difford's explanation of why he bought a toy train set (to transport from one side of the room to the other a joint he was sharing) had the audience laughing out loud.

But it was the songs, mainly backed by their two acoustic guitars but with the odd twist of electric from Glenn, that this crowd had come to hear and that means they will remember this gig for many months to come. New arrangements were brought to old classics, from Take Me I'm Yours to Black Coffee in Bed and Pulling Mussels From A Shell and including their biggest hits Labelled With Love and Up The Junction, reminding us that Difford was the lyricist of his generation par excellence and that Tilbrook could write a melody to bring those words alive in song.  And whilst the charts may be a distant memory, Chris said they had been writing together again for the past two or three years so there's hope for the future, pop pickers.

The England bowling attack isn't what it used to be. And the pop charts are a much duller place these days without this pair of pop maestros.

Elvis Costello, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 14 July 2014

Elvis Costello played a two and a half hour concert at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall with a set that ran the entire span of his career, from Poison Moon (the first song of his he ever heard on the radio - he had to turn the lights off in the house while he listened because he was so embarrassed) to three new songs he has yet to record, including one of more than 40 he has recently written with Burt Bacarach.

In between he gave the not quite sold out auditorium (Q. What have the people of Manchester got to do that's more important than seeing Elvis in concert?) a run down of his hits from Alison to Veronica that reminded everyone present just how many times he has graced the top 40 in a career spanning more than 35 years.

Bob Geldof once complained how difficult he found it to write songs whilst Costello seemed able to write three before breakfast, a point underlined when Elvis announced that he was going to play a song he hated and which he'd written in ten minutes as a joke, but which had gone on to become a hit ('but not a big one').  Everyday I Write The Book was greeted suitably warmly by the audience.

As well as the hits, there was some gristle for fans to chew on, including album tracks such as B Movie, Beyond Belief and Mouth Almighty and the rarely played Dr Luther's Assistant.  Highlights were New Amsterdam spliced with a chunk of Lennon's You've Got To Hide Your Love Away and Jimmie Standing In The Rain, which Costello finishes unmiked and standing at the lip of the stage, his voice booming out into the auditorium.

With his fedora, waistcoat and smart suit Costello looks every inch the vaudevillian entertainer that his 2013 Spinning Songbook gigs cast him as.  Had he been born a hundred years ago he would have been on the cruise ships like his grandfather before him.  As it is, he's here now - a walking human juke box who can respond to an audience shout out for My Three Sons or The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes without breaking stride - and we are lucky to have him.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Liverpool Echo Arena, 13 July 2014

Neil Young and Crazy Horse started their set at the Liverpool Echo Arena with a 15 minute rendition of Love And Only Love and finished it with a 15 minute and  feedback drenched Like A Hurricane, with Young beating out the rhythm on his guitar fretboard, all six strings broken.

In between the band went through its back catalogue, with songs from Zuma (Don't Cry No Tears and Barstool Blues) to 2013's Psychedelic Pill plus a song getting its first ever airing on this tour (Who's Gonna Stand Up And Save The Earth).

Young plays with an energy more befitting a man half his age, subjecting his guitars to a series of violent assaults as he does everything he can to extricate maximum volume from them.

The only times he is not trying to turn the volume up to 11 are when he plays either his semi acoustic (on a beautiful Don't Cry No Tears) or his acoustic (for a haunting Blowin' In The Wind, which he introduces as 'one of the best songs ever written').  An equally exquisite Heart of Gold follows, with the crowd singing along.

Young is one of rock's famous curmudgeons, but Grumpy Neil is left in the dressing room tonight, with Cheery Neil all smiles and willing to talk to the audience ('Liverpool is full of hard working people ... who like to go for a beer'), joking with his band and talking to the American Indian statue that is stood stage left overseeing proceedings.

Young is not averse to rewriting a song, and The Way Things Used To Be is abruptly sliced in two and ends with a refrain of 'don't rock the boat'.  The backing singers employed to fill out the vocals are kept occupied throughout the set.

It's a two hour sonic assault on the senses by a band that had to cancel last year's planned Liverpool gig because Frank 'Poncho' Sampedro broke his hand. The rescheduled concert is minus bassist Billy Talbot, who was recovering from a minor stroke.  Young himself suffered an aneurysm in 2005, which has seen him working harder than ever.  This is a band that is still a musical force of nature, but time is catching up with its members.

