Gig Review: Firefest Sunday 2013

After a day's restful shopping and eating in sunny Nottingham I was re-energised and ready for another full day of melodic rock, which is, more or less, what I got...  

Following W.E.T.'s outstanding performance on the Friday I was looking forward to Sunday openers Eclipse, which, for the purposes of Firefest, at least, is basically W.E.T. sans Säll and JSS  (apart from his entirely anticipated guest appearance on one song) , and has the wonderful Erik Mårtennson up front and centre. The band played up their early afternoon Sunday slot by arriving on stage in dressing gowns, and Mårtennson managed to get the crowd energised by telling us so often that we ended up believing that it really was Saturday night at 11pm. Not being restricted by instrumental duties allowed him the freedom to leap about and around the stage at will and prove what a fine frontman he is in his own right. A great start to the Sunday, and a performance that would take a while to be surpassed.

Most folk who know me claim never to have heard of any of the bands I follow, which is vaguely depressing, but never mind. They wouldn't have stood a chance with the next two bands, as even I couldn't claim to know a thing about them before Sunday (well, Friday, when I read their potted biographies in the programme!). Brighton Rock seemed to me to be very schizophrenic - great musically, but destroyed by ghastly tuneless, shouty vocals, which were nigh on impossible to listen to or past. Prophet fared better overall, but didn't really leave a huge impression once they'd departed the stage. Both bands did establish a good rapport with the crowd, and the Brighton Rock guys certainly revealed a solid sense of humour, not least during the only real moment of 'technical difficulties' I witnessed across the weekend.

My main Sunday draw card, Alien, were up next and their hour-long set was worth the price of admission on its own - and then some. After a couple of disappointing vocalists Jim Jidhed showed how it’s done, and delivered the performance of the weekend, as far as I’m concerned. The set was anchored by a stream of classics from their 1988 debut including Go Easy, Tears Don't Put Out the Fire, Jaime Remember and set-closer Dying By the Golden Rule. To me, they sounded at least twice as good in a live setting - and about a million times better in the case of their local (Swedish) mega-hit - the Bee Gees-penned Only One Woman, which is a lowlight of said debut album (albeit a highly catchy and memorable one), but became somehow much classier in a live setting. One of the unexpected highlights was brand new song In Love We Trust – talk about an instant earworm! If the rest of the forthcoming album is as catchy as that they may manage to top that debut.

I'm always happy to give bands I don't know a fair hearing, so was quite prepared to starve in the name of music if what was on offer warranted it...sadly a few songs into Baton Rouge's set I suddenly realised I was very hungry indeed...by (almost) all accounts I left at the right time, as the set, which started fairly badly, only disintegrated further as lead singer Kelly Keeling's (alleged) substance-fuelled antics drove both his bandmates and the audience to despair and calls of 'car-crash' started to flood the Firefest Facebook page. Oh well, that's rock and roll for ya...

I returned in time to catch all but the opening track of the set by J-PEG or JLS, or whatever they're called (Oh sod it, it was Vixen, currently going by their members initials, which are impossible to remember even whilst looking at them in print, okay?). This is another group who fall into the 'not really my flavour of ice cream' category, but they certainly delivered a great show regardless and unlike most present I was only paying attention to their music and stage presence - as possibly the only gay in the Firefest village their apparent amazing looks passed me by entirely.

The final act of the weekend - and another serious draw for me - was Legends, the group led by Swedish guitar hero Tommy Denander that features a rotating cast of classic rock vocalists belting out their best-known hits. The originally announced line-up for Firefest consisted of Joe Lynn Turner, Eric Martin and Fergie Frederiksen, but ultimately only Martin made it on the night, with Fergie sadly missing due to a turn for the worse in his ongoing cancer battle, and JLT pulling out because...he needed to stay in and catch up on Breaking Bad (or some other entirely pathetic excuse - doesn't matter, he wasn't missed!). In their places were Graham Bonnet and Bobby Kimball, so Rainbow and Toto nuggets were both still prominently featured in the set.

