What finally got me back up there was a concert in Camden – Department S and Spizzenergi.  I have actually lost count of the number of times I have seen Spizzenergi now, but I had never seen Department S.    Stalkers may remember that I was going to take Chrystal up to see Spizz in December, but Crawley got snowed in so she had to go on her own.   Much to my surprise she actually liked it.  She had never shown much of an appetite for punk rock before, but said that she had a great time.

Department S were interesting.  I never really knew much about them at the time although obviously I had heard Is Vic There?  I was glad to get the chance to hear them play it live because it is one of those iconic songs.  There are a few punk/new wave bands who never really reached much beyond their core audience but had one song that everybody had heard, or at least heard of – like Bauhas with Bela Lugosi’s Dead, the Ruts with Babylon’s Burning, the Psychedelic Furs with Pretty in Pink or, I guess, Spizzenergi with Where’s Captain Kirk?

They did do the big hit, but I found the rest of their set to be excellent too, even though I didn’t know any of the songs. The singer has a real presence and they are still writing new songs, which is good to see.  I thought the end of the set was strange though: in the last song the singer put his jacket back on and did the “we’ve been Department S, goodnight” bit and went off stage, but the song carried on for what felt like five minutes after that in an extended instrumental.

Spizzenergi were exactly what I’ve come to expect.  Part of me would like to be surprised by new material or a very different selection of songs, but the other part of me quite likes to hear the same songs.  That is not to say that it is always identical, the arrangements gently evolve over time rather than get a radical re-working.   The highlights for me are Soldier, Soldier, Central Park, Kirk, the Model, Virginia Plain and Island.

I think I’m largely responsible for Island to get on the set list.  Years ago Spizz gave me some copies of old demo and rehearsal tapes from the Spizz Oil days and there was one track on there that had never been on any record at all even though, to my ears, it was better than some tracks that had been released so I asked about it and it ended up in the repertoire, despite the rest of the band not really liking it much. I think.

Thinking about it, there aren’t really many other songs they could include.  Quite a lot of the older stuff is really quite experimental and arty.  Much as I love the Do A Runner album, a lot of it probably wouldn’t work live and a lot of it was quite keyboard-centred.   I wouldn’t mind hearing Dangers of Living though.  I reckon that would sound good with this line-up.  A couple of the football songs would go down well too, even if they are a bit too specific to past tournaments.

It was all good fun and it gave me a chance to try out the Flip video camera, with mixed results.  I learned a couple of things about it.  Firstly it has trouble focussing in very low light, which is true of most auto-focus camera I suppose.  Secondly it doesn’t like it when a really big bloke stands right in front of you.   I only filmed two songs – here is one of them:

One of the things I like about the band are thet they all seem to be really enjoying themselves, and it was a pleasure to be able to share the evening with our daughter, who seems to be loving life up in that London.  I don’t think there is much chance of her moving back home after her course finishes.

Now I’ve got the taste I mustn’t leave it another year before going up to town.  Maybe I’ll pop up to see that vorticists’ exhibition at Tate Britain and see a few other sights.  Perhaps take Jayne up the eye [[Oops.  That came out ruder-sounding that it was supposed to]] or pay a visit to the zoo?

One thing I won’t do is make the mistake of walking from Euston to Camden again.  What a depressing area the hinterland of Euston station is!

October 22nd – Covered at the Queen’s Head, Horsham

Covered are a seven-piece covers band doing all sorts of stuff.  A lot of Motown/Stax stuff but also some more recent songs.  I’ve seen them a couple of times before, both times in this pub.

October 31st – Comedy night at the Lyric, Hammersmith

Regular monthly comedy night.  Richard Herring comperes.  Guests are David Schneider, Tony Law, Zoe Lyons and mystery guest.  I’ve seen Herring a few times in London and Brighton and seen Zoe Laws at Komedia in Brighton.  The hints are that this is a musical comedian which probably narrows it down to Bill Bailey or Tim Minchin.  I’m going to guess at Minchin.

December 2nd – Spizzenergi at the Dublin Castle, Camden

Spizzenergi Xmas party, with the full band.  A genuine punk survivor, with a very, very tight band behind him.  First saw in 1979 but lost count of how many times I have seen the band since then.