Elton John, Leigh Sports Village, 21 June 2014

The term 'rock royalty' is bandied about far too casually.  The brothers Gallagher?  Ha!  Robbie Williams?  I don't think so.

The truth is that if the Queen were to abdicate and go outside the family when looking to anoint a successor, she'd probably start with Sir Elton John and - unlike the appointment of the England football manager or the election of a new Prime Minister - the country would to a man and woman sit back in their armchairs and say 'good choice, Ma'am'.  Elton is an all round good guy who pays his taxes, after all.

It took Elton just eight minutes to leave Leigh in his helicopter after stepping off the stage at the inaugural Sports Village concert. But whilst he might have been in a hurry to depart this corner of Lancashire (to be fair, he did have a gig in Switzerland the following day), for the two and a half hours that he graced the stage he brought more than a touch of showbiz glamour to a town that has a bit of a chip on its shoulder about being the little cousin to its neighbour Wigan and nothing much to boast about apart from the accolade of being the biggest town in England without a railway station.

And Elton was suitably gushing about Leigh (he'd rather play there than Manchester Arena) and suitably blokeish about the World Cup (comments about FIFA being corrupt and 'a bunch of c***s') to endear himself to anyone who came along to this gig doubting whether one of the country's great pop icons was worth shelling out £80 for.

In truth there were very few doubters even before the Top Ten hits started flowing, and none by the end.  The mainly female crowd (who invaded the gents toilets around the stadium pre gig because of the imbalance in lavatory facilities - note to promoters of this first ever gig at the Sports Village: get this sorted if you're putting on any more concerts here) were dressed up in their finery or in fancy dress - sometimes it was hard to differentiate - and had come to party.

So the bar staff were kept busy, the stewards were unable to stop the aisles from filling with drunken revellers (at one point they spent several minutes trying to get the woman behind me to sit down, without success) and Elton reminded everyone that only Paul McCartney, David Bowie and Jagger & Richards can match him when it comes determining the roll call of England's greatest living pop songwriters (with lyricist Bernie Taupin, that is).

From Candle In The Wind, The Bitch Is Back and Rocket Man through to I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues, Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word and Tiny Dancer, Elton and his five piece band served up a banquet of forty years of chart success that only someone who has lived in a cave since 1970 will not have been familiar with.

He finished with Your Song and Crocodile Rock, the crowd 'la-la-la-la-la'-ing along to the chorus of the latter and giving the man centre stage another reason to indulge in a bout of fist pumping as he fed off the joy and the intoxicated affection the audience was exuding.

Elton finished his main set with Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting. That could be Wigan's theme song, but in Leigh Saturday night was all right for dancing. And as Elton flew off in his helicopter and back to his palatial home in the kingdom they call Down South his subjects waved up to him and then they danced and they danced all the way home.

Nick Lowe, Union Chapel, Islington - 9 May 2014

Nick Lowe played the first of three nights at what is apparently London's favourite music venue, although from the first floor balcony the sound was a bit muddy for the first three or four numbers so I'd be interested to know what the judging criteria were. With no album to plug this was a run through of Nick's faves on acoustic guitar, aided and abetted for the second half of the set by old mucker Geraint Watkins on keyboards and one time Led Zeppelinite John Paul Jones who switched between bass, electric mandolin and rthythm guitar.

The early part of the set drew heavily on the Brentford Trilogy, with the stand out moment being Rome Wasn't Built In A Day.  Unusually for Nick there was little in the way of inter song banter.

The mid part of the show featured a slew of songs from his last but one album (sadly, no Yuletide treats from his 2013 Christmas album Quality Street), of which the strongest was definitely Stoplight Roses.  There was also a nod to the past with a cover of Cliff Richard's Travelling Light.

Lowe had warned his audience that, whether they had come from Diss or Peterborough, he might not play all their favourites. So there was no Beast in Me. The encore consisted of Watkins and Lowe duetting on the former's Only A Rose and then Jones and support act John Doe joining the duo onstage for an eerie recreation of Everybody's Talkin as made famous by Harry Nilsson. They finished with (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding, despite Nick protesting that they hadn't planned to play it.