Bonnet was first to hit the stage and while, unlike some of his contemporaries, he looks every bit as old as his 66 years (if not older), he proved he could still deliver the goods and, amid much daft stage banter with the crowd and Denander, ran through two Rainbow numbers, along with MSGs Desert Song, before handing the spotlight over to the impossibly baby-faced Eric Martin. Martin saw Bonnet's banter-level and raised it, resulting in much hilarity (and at least one shout of 'get on with it') throughout his set of early Mr Big classics, following three Lean Into It tracks with Wild World, for which he brought on a special guest vocalist (No, not Jeff Scott Soto, amazingly enough) to swell the ranks of legends onstage even further - for it was none other than Bob smeggin' Catley. If my weekend hadn't already been made several times over that right there would have done it, especially in what has been my first Magnum-less year since landing in the UK. Uncle Bob got to plug the upcoming Magnum album and tour before he and Martin departed and Bobby Kimball took to the stage. I'll freely admit that Fergie is my favourite Toto vocalist and I was dying to see him for the first time, but I can't ever complain about an opportunity to see Bobby, and he was on fine form. Bobby has come in for some flack online for variable vocal performances in recent years, but while he is undoubtedly better on some nights than others I've never encountered a poor performance from him personally. This time he wasn't quite the very best I've ever seen him, but it was pretty close. My only complaint about his set was that he really doesn't sing enough of Africa to justify its inclusion (despite its mega-hit status) and the keyboardist's lead vocal on the verses was only passable (if only Mr Catley had come back to perform this part!). When it comes to all things Toto my standards are impossibly high, and to be fair I haven't seen any other negative reaction to the performance. In any case it was quickly made up for with brilliant renditions of White Sister and Rosanna (during which Bobby sang both his own and Luke's part, though this did highlight why it was split between them in the first place!).

Then it was encore time, with each vocalist returning for one more number, and in every case the choice was as obvious as it was obligatory - Rainbow's Since You Been Gone for Bonnet, To Be With You - the song that put me off Mr Big for two full decades  - for Martin (joined again by Bob Catley, which had the surprising effect of making a song I've always loathed immensely enjoyable) and Toto's Hold the Line for Kimball, which proved an entirely suitable climax for the entire three days. Certainly the set silenced any doubters who had questioned the wisdom of including a ‘cabaret’ or ‘karaoke’ act as a headliner.

All that remained was the (presumably traditional) thank you to and from the crew, and an outpouring of affection to clearly-touched (not like that!) organiser Kieran Dargen, that was as close as you'll get to the reaction at a Marillion convention outside of ...erm, a Marillion convention. It was great to be there for the end of the festival for the first time - we'll have to wait and see what is unveiled for next year's swansong, but while there are enough faithful regulars to have seen the VIP packages sell out before any bands have even been announced, I'll be waiting for the final line-up details before deciding just how many days I'll be spending in Nottingham this time next year...but you can pretty much guarantee there'll be something on the bill to entice me!

Gig Review: Firefest Friday 2013

Another October, another Firefest Friday review! Well, keep traditions running for as long as you can, I say…sadly, this appears to be one that won't last past next year. But let's not worry about the future for now, the very recent past is much more pressing!

The first band of the day has traditionally been a revelation, and this time around the honour belonged to The Magnificent. They certainly lived up to both those heady expectations, and their own modest name, even if they weren’t in quite the same league as Lionville or Serpentine, Friday openers from the previous two years. So much music has passed through my ears since these guys hit the stage that some of the specifics have abandoned me, but suffice to say their album is heading to an Amazon locker near me very shortly!

Eden’s Curse weren’t really my cup of tea, although their set did pick up towards the end with Unbreakable and the single from their latest album, the first to feature new vocalist Nikola Mijic. I’ve never heard Michael Eden (live or otherwise), so can’t compare the two, but Mijic made a reasonable account of himself, though his stage act appeared to consist of adjusting his jacket every 12 bloody seconds or so! Not a band warranting further investigation from me though.

My first real draw of the day, Work of Art, were up next and Lars Säfsund again proved he is one of the finest vocalists in the genre, although I have to say his performance last year with Lionville was even better (I didn’t catch Work of Art’s own set last year, but the consensus seems to be that this year’s return stopped slightly short of matching it). Some have said that the introduction of two new songs slowed the momentum mid-set, but they were great songs and seemed to get a pretty favourable reaction from where I was standing. Certainly the well-chosen selections from the first two albums were deserving crowd-pleasers one and all.

W.E.T. are a band I’ve semi-consciously avoided up until now – I’ve always been suspicious of groups put together by record label executives (Yes folks, I’ve just labelled W.E.T. as the One Direction of the Frontiers roster!), but my unwarranted cynicism was shattered within the first few minutes of their set and they unexpectedly won the coveted ‘my band of the day’ award (well, it would be coveted if people knew it existed, I’m sure).

