Category: Special Features

Yes, I’m sorry to say that this post does start with yet another reminder of last year, so feel free to skim down until you reach the part that says ‘picture this.’

Cast your mind back approximately 87 years to the start of the first lockdown. Those blissfully naïve weeks when nobody had a clue what was coming, and the novelty of a few weeks (ha ha) at home when the weather was warm. If you were lucky, you were furloughed and you got to laze around and sunbathe while also getting paid for it, the envy of your friends still working from their kitchen tables.  Everybody started baking banana bread and sourdough out of nowhere. The yeast consumption of this country shot through the roof. Amid the lamenting of the gluten intolerant, we were only allowed to leave the house for one hour a day for essential shopping or exercise. We weren’t allowed to see friends. The pub was out of the question, as was the stress and rush of the daily commute. No more packed tube trains, armpits in faces, fighting for Prime Position on the platform or exasperated sighing as you joined the back of a queue stretching the length of your chosen morning café.

Once we’d all absorbed the fact that we were suddenly living in some sort of dystopian nightmare, we just sort of…got on with it. Our circle of daily activities suddenly and unexpectedly shrank, and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it. Everybody was forced to stop. We became more introspective, we valued that one hour when we could go for a walk during those balmy summer evenings, and we made use of technology to keep in touch with those we cared about. I’ve heard multiple first-hand accounts of this exact thing. Lots of people who were usually too busy to stop and look around finally had the (enforced) opportunity to do so, and most, if not all, enjoyed it much more than they expected to.

We all know how things developed as time progressed. You don’t need me to lead you down a sanitised rabbit hole of misery to recap the rest of last year, when all you have to do is turn on the TV or look at Twitter (don’t). Everyone was affected by the events of 2020, whether in terms physical, mental, emotional, romantic, financial, professional or a combination of all of these. Without disregarding the awfulness, I would like to go on for a bit about what we can take from the last year, using the example of the humble pub gig to highlight the importance of finding the joy in the generic. Bet you can’t wait for this.

Picture this: a pub, probably in north west London. Not an awful amount of space, but the sofas and tables have been cleared to make way for a dance floor. Kitschy taxidermy animals mounted on the walls, each with the name of a middle-aged man. Underneath Dave the Badger, the drumkit, keyboard, guitars, bass and microphones glint under the precariously balanced, multicoloured lights. These bad boys make the room ten times hotter but add to the vibes. Pint glasses of water, some full, some half-drunk, sit nestled among a snaking maze of cables. The lead singer gleans some small respite from the one electric fan offering blissful cool air, of which there will always be an attempted hijack by those dancing, slowly melting under those precariously balanced multicoloured lights.

Gradually, those who were out for a post-work drink drift out as a new audience comes in – those who deliberately got dressed up, ready for a good dance to a setlist of entirely generic Dad rock. If you’re lucky, it’s summertime. The big windows will be open, spilling the sound of clinking glasses and easy, relaxed conversation onto the high street as it gradually turns gold in the sinking sun. This is the setting in which I’ve spent countless nights since the age of 13 and it is the setting in which I have derived the most joy. I’ve been attending my dad’s gigs since I could toddle around, but only became a regular frequenter as a tween. Since then, the circle of attendees who come along with my brother and I has steadily grown, and we await the wonderous day when there’s a Facebook event announced, and my WhatsApp group chat erupts with gifs of sirens captioned “GIG” and reactions of “YAAASS.” We trot off to north London and prepare ourselves for a night of shouting, hugging, dancing, general euphoria and a hell of a lot of sweating (those lights are murder).

I wasn’t joking when I said that the setlist is generic. I keep using that word, not because my vocabulary has shrunk since my time at university, but because it truly, truly is. Lonely Boy. 3 songs by the Killers, sometimes 4. Muse. Play That Funky Music, Superstition. That’s not even all of it. It’s a session musician’s nightmare. And it is brilliant.