As always, Lowe's honeyed voice carried the occasion and left the audience wanting more - and this despite the iffy sound.

Alan Carr, Chorley Little Theatre, 2 March 2014

Chorley Little Theatre continued with its' remarkable ability to pull in big name comics for warm up shows with the booking of Alan Carr for a 'work in progress' show.  Any doubt about Carr's popularity can be dismissed with a look at the number of followers he has on Twitter - 3.4m at the last count - and Carr's own reference to the fact that he had downsized to play Chorley on a Sunday night: 'Two years ago it was the O2.'

But although this was a rehearsal rather than the real thing ('there'll be some shit bits,' Carr assured his audience) the only obvious signs of this were Alan having dressed down by wearing jeans and him briefly referring to his notes as to which gags to try out. Otherwise, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between this and a show where you had paid a lot more than £13 for a ticket.

Carr does a clever mix of Max Miller cheekiness and Kenneth Williams cum Frankie Howerd style 'oo-er missus' interaction with his audience, and in the intimate surroundings of Chorley he elicits comments and contributions from the front and back rows throughout the show. He deals with unwanted heckles - including trying to find a dogowner who walks their dog and isn't allergic to it in order to set up an anecdote about one of his Red Setters - deftly and in fine music hall tradition.

Carr's gossipy delivery is a clever mix of self deprecating gags and observational humour, such as being disciplined by his mother when a child and exacting his revenge on his father when Dad was driving the family down the M1. There are stories about settling down to domesticity with a new partner, going on holiday in a country where homosexuality is illegal and how comfortable a pair of Crocs are, the last of which items promoted a fiercely hostile reaction from his audience.

He finished an hour long set with a short Q & A, where he was able to knock on the head the suggestion that he was teetotal. Referring to his hit Channel 4 show Chatty Man he said: 'I have a drink with all my guests.'

Unsurprisingly, tickets for this gig sold out within minutes of going on sale and whether or not he ever comes back to the Little Theatre those who were there will be able to boast about it to their friends. The audience were laughing and shrieking from the first moment to the last as a master of his art gave Chorley a taste of a show that will fill venues much bigger than the Little Theatre.

Morrissey, Autobiography, Penguin Classics (book review)

I have read Morrissey's autobiography.  I state this as a proud achievement, because lots of people will pick up this book and put it down and say 'I started something I couldn't finish'.  I myself became becalmed at Page 4 but then soldiered on, like a London Marathon runner who finishes the course several days after the rest of the competitors.

Unless you are a rabid fan (and I have had Morrissey arbitrarily cancel too many concerts for which I have bought tickets to count myself in that category) this is indeed a marathon, clocking in at over 450 pages.

It takes a particularly determined soul to plough through Morrissey's repetitive whinge about the High Court action brought against him by Mike Joyce and which Morrissey lost.  I would advise skipping pages 307 to 342 - all you need to know is that the Smiths will never reform if that entails Moz sharing a stage with Mike Joyce.  Oh, and Morrissey doesn't particularly like Judge Weeks either.

Actually, Morrissey doesn't particularly like lots of people, and if this book had been published with an index it would have included entries such as: 'Marr, Johnny, dislike of; Sioux, Souxsie, dislike of; Travis, Geoff, dislike of;' and so on.

There are some unnecessarily vicious barbs handed out - Apple Records' Neil Aspinall refuses Moz permission to use a song and, when he later dies, Moz's response is 'that's what you get for being so nasty.'

Record companies and their failure to promote Smiths and Morrissey product is also a common theme, as is the notion that Moz's singles and albums have the number 1 chart position in the middle of the week but due to the singular or combined conspiracy or incompetence of the record companies, radio stations and chart compilers are languishing mid table by Sunday evening.  Think David Moyes blaming the referee against Sunderland last week for Man United's poor performance.

Morrissey sprinkles Smiths' and his own lyrics and song titles throughout the text, a clever device to keep afficiandos interested when they have ploughed their way through a particularly heavy few pages.  ('I have no idea what he was on about there, but he's just name checked an album I've got so let's carry on.')