This was my first time seeing Jeff Scott Soto live, and everything I’ve heard about him turned out to be spot on – great voice (you don’t get called in to rescue Journey mid-tour if you’re a slouch vocally, after all), great personality, great performer – the times where he and (the impossibly young-looking) Erik Mårtensson shared a mic were especially magical. Special mention must also go to drummer Robban Bäck (which sounded suspiciously like ‘Robin Beck’ when announced on stage, but amazingly enough they don’t look that similar, so such confusion was short-lived!), the finest skins-basher in sight on the night (and on Sunday as well, which I may or may not get to in a subsequent post!).

Speaking of such things most Firefests involve a few musicians doing double-duty somewhere on the bill, but with the standard 20-minute turnaround between acts, Robert Säll’s transition from Work of Art guitarist to W.E.T. keyboardist must be some kind of record? As great a musician and songwriter as he is, though, it must be said that, at this point in time at least, a beer-soaked set-list has greater stage presence. That said, when you’re sharing the stage with the likes of Lars or JSS maybe you don’t need to be super-exciting yourself (this is making me think of John Deacon for some reason…)

The other band on the bill that would have had me dishing out my cash regardless of the rest of the line-up was Dare, who stunned many by opening with a pair of rarely-heard tracks from fan-favourite – but crucially not band-favourite – Blood From Stone. While there wasn’t a duff moment in their set, the excitement levels did drop off a tad after this, but ending their slot with a brace of tunes from classic debut Out of the Silence was just what the doctor ordered – and ending with my personal favourite, The Raindance, was as good as it could possibly get. That album may be celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year, but Darren Wharton’s voice remains as strong as ever. Seeing Vinny Burns on guitar was a treat as well, though second guitarist Richard Dews, who was mostly on acoustic, was equally fine, though he did make me devote far too much of the set to half-pondering which Game of Thrones character/actor he reminded me of!

After three cracking sets in a row I was prepared for a come-down and while recently reformed headliners Harem Scarem are favourites of the melodic rock scene, their appeal has always been lost on me. I was willing to be proved as wrong about them as I was about W.E.T. but after 5 songs had failed to invoke anything more positive than a ‘meh’ from me I left them to it. By all accounts the faithful were pleased with the set, so all good!

Overall then, yet another fantastic Friday evening of obscure and uncool melodic rock/AOR. Props as ever to Kieran and the gang for their organisation of this rather large undertaking – and special thanks for the warning on merch-closing times this year, the lack of which I moaned about this time last year!

I’ve never managed more than a Friday at a Firefest before, but while there wasn’t a band on the Saturday line-up to tempt me into parting with my cash, I did stick around in Nottingham for the full weekend this time around and rejoined the Firefest madness on Sunday…which, as I say, I may or may not get around to telling you about!

Gig Review - Fleetwood Mac at the 02, Tuesday 24 September 2013

Despite new new material being worked on, from which a 4-track EP has recently emerged recently, it's been a full ten years since the last full Fleetwood Mac album was released. As with 2009's 'Greatest Hits' tour then, the latest trek is focused on past glories - particularly  the Rumours album - but somehow this didn't make it feel too much like pure nostalgia and the band seem to have largely escaped being branded with the 'oldies' tag.

 

I personally prefer the albums made either side of it, but Rumours remains an undisputed classic and two of it's highlights -  Second Hand News and The Chain -  certainly made for a stunning one-two punch to get things rolling (and Dreams, which followed, wasn't too shabby either). After a run of such instantly recognisable material,  it was perhaps brave to introduce a new song into the set, but Sad Angel went down well with the crowd. For the most part the set was drawn from the band's three late-70s albums, including the obvious hits - Rhiannon, Tusk, Sara, Go Your Own Way, Don't Stop - but also some deep cuts, most notably the Tusk tracks Not That Funny and Sisters of the Moon.

 

Augmented by a small group of backing musicians and vocalists, the four remaining band members commanded centre stage and made for an impressively tight unit, anchored by the rhythm section that gave them their name.

 

Mick Fleetwood, was, as ever, a monster on the drums, but usually displayed his prowess by playing 'within' the songs, and only had a couple of chances to really show off - most notably during his manic solo on World Turning. John McVie, has a reputation for shunning the spotlight, but his presence was strongly felt (much more so than in New Zealand a few years ago, where he really seemed to be hiding!) and he appeared to be enjoying himself immensely, as did the rest of the band.