December 19th – The Glitterband at Dingwalls, Camden

With support from Captain Sensible and Spizzoil.  Very rare Spizzoil reunion because Pete Petrol now lives in NZ.

Rick Wakeman signing stuff for the faithful after the show

Last night I went out to see Rick Wakeman and Jon Anderson playing at the Hawth theatre in Crawley.   Rick Wakeman. Jon Anderson.  In Crawley!

This was the second date on their 20-date ‘Anderson-Wakeman Project 360′ tour, coming to a provincial town near you soon, and the ticket was a birthday present from Chrystal which makes her position as favourite daughter pretty nigh unassailable.There was a strange emotional resonance to this.  The first concert I ever went to featured Wakeman and Anderson – when they played with Yes at the Wembley Arena on the Tormato tour.  Or, as it was billed: the Tormatour.

This was a very different evening for all sorts of reasons: the scale, the volume, the crowds and the atmosphere.  And the average age of the audience of course.  The crowd was a veritable symphony of male-pattern baldness though there were a surprising number of females and even teenagers there.  Living with Jayne’s almost pathological dislike of Yes it is easy to forget that some women actually like prog rock.

Knowing what a full-blown Yes concert is like, it was a little depressing to see just two keyboards and an acoustic guitar on the stage, surrounded by loads of little candles that must have given the fire inspectors a heart attack.  Of course I knew what to expect from the publicity and from watching some Youtube clips of an earlier tour so I wasn’t too disappointed.

The show alternated between new songs from Jon and Rick’s forthcoming album and old Yes songs.  You knew whether the next song was going to be old or new by whether Jon picked his guitar up.  All the new songs were just keyboard and voice, but the old songs had guitar too.

I can’t remember much about the new songs.  One was about a tree and another about gardens, and they were all nice enough.  They must be OK because nobody minded that they were getting about an hour of totally unheard music.  Concert crowds are normally quite resistant to ‘a bit of new’.

The old songs were mostly from the earlier Yes albums: Time & A Word, Starship Trooper, Yours Is No Disgrace, And You & I, Soon for example.  There were a couple of tracks from Going for the One, one from the AWBH album and, surprisingly, Owner of a Lonely Heart.  And Roundabout. Obviously.

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that Yes’ most commercially successful single was played, but this is the song that Rick (who wasn’t in the band at the time) has been known to refer to as ‘Owner of a horse & cart’.

Inbetween the songs was plenty of banter.  We all know what Rick Wakeman is like from his appearances on Grumpy Old Men and other TV programmes, but it was a revelation to see Jon having a lark about.   Normally you just see him introducing the odd song in spiritual, hippy mode.

The overwhelming atmosphere of the show was one of affection.  You could sense the affection that the audience had for the performers, which suited the intimacy of the venue compared to places like the Wembley Arena.  The performances were on a more human scale and the between-song banter was more conversational that is possible in a massive venue.

I can’t pretend that I missed the extra dimension that Chris Squire’s extra vocals would have added (and Steve Howe’s to a lesser extent), not to mention his bass, as well as the electric guitars and – of course – the drums.  I am fairly unsophisticated and for me the more drummers the better.  I also missed the Wakeman extravagance at the keyboards.  Most of the arrangements involved just piano and string sounds and a blast of the old full orchestra effects and Moog noises would have been nice – but we all knew that was never going to happen.

What we did get was Jon Anderson’s remarkable voice.  One or two people said afterwards that they thought his voice had gone, but most, including me, thought it was still great.  A lot of the time it was deeper and more gravelly than it used to be, but he showed at times that he could still sing pure high notes: it is just that the arrangement of the songs wasn’t calling for it.  The instrumental side was totally rearranged, so why not the vocals?

About the arrangements.  Sometimes it is frustrating when a band make changes to an old favourite song, altering the tune or tempo.  I can understand that, and feel it a bit myself, particularly when there is some small detail of a song that you really, really like and that has been removed.  I think it is only human to feel that to an extent, but really there is no point in somebody doing a perfect imitation of their record: you might as well just stay at home and listen to the record!