For someone who has battled with record companies (Rough Trade, Sire, Sanctuary) over cover art and the lack of care shown towards the finished product, Morrissey doesn't seem to have proof read his own autobiography.  Apart from the annoying use throughout of American spellings rather than English, there appear to be a couple of pages missing.  At the bottom of p391 we are at the end of a paragraph in Paris but by the top of the next we are mid paragraph in Yorkshire.  I feel a law suit coming on.

There are bright spots - the cameo appearances by David Bowie, popping up like Arthur Tolcher attempting to play a few bars of harmonica on the Morecambe and Wise Show to be told 'not now, Arthur'; Morrissey adopting or rescuing cats and pelicans; Morrissey's obvious love of the Smiths as a performing outfit when they started out and of his adoring fans in Scandinavia and Mexico in particular - but there is also a lot of Morrissey reflecting on how many of the people around him seem to die young.

The encounter with a ghost on Saddleworth Moor is an amusing tale (heightened for me by a cat outside giving a deathly late night shriek as I read the passage), and the attempted kidnap of our hero on the way back from a gig in Mexico is well told, but often this lightness of touch is missing.

There is a good book in here, and if Mozzer had not eschewed chapter headings and attempted to be James Joyce but instead had submitted to a decent sub editor and allowed 150 pages to be cut from this tome, we might have got it.  In truth, there is nothing in Autobiography that isn't said more eloquently and elegantly on Vauxhall and I.

(PS.  If a revised version of this book is ever issued, can the commissioning editor get Moz to explain why he walked off the stage two songs into his gig at the Liverpool Echo Arena when a bottle of water bounced off his head and he clearly wasn't injured?  It's time the tale was told....)

2013 with the Wedding Present

I saw quite a few bands in 2013.  And I saw one particular band quite a few times.  The Wedding Present.

It started with Brighton. We'd been twice before to David Gedge's At The Edge Of The Sea festival, but I wasn't convinced we should go again.  'They're playing two nights,' I said, 'but on the first night they're playing George Best all the way through, which isn't my favourite Pressies' album, and then they're doing Hit Parade, and you know I don't like bands playing an album all the way through as a format.  It takes away any element of surprise.'

I had been to see Bruce Springsteen at Wembley Stadium in June on the night he decided to play Darkness On The Edge Of Town - an album I'm not familiar with - in its entirety.  I found the gig correspondingly dull as a result.  (I recognise that of the 60,000 people at that gig, 59,999 probably wouldn't agree with my description of the gig as 'dull', and I hasten to add that I'd seen Bruce play the Etihad the previous year and enjoyed it immensely).

However, come the end of August Kate and I were in Brighton for the annual (and now two day) celebration of all things Wedding Present.

The band played on Saturday and Sunday, running through George Best on the first night and the twelve consecutive chart placed singles from 1992 that made up the Hit Parade album on the following night, and were on fine form as always.

The venue, Concorde 2, has very few places to sit down which makes the festival nature of the event - running for seven hours each day - something of an endurance test for someone of my advancing years.  So between the opening act (Cinerama on both days, playing sides one and two of their album Va Va Voom) and the Pressies we availed ourselves of Brighton beach, where we went and laid on the pebbles to watch the sun start to go down before the main event of the evening.

When we got home, the idea of going to see the Pressies on their November UK tour seemed like a good idea. Dusting off The Hit Parade for the first time in ages to listen to it anew had persuaded me that seeing the band again a couple of times more would be a good thing.

'And,' I said, 'they're playing Paris and then two gigs in Lille. Do you fancy going to see them three times in 36 hours?'

Kate, despite firmly rebutting any labelling of her as a Wedding Present obsessive, did.

So the flight to Paris and the trains and hotels were booked.  'But it's your job to sort the tickets for the gigs,' she said.  Which was easier said than done. My schoolboy French was not sufficient to enable me to navitage the two venues' websites, and with no English language website available, I emailed the band's record label Scopitones for help.  Acknowledging the difficulty in getting tickets for European gigs Jessica, David's girlfriend, kindly arranged to put us on the guest list for Paris and Lille. 'And you do know the band are playing a matinee in Lille?'