 

The delightful Stevie Nicks was in fine form. Having seen her twice before (once solo and once with the Mac) I would have to say that this trumped those earlier appearances. Her voice has understandably changed over the years - it is now much deeper, but also richer than before - and as strong as it ever was (and not even vaguely goatlike as far as I'm concerned!), so no, her songs don't sound identical to the recorded versions from 30+ years ago, but they certainly do sound wonderful.

 

Undoubtedly the star of the show throughout though was Lindsey Buckingham. Amongst the many highlights at which he was front and centre were his solo acoustic rendition of Big Love, which deserved the much-abused epithet of tour de force - one man and an acoustic guitar should not be able to make an arena-sized venue crackle with that much energy, and his ability to transform the same space right down into living-room intimacy when joined by Nicks for Landslide immediately afterwards further demonstrated his versatility. But perhaps his greatest moment was the climactic end solo of I'm So Afraid which had the audience absolutely spellbound and deservedly earned him the most sustained applause of the night.

 

I doubt anybody who wasn't part of it will ever fully understand the Buckingham/Nicks relationship as it's developed over the years, but they do genuinely seem to have left any lingering bitterness behind them, even if they were perhaps trying to appear 'closer' to each other on stage than they are in reality. Well, there's nothing wrong with a bit of 'show' and playing up to an audiences expectations, even if it did veer towards the cheesy end of the spectrum at times.

 

If you were to hunt for weak spots you wouldn't find many - I've never been a huge fan of Gold Dust Woman and Say Goodbye was a tad underwhelming as a finale, but in a set that extended well past two and a half hours, and took in a couple of dozen songs, the hit rate was more than acceptable. In some ways it's fortunate that there's still a noticeable Christine McVie-sized hole in the band these days, as it allowed room in the set for some of the more obscure numbers that were featured. Aside from Don't Stop the former Mrs McVie's songbook was not represented, so many big hits (Say You Love Me, Over My Head, You Make Loving Fun, Everywhere, Little Lies, etc - I think many people would be surprised to realise just how many key songs she contributed to the band!) were absent. But then so too were the early hits from the Peter Green years, it just goes to show the embarrassment of riches the band has in their wider catalogue. The icing on the cake would have been to have been at one of the later London shows where Christine guested on Don't Stop but I have no complaints and can only hope that the band get a full new album ready for release before too long to prompt a quick return. Though any other excuse will also suffice!

Gig review - Marillion Weekend (UK) 2013 - Friday Night

So here I am once more...(Hmmm, I feel a song coming on!) Yes, it's been a while since I've blogged, sorry about that. And even more sorry about this - what was originally conceived as part of a full review of Marillion's UK convention held in Wolverhampton in April of this year (to have been published in May...) has been reduced to this single post covering the first night only. Guess you could see this as my equivalent of the Eagles' The Long Run (originally touted as a brilliant double album to be released in 1978, that finally emerged a year later as a distinctly underwhelming single album).Oh well, life and other associated paraphernalia get in the way from time to time, don't they? At least I'm not too likely to break up on the subsequent tour! Anyway, on with the review...

At a Marillion weekend it's traditional to begin with 'album night' on a Friday and that held true for 2013, though unlike previous weekends, which have featured quite a diverse range of themes, this time around every night was album night. Friday belonged to Radiation (or Radiat10n as it’s spelt on the album cover - and on *somebody’s* user name on most internet forums – on account of it being the band’s 10^th studio effort), widely regarded as one of the band’s weaker releases. Whether this is fair is subject to debate - personally I feel it does rank towards the bottom of the Marillion catalogue, but is by no means a poor album (they only have one of those, if you ask me – what do you mean you didn’t?! - and even that’s only true if you consider Less is More to be a ‘proper’ album in the first place). 

One thing Radiation certainly has in its favour is its unusally high quotient (by Marillion standards, at least!) of rockier numbers, so Under the Sun (see below) and the unfairly-maligned Answering Machine certainly kicked things off with a bang. Fan favourite (even amongst those who don’t care for the album as a whole) Three Minute Boy was up next, and by now the party was in full flow. The fans ambushed the band with a mid-song ‘3 minute scream’ when it was played in 2011, so this time they were expecting it and didn’t let it go on toooooo long, but it was still a fun moment.