Remember also that this was two-fifths of the classic line-up of Yes and Yes were supposed to be a progressive rock band.  Surely that implies that they should always be striving to experiment and change things?  It resulted in a brilliant reggae-tinged version of Time & a Word.

Perhaps the hardest thing was getting used to seeing the pair of them looking quite normal.  No more skin-tight spangly jumpsuit and cape for Rick – just a long black overcoat.  No billowing kaftan for Jon – trainers, jeans and jacket, albeit one with a bit of a Jackson Pollock theme to it.  Jon actually had a bit of a Back to the Future look to him.  Also it was quite amusing seeing them walk on together because although he is no giant, Rick is taller than average and Jon , although no dwarf, is a bit shorter than average.  Rick may not have the waist-length hair of old, but it is still quite long.  The combined effect of hair, long coat, and size difference did give a momentary impression of a wizard walking on with a hobbit – but I say that in an affectionate way.

Overall, it was an honour to see these two grace the stage in Crawley. Rick’s hands still flow effortlessly across the keyboards, and Jon still has a voice that a colleague tells me he could listen to if he just sung the phone book.  OK it may not have had any drums but even so it was music for the mind, heart and soul.

There was lots of merchandise on sale in the foyer, and Rick came out afterwards to sign anything that anybody put in front of him and pose for photos.  The queue was huge and Rick was being very friendly and approachable, spending time chatting to everybody so it must have been very late by the time the last person was seen to.

I bumped into a couple of people from work who I didn’t know were going, and compared notes afterwards.  The verdict was that it was a bloody good show.  It was certainly well-attended, despite surely being one of the most expensive ticket prices ever at the Hawth.

My only quibble about the evening was an annoying high-pressure hiss from the sound system.  I don’t know if this was a fault or just something badly set up, but once you notice it you can’t un-hear it.  Apart from that, the sound was fantastic as you would expect from a place designed for acoustics – miles better than the harsh edge to the system at K2 when Paul Weller played there.

Very frustrating.  I would love to go up and see him again, but there is a small chance we will be moving that day so it may not be practical.  Never mind.  I have seen him a few times before – three times solo and once with Mano Negra – so its not the end of the world.

I can thoroughly recommend it.  I don’t think anybody else on the scene at the moment provides so much energy or attracts a crowd with such an atmosphere.  With any luck his current tour will bring him back to London again, preferably the Brixton Academy.

At one point he sings a song called San Quentin I hate every inch of you, which must be the epitome of a crowd-pleaser.  Never has a song been as well-targetted I think.

Apart from the music there was a little banter, including a fantastic put-down for a heckler which I shall remember in case I return to public speaking at any point, or unexpectedly branch into standup comedy:

I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you said. I was talking.

The music was interspersed with documentary elements and interviews with staff and inmates.  The total acceptance of the death penalty was chilling, as was one prisoner’s story of how he strangled a woman and her son without really knowing why he did it.

Fascinating film, which I only saw because it was on straight after the Specials reunion concert in Coventry on Sky Arts.

Gang Of Four’s Jon King and Andy Gill will be talking with John Niven, the highly acclaimed author of ‘Kill Your Friends’. These music industry legends will also be taking questions from the audience. Very limited numbers. Drinks are provided. Purchasers will also receive complimentary access to unique content at the band’s Pledge Music campaign page.

Sounds like fun – but at £28.25 (plus extorionate Ticketmaster booking fees no doubt) a bit much to just hear them talk.  I don’t even know if they are any good at talking!

Two days later they do actually play at an ‘exhibition and performance‘ at the ICA where fans are promised:

Gang Of Four present a one-off live performance and exhibition of art and artefacts. The band will mingle amongst fans and unveil a series of large-scale prints, some based on cult album artwork, some brand new from the artwork surrounding the release of the new record. These will sit alongside career-spanning photographs by some of music’s most celebrated photographers, and historical band artefacts. There will also be a listening facility for fans to hear the band’s first ever gig recently found on cassette. The band will then play a full set, including songs from their new album ‘Content’. Complimentary drinks and souvenir laminate provided. Purchasers will also receive free access to unique content at the band’s Pledge Music campaign.

I like the idea of seeing them play a full live set, and don’t even mind hearing ‘a bit of new’ – I’m genuinely excited at the prospect of some new music from them.  Hearing the recording of their first ever gig would be interesting too, though I’m sure that will be available to download before too long.

