A strange gig! A one album band stretching their set out to two full hours with no covers (apart from the final, final encore)
Firstly the Vintage DJ set that opened tonight, rather than have a support band ,was a great idea and also highlighted how shite the normal pre-gig music can be and also the manner that it’s presented, namely inaudible and/or muffled.
The gig itself had been moved up from the tiny ABC2 and I worried that the larger hall, with presumably a less than capacity crowd, would dilute the atmosphere. Wrong! The hall was as busy as I’ve seen it, with a demographic running from fat aunties, through Furry Freak Brother Clones to punks wearing mohawks!
A family affair, we (Shields, Rhurscach and me) are joined tonight by Tote just returned from a year’s exile in Lille. Brother Artie is running late, assuming that there is a support band to avoid. We arrange, by text, to meet him under the largest glitterball in Europe. It is while looking up at this enormo-beast, when he arrives, that I realise our entire dynasty could vanish in a trice, if that wee cord snapped, as all male members of the family are now rubbing shoulders.
Vintage Trouble! I’ve never seen anyone sweat as much as this band, and I include Elvis Costello in that statement.
The back line looked absolutely tiny on the big ABC stage and they’ve obviously practiced a lot in front of mirrors, as the whole evening was incredibly choreographed.
Age wise, they’re not in the first flush of youth and look as if they’s been round the block a few times
The bass player actually looked like Ronnie Wood badly disguised as Hen Broon!
I feel singer Ty Taylor has still to find his own style, there’s a lot going on in there;Wilson Pickett, Otis, James Brown, Arthur Connelly and Paul Rodgers which obviously makes him a black man sounding like a white man trying to sound like a black man, doh!
But they’re actually good, even if they stretch every tune out for far too long and we have to endure the ‘clapalong, singalong, I sing this and you sing that’ sorta thing.
One of these bands who will either go ‘mega’ or sink without trace!
Ty Taylor gives the Duracell Bunny a run for it’s money!
Lighthouse Beacon Straight Ahead 