Before the convention I’d worried that the three consecutive slow numbers that follow (Now She’ll Never Know, These Chains and Born to Run) would prove to be both atmosphere and momentum-killers, but this wasn’t the case. Now She’ll Never Know became the first number of the evening to get the eyes turning all watery on me (and h's seemingly effortless switches in and out of falsetto were simply breathtaking), These Chains is one of those songs that turns out to be far more powerful live, and after being trotted out at two consecutive convention seasons, I have to say that Born to Run has really grown on me, though it will never be a contender for a spot in my 'favourite 100 Marillion songs' list. 

Nonetheless the killer intro of Cathedral Wall came at just the right time to pick the energy up again, although in truth it’s not exactly a fast song either, though it is ‘heavy’. Both it and album closer A Few Words for the Dead are certainly amongst the album’s highlights and the ‘or you could love’ section of the latter provided one of the surprises of the night, as, seemingly from nowhere, large-stemmed flowers appeared in the hands of fans throughout the hall. Knowing the event was being filmed (more on the DVD release a bit later) some brightly-coloured attire, sunglasses and suchlike had been suggested as the dress code (you know, to ‘sort of’ reflect the radiation theme). Sensible folk like myself ignored this (and maybe even suspected a certain group of fans of trying to impose their own unique fashion sense onto the rest of us for the evening!), but the flowers were a genuinely nice touch, of the sort that Marilloin fans do specialise in, it has to be said – and the band later confirmed they had no idea that it was coming. Nor did I - I'd missed that particular fan memo!

Radiation has recently been re-mixed and re-released, and the new mix from Michael Hunter has converted a number of fans who particularly disliked the original ‘rough’ feel the album was given. Personally I’m not wildly keen about revisions after the fact, and I figure the live recording of this show is the only alternative version I need. And you thought I was a total obsessive/completist, you don’t know me at all really, do you? :P

Friday nights have traditionally been seen as something of a warm-up night in the past, with only  a handful of extra tracks played in addition to the main attraction of the full album concept. This time around, though, after a brief intermission the band returned for a set that threatened to overshadow Radiation as they performed a scattershot selection of tracks from all over the decades, ranging from recentish classics such as Genie and Somewhere Else, to early h-era singles Hooks in You and Cover My Eyes (both of which should have been smashes, rather than the moderate hits they actually were). The latter segued neatly into Slainte Mhath, the first Fish-era song of the night. In Port Zelande this year h had surprised everybody by toasting Fish at the song’s conclusion – this time the toast was perhaps less spontaneous (but surely no less heartfelt) and came mid-song, fittingly before the line about ‘raising the standard Drambuie’, which I’m sure the big man would appreciate! Not many years ago, that would have been precisely that as far as Fishy material went, but of late the band as a whole have seemed a bit more relaxed about playing the early stuff (though still never very much of it at once, possibly as it seems to make h suicidal, or something...) and so Slainte was followed by Lavender and Heart of Lothian. Capping even that was the appearance of Script for a Jester’s Tear as the first encore. I’d describe how brilliant a performance they gave of this, but why bother when you can just watch it...

As I mentioned earlier the gig was filmed and a mere ten and a half hours later (note this time is from the start, not the end, of the show!) it was available to buy as a 2DVD/3CD package (from which Under the Sun and Script have been released to YouTube for promotional purposes, hence the handy links to them above!), regaining the band their world record for fastest turnaround between the recording and release of a live DVD. Obviously it's warts 'n' all, but the band prove, beyond any measure of doubt, that where they're concerned there simply aren't that many warts in the first place.

With the first 50 for sale signed by the band some of the band’s craziest fans (we’re all crazy, but to varying degrees, you understand) queued from 5.30am to secure their copies. I've no idea how long fan number 51 queued for, but I hope they weren’t too disappointed to miss out! Personally I was happy enough to wait and buy a (guaranteed unsigned) copy after that evening’s gig.

And what a gig that would turn out to be. I'd love to tell you about it (and Stillmarillion, and the Sounds That Can't Be Made gig on the Sunday, about those ovations and that climb into the balcony and all the time spent with the other mad and ovely fans, and much more besides) but I'm not gonna. Who knows, maybe I'll make up for it with a full review of Montreal 2015 in less than two years time? Go on, hold your breath! ;-)