I don’t like the idea of paying £61.75 for all that though.  Not even with a ‘souvenir laminate’ thrown in.  It all reminds me of those offers I keep getting on email for ‘an evening with Eric Clapton’ or something like that, which is aimed squarely at those with money to burn who want a concert to be a luxury experience.  I prefer it to be a sweaty and loud experience with watered-down lager in plastic pint glasses.

What would the Gang of Four from 1979 think of it all?  I seem to remember them being an extremely dogmatic Marxist bunch of musicians.  Back then they would, I am sure, have mingled with fans before the show, or after, or both without huge sums of money changing hands.  A few (Spizz and Manu Chao spring to mind) still do.

The Pledge Music concept sounds fascinating though, and a bit more in keeping with their roots.

I know I will regret not going, but with a new Tory government likely to have a direct impact on the business of my employers and then put VAT up to 20% I should probably try and put a bit aside now just in case.

1. Thanks for the tip-off Peter!

The most amazing thing was probably the set list.  It is 18 tracks long, as it was in London, but only half of them were the same tracks.  I remember seeing Pink Floyd towards the beginning of a world tour in Australia and then again about six months later at the end of the same tour at Wembley and I think the set list was identical, or very nearly.  Changing the set list around so much within a tour is admirable really, and prevents the band getting bored. It must also be a testament to their catalogue that they have so much choice, and it means having a much larger repertoire rehearsed – not just by the band but by the lighting, sound and effects crews – but from my selfish perspective it is a bit of a shame that only half of it can act as a semi-memento of my own experience of the tour.

Having said that, the DVD does include the song Cyanide from the Death Magnetic album: possibly my favourite off the album.  I can remember being a bit miffed that when I saw them there were about six tracks from the new album but not that one.  The obligatory cover version was not Motorhead’s Overkill that they did at the O2 but Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy, and an unlisted extra track was a short blast of the Marseillaise in deference to their French hosts.

In further deference to the French, the whole concert was apparently filmed by a totally French crew and the DVD box is all in French.  This nod to the French is only slightly undermined by James Hetfield repeatedly pronouncing the S in Nimes…

There is one major problem with the whole thing, and that is the camerawork.  I am not talking about the choice of shots or the editing – they could have been better but were not terrible.  Not as bad as, say, Mike Mansfield’s Jean-Michel Jarre concert films. I am talking about the actual shots from one of the cameras.  There was a remote-controlled camera on a dolly on tracks going across the front of the stage and all the pictures from this were wrong.  They were going in and out of focus, which is very annoying.  Unfortunately that camera was often giving the best shots so they had to use a lot of footage from it.

I don’t know whether it was just a malfunctioning camera, or some instability in the trolley, or vibrations from all the noise not getting cancelled out properly, but it was truly awful, and I am genuinely surprised they let it go out like that.

It was still an enjoyable concert film though.  There is a lot to be admired about Metallica.  They may be huge in terms of popularity, the venues they play and the stage they play on, but they are still a very basic band – just the drums, bass and two guitars: no extra musicians playing in the wings, choirs, dancers, horn section or anything like that.  You could imagine them being able to play in the local pub or community centre if they had to.

Mind you, they would have to overcome their addiction to showing off their guitar collection by changing instruments for just about every song if they played the local pub.  Normally it is just lead guitarists who suffer from this compulsion, but even Rob Trujillo used at least three of four different bass guitars.  It must be a real frustration for Lars to be stuck with the same drum kit all evening.

The dodgy pictures from the main camera almost make this one to avoid, but I doubt there will be another film from that tour coming out, and it is the first full-length concert film to feature Rob Trujillo so a must-watch DVD for anybody even marginally interested in thrash metal.

I over heard something in the first pub that made me ponder a bit though.

When I got there I was up at the bar and found that service was slow because there was only one person behind the bar.  Maybe we should have told them that we had a lot of people leaving today.  Anyway, a couple of middle-aged ladies came in and one said to the other “which side do you think the queue is?  Where is the end of the queue?”