The Paris gig was at La Maroquinerie, a small club which online reviews of other bands suggested had great views and a great sound.  We watched from the first floor balcony as the band, coming to the end of the continental leg of their tour, played a not dissimilar set to what we'd witnessed in Brighton.  The gig, aided by a great venue, was a good one.

Afterwards, we spoke to Jessica who said that the band would be playing a toned down set for the matinee in Lille the next day and that they'd be on stage at 4pm.

From Paris next morning we went by train, arriving in a very wet Lille around lunchtime.  After a quick bite to eat, and having scouted out the location of the venue on arrival, we headed down to L'Aeronef for the first of two planned gigs that day.

On arrival at the venue the signs were not promising.  Two separate adults were leading their young children up the metal staircase to what we thought was the venue, which looked shut.  Arriving at the rear entrance we could see several more adults with assorted children ranging from toddlers to kids up to perhaps eight years of age.  We seemed to be in the wrong place.

The woman at the door was not encouraging.

'We've come for the Wedding Present gig,' I said.

'Come back this evening,' she replied. 'At 8 o'clock.'

'We've come for the matinee,' I said.

'The Wedding Present are this evening,' she said firmly. 'There is a matinee, but you cannot come in.'

'But we're on the guest list,' I protested.  At this, she relented and led us to the box office where she issued us with two tickets.

Waiting in the lobby, where I managed to spend a couple of Euros on a handily placed Rollng Stones pinball machine, we weree still not sure we were in the right place.  We'd come to see a rock band but everyone else had small children with them and looked as though they were going to a kids' birthday party.

But the venue duly opened the doors to the main arena and we trooped in along with the parents and their many offspring to be greeted by the sight of Tilly on the Pressies' merchandise stall, the first familiar face and the first clear indication that we were definitely in the right place.

What followed was one of the most bizarre gigs I've been to - the Wedding Present coming onstage, plugging in their instruments and launching into a 25 minute set in front of an audience of adults and small children sat cross legged as though they were all back at school.  Which in the case of some of the audience members would have been less than 48 hours before.

The evening performance - for grown ups - was also low key, with no mosh pit and the restrained audience standing well back from the band.  This was no fault of the band, but the French crowd were quite stand offish.  Needless to say, we took advantage of the crowd's diffidence to stand on the front row, and being able to watch the Pressies from close quarters without being sent flying by an overweight fiftysomething (and I write this as an overweight fiftysomething myself) was a rare delight.

We arrived back in the UK and immediately began planning our trips around the UK.  By the time Wolverhampton rolled around, the enormity of what we'd signed up to began to hit me.  Wolverhampton on a Tuesday night would be followed by Leeds, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Liverpool. Five gigs in eight days.  Okay, the band were following the same schedule but we were fitting the gigs in around our day jobs, with a half day's leave taken on Friday to allow us time to get up to Glasgow the only concession to the itinerary we had set ourselves.

Wolverhampton was wet, with the rain sheeting down.  The venue, it has to be said, wasn't great, and we were at the back of the crowd where the chattering classes gather and where the sound wasn't as crisp as you might expect.  Never a great spot to be.

Leeds two days later was much better.  The venue was bigger and a larger crowd made for a cracking atmosphere.  The Pressies almost always sell out what is their home town gig and the O2 Academy, with its large dance floor and clear sight lines, is a great place to witness a rock band in full flight.

The following evening we were in Glasgow.  Another O2 Academy and another great venue.  The band were extremely loud and the crowd raucous.  Talking to guitarist Patrick Alexander, drummer Charles Layton and bassist Katharine Wallinger afterwards we were probably less than coherent as we babbled enthusiastically to them about how much we'd enjoyed the performance.

We would have gone to see the band in Aberdeen (indeed, we had tickets and I had booked a hotel in Aberdeen) but a chance conversation with Tilly on the merchandise stall brought home to me the fact that the Aberdeen gig was on Sunday. (I had booked the hotel for Saturday) and that I had screwed up.  Since I had to be at work on Monday afternoon, we were going to have to give The Lemon Tree a miss. Fortunately, I found someone on Twitter who could make use of the tickets so they didn't go to waste.

The following Tuesday saw us, and the band, in Liverpool.  Another O2 Academy gig, with the Pressies playing upstairs while The Cult took up occupation of the larger downstairs space.