The dancing begins in staggered shifts. In a pre-socially distanced world, my friends and I would sit like sardines in a tin, all bobbing and shoulder dancing to Rock the Casbah. There’s always one random punter who’s had a bit too much to drink by 8:30 and proudly occupies the whole dance floor with an incredibly expressive interpretation of Take Me Out. They tend to disappear into thin air by the fourth song, finally freeing up the space for the rest of us. By then, a few brave women have started dancing on the fringes of the floor, and then once Two Princes kicks in, I’m up and off. The second set is always the best – the old favourites come out, the alcohol is taking effect, the dancefloor grows more crowded and the temperature starts to climb. My brother usually does a stint on Play That Funky Music and takes about 20 minutes to get through the solo, with everyone looking at their watches by the end of it. Finally, my dad gets into a specific position, foot up on a speaker, hand contorted into an abysmal chord shape, and we all know what’s coming. There are a few eye rolls but mostly screams of joy before the roof is shaken by the collective “coming out of my cage and I’ve been doing JUST FINE…”

By the time the climactic screaming of Chelsea Dagger has subsided, you’re utterly exhausted. Gasping for water, your feet are killing you, your back is begging for mercy and your face is shiny with sweat, a few stray hairs stuck to your forehead. All you want is to sit down.

And then Sweet Caroline starts.

Momentarily replenished by this musical shot of adrenaline, you find it from somewhere deep within your soul (and diaphragm) to hack out one more. Then that really is it. Your vocal cords are shredded. You can barely stand up, and the best part is that you’ve got a grin the width of North America plastered across your face. Staggering to the bar, you all order a pint of water (ice is essential here) and make your way to the cold, sweet relief of the street outside. You then spend half an hour standing around with your friends, catching your breath, making a fuss about how hot it is inside, and shouting at each other because your ears are ringing. You always end up staying outside for fifteen minutes too long so that by the time you’ve finished moaning about how hot you are, it’s time to moan about how cold you are and you all traipse back inside to warm up.

A gig in a pub isn’t a monumental event. Five blokes in a band getting the words wrong to Get Lucky or missing the introduction to Town Called Malice isn’t exactly Queen-at-Wembley-Stadium calibre. It’s not meant to be. That doesn’t mean it isn’t special.

Everyone has their own set of stresses. But for one evening every once in a while, a load of people with their individual sets of stresses gathers under one roof, buys a drink and maybe has a couple too many. They leave their worries at the door on the way in, and they sing and shout and dance like it’s the end of the world. Nobody is thinking about the next day, when you’ll be speaking at least two octaves lower because you’ll have lost your voice somewhere around Dakota. All that matters is being with friends in that moment and having a laugh.

I’m not oblivious to the state of things, I am in no way glossing over the atrocious events that have happened over the months. What I’m saying is that these circumstances have forced a lifestyle shift, and a mindset shift along with it. Namely, an appreciation for the smaller things and the acknowledgement that nobody has their lives completely together. Nobody has got it sorted, that isn’t how it works. You’re not meant to. What matters is having friends to laugh with and muddle through it together, focusing on the present and hopefully having a bit of fun along the way.

Hopefully we will soon return to the nights when the only things you have to worry about are whether or not you reckon you can squeeze in a trip to the bathroom before Common People starts, and having a boogie without getting a pint spilled on you.

I’m so excited about this. I love this song SO MUCH. So, SO much. It’s probably the ultimate rock song for me. I can hear the sharpening of pitchforks as I cower in my corner awaiting the slew of “wHaT aB0uT b0hEMiAn rHaPS0dY” and woe betide anyone who dare approacheth, attempting to sing the praises of Stairway to Heaven, Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing or anything, anything by Biffy Clyro. When I say that Stay is the ultimate rock song, I mean in terms of the ingredients that have gone into it – you can stand down.

When I first discovered this song, I nearly wept over how perfect it is. The introduction? That beat? The sudden mental overhaul from stressed London commuter to fan-blown, leather-trouser-wearing frontman whilst walking down Marylebone Road in the dark? It’s almost too much even from the first few seconds. You just know it’s going to be good when there’s a strut-worthy introduction.

Dann Huff did not need to go that hard. Providing not only a blistering solo but also delivering a vocal performance which is equal parts power, range, rasp. Rounding it off with that high note at the end makes it the singing equivalent of a well-balanced meal.

“Won’t you stay till the end/Don’t walk away tonight.” This melodic line is reinforced by the drums dropping out before the vocals return on the upbeat in the last chorus. It’s the most satisfying part of the song, made more effective because it’s the only time this happens throughout