Obviously they are not seasoned pub-goers because it struck me that there never is a queue in a pub: it is just a free-for-all.  How did that come about?   As a nation we have a well-deserved reputation for being inveterate queuers with an unwritten queue etiquette at least as complicated as the rules of cricket and yet inside pubs the concept of a queue does not exist outside of the toilets.

It is not so much a matter of who was there first as who shouts the loudest, has the sharpest elbows, catches the barman’s eye, waves their tenner the best or is most attractive/scary.  Behaviour that would cause a riot of tutting in the post office is standard behaviour at the bar.  Anywhere else in the country you would never stand waiting to be served while one newcomer after another gets their order in before you.  I wonder how that became the norm in pubs?

I was chuffed because it is from the Tombola tour and so effectively the same show that Jayne and I saw in Kentish Town.  I have ripped the audio to the PC so I can listen to it on the Zen, and had a quick look at the DVD – only on the PC, so no 5.1 surround or anything.

The show is in an outdoors arena so the atmosphere is quite different to Kentish Town anyway, but while flicking through it somthing seemed strange, then I realised that it was because the majority of the crowd were dressed the same, with white shirts and red neck scarves.  Manu Chao and Gambeat also had red scarves on.

I don’t like not understanding something so I did a bit of Googling and found that the concert was in Bayonne, which is in the Basque region of France, right near the border with Spain which makes it a perfect venue for a Manu Chao concert, being as much Spanish as French.   The red and white combo is a sort of national dress for the place and at the main festivals everybody wears it.

The concert was recorded right at the start of the big festival when the town would have been gearing up for a week of celebrations, drinking and (unfortunately) bull fighting.  Must have been one hell of an atmosphere around the place.

I feel my mind has been broadened just a little bit today.  This morning I had never heard of Bayonne/Baiona and now its on my mental list of interesting places that would be nice to visit but I know I never will.

If I’m honest, the concert itself is pretty bloody relentless.  Non-fans would be advised to take it in small doses rather than one session.  I was just glad to see than band back with percussion and a trumpet: the second time I saw them they were down to a five-piece and lacked a bit of depth I thought.

I much preferred the 10-man version I first saw, with the trombone and accordion as well as the second vocalist, but the current line-up will do, and having the old Mano Negra percussionist returning is a distinct bonus as it means the band can add Sidi ‘h’ Bibi to the set list.

Does it show that I am chuffed with how much entertainment, education and nostalgia can be wrung out of a mere nine quid these days?   Now waiting for Jayne to be out one night so I can put the DVD on loud, fire up the bass guitar and try to emulate Gambeat’s basslines.

Damian 'giving it some' at the Queens Head

Jayne and I hit the town in Horsham tonight: an Italian meal, followed by a walk down to the Queens Head to see Covered playing.  We did that because Damian (AKA Pootergeek) sings with the band.  He keeps inviting me to come along to shows, but previously they have all been down on the coast.It was a good show they put on.  I think its a bit of a hobby band where they are doing it for the pleasure of playing rather than with any expectation of getting rich.  Usually I drag Jayne to concerts or shows and she doesn’t really like it (the only exceptions being Santana and Erasure) but she liked this one, and I was impressed.

As their name suggests, the band do covers of songs, mostly classics like Knock on Wood or Soul Man but with some more recent stuff like Amy Winehouse or Scissor Sisters.  There was even a decent version of Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer.  I was a bit worried when they said they were going to do some Motown (I am more of a Stax fan myself) but it turned out to be a Stevie Wonder song, and not just any Stevei Wonder song but Living for the City – one of my favourites.

I liked the bass player.  Totally unashamed to be wearing shades at night in November, he reminded me of Donald Dunn a bit, which is high praise indeed.

No complaints about the set or the playing, but a couple of suggestions:

• I’d love to hear them do Green Onions. It would give the keyboards and guitar a chance to show off a bit.
• Would also love to hear them do Alexander O’Neal’s Criticise.  If I was in a band I would fight to get that on the set list, even if it was a thrash metal band.
• Damian should pack a harmonica.  There were a couple of moments just crying out for a bit of gob-iron.

The funny thing is that Damian assumed it would not be my sort of music, because I tend to bang on about world music and prog rock a lot here.  I think he is forgetting my Essex roots…