Epic Studios in Norwich was the venue for our penultimate gig of the year.  The former home of Anglia TV and where Sale of the Century, hosted by Nicholas Parsons, was filmed, the cameras were also on for this gig and streamed on t'Internet for anyone who cared to part with £5 for the privilege.  The set was more of a greatest hits, with nothing from the Hit Parade, and the band were once again excellent, although David fluffed the intro to closing number End Credits by forgetting the lyrics, forcing the band to restart the song.

And, finally for us and the band, Leeds again at the Brudenell Social Club with a raucous crowd, a couple of enthusiastic bouncers and Gedgey getting banged in the mouth by a stray microphone. 'I'll bring a gum shield next time,' he said.

So that's it for 2013.  Kate and I saw 11 performances by The Wedding Present, and two by Cinerama.  Quite a haul given that we had no firm plans to go and see the band come the end of July.

Seeing the band play their matinee gig in Lille and witnessing the obvious delight of the band at the enthusiasm of some of the younger members of the audience was a highlight.  As was the whole adventure of seeing the band several times over.

And will we be going to see The Wedding Present in 2014?  Well Athens is already pencilled in the diary....

Black Sabbath, Phones 4 Us Arena, Manchester, 18 December 2013

By rights two members of Black Sabbath shouldn't be on stage in Manchester on the grounds that they shouldn't still be alive. Guitarist Tony Iommi is being treated for lymphoma, which would lead lesser mortals to take an extended sickie at the very least while lead singer Ozzy Osbourne's drug and drink travails, well documented in the red tops and in wife Sharon's regular autobiographies, would have done for anyone without the constitution of a team of oxen.

But here they are, clad in black and grinning broadly, and along with bassist Geezer Butler and drafted in drummer Tommy Clufetos are firing up their amplifiers to 11 and turning the clock back to 1972.

From the opening siren of War Pigs through to the encore Paranoid (Ozzy rushing back on stage having hidden behind the speaker stack encouraging the audience to clap louder - 'come on you f*****s') the band that can be argued to have invented heavy metal grind out the riffs of classic song after classic song. Sabbath have rarely troubled the singles chart, but their repertoire draws heavily on their first four albums with three songs from this year's album chart topping '13' (Age of Reason, End of the Beginning and God is Dead) thrown in for good measure. The Sabbath sound has come full circle as the newer songs could easily have been written in the band's early days, so smoothly do they drop into the set. Anyone expecting Black Sabbath to start doing dub step or Miley Cyrus covers is going to be severely disappointed.

Several audience members appear to be paying their own personal tributes to an off the wagon Ozzy, and are significantly the worse for wear before the band come on. Ozzy, of course, has gone from being a shoeless petty thief from Aston, Birmingham to a national treasure singing at Buckingham Palace. You are unlikely to rush out and buy an Ozzy Osbourne keep fit DVD based on the physical shape he is in these days but there is no doubting the power of the voice or his enthusiasm at being on stage.

Geezer Butler, the band's main lyricist, performs a sterling job on bass and Clufetos plays an energetic stop start drum solo that, accompanied by a spectacular light show, builds the suspense before the band launch into the final stretch of the set.

The heart of the Black Sabbath engine though is Tony Iommi, in blue tinted specs and black leather, strolling up and down the side of the stage with a benign smile on his face and guitar in hand, effortlessly emitting arena shaking riffs without breaking sweat.

Heavy metal has its detractors but Black Sabbbath must be doing something right. The band are getting on but the audience, ranging from teenagers to late middle aged bikers, reflects a youthful demographic, demonstrating heavy metal's multi generational appeal and suggesting that as long as the band that invented it can keep going they'll continue to sell out big venues. Long live Sabbath!

The Beatles, Hammersmith Odeon, December 1964

It was Christmas 1964. I was four years old. My Dad wasn't into music but my mum - a big Guy Mitchell fan - was still only 24 when the Beatles emerged and so she listened to them and wanted someone to go with when she got tickets. So it was that I dutifully boarded a train to London to see a department store Santa and, after visiting Santa's grotto and collecting my neatly wrapped present, Mum took me on to the Hammersmith Odeon to see The Beatles' Christmas Show 1964, compered by Jimmy Savile.

I heard The Beatles that evening, but my memory is not of the music. I don't remember what John and Paul said, or whether you could hear them over the screams of the audience. Or indeed if the audience was screaming.What I remember is opening my present from Santa and removing the wrapping paper to find that I'd got a set of wooden skittles and balls. And then dropping one of the balls on the floor where it promptly rolled away on the sloping auditorium floor to the stage, never to be seen again.  I didn't understand then why the ball couldn't be retrieved.  I do now.

The Wedding Present, O2 Academy, Liverpool, 29 October 2013

The Wedding Present's Hit Parade Tour ends on Friday in London, so you've got just three more opportunities to catch the band replaying their Elvis Presley-matching cascade of a hit single every month during 1992. From the opening chords of Blue Eyes through to the haunting chorus of No Christmas, the audience in Liverpool were reminded of why the charts back then were so much more interesting than they are now. Well perhaps that's nostalgia, but if you're going to get all nostalgic why not do so in the company of a great band playing loud in a small venue? The Hit Parade songs were bookended by 9 or 10 others from the band's 'extensive repertoire', as main man David Gedge introduced them. Whether it's the industrial thunder of Interstate 5 with which the band start the show, the spirit lifting 524 Fidelio with bassist Katharine Wallinger on backing vocals or the squalling guitar of Patrick Alexander on new single Two Bridges there are a range of newer songs for fans to nod along to. But it is Brassneck and set closer My Favourite Dress that get the mosh pit of 50 somethings bouncing around. The band are held together by the energetic Charles Layton on drums, and David Gedge has a line in patter that other front men would do well to study. The only sombre note (aside from the fact that most Wedding Present songs are bitter sweet lyrically) is when Gedge says a few words in tribute to Lou Reed and then plays Reed's She's My Best Friend. By the end of the pulsating 90 minute show the crowd have had their fill, which is just as well since the Wedding Present don't do encores.

My top five gigs of 2013

A bit previous, as Arfur Daley would say, since we're only in October but here we go:

5.  The Wedding Present, Lille, 13 October 2013

This was a small club gig and there was no mosh pit (it would never happen back home in Blighty) but the Pressies knocked out a tidy 90 minute set with David Gedge throwing the shapes and dragging from his guitar the feedback that seasoned followers of the band have come to expect.  The reputation of the band as jingly jangly indie heroes doesn't pay heed to the monstrous amounts of distortion that they've been producing for 20 odd years, the kind of noise you'd expect to hear at a ....

4.  Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Newcastle, 10 June 2013

concert.  Apparently people were walking out of this and other gigs on Young's 2013 European tour.  More fool them, I say.  Old Neil was on top form, and if you came expecting peace, love, incense sticks and an acoustic ramble through Neil's gentler back catalogue then you really should have listened to his last album, Psychedelic Pill, before buying your tickets.  Or listened to any Crazy Horse album from the last 40 plus years, really.

3.  Elvis Costello & The Imposters, Manchester, 14 June 2013

My ears could still have been ringing from the Neil Young & Crazy Horse concert of four days before, but the sonic assault with which Elvis targeted his audience towards the end of his set was like a short circuit on a human juke box with seven (count 'em) of his early gems fired off one after the other. Throw in Elvis as the Master of Ceremonies wisecracking and gladhanding his audience and you had the Royal Variety Show, thankfully without the Royals.  The audience were slightly less engaged at....

2.   The Wedding Present, Lille, 13 October 2013 (matinee)

but what this gig lacked in atmosphere it made up for in sheer charm with the band playing a seven song 25 minute set with turned down amplifiers and toned down lyrics for an audience of pre school kids and their parents.  I've seen the Pressies over 20 times now, but this gig will live in the memory a long time.  And talking of kids with their parents....

1. The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, 6 July 2013

The sun was beating down, the son was with me and happy to melt in the heat for a few hours so that we had a good spot when the band came on, and the Stones showed how they earned their reputation as the greatest rock'n'roll band in the world by dipping into their treasure chest of hits and putting on the kind of event that few (ok, no one) can match when it comes to entertaining a big, inter-generational crowd.  My gig of the year (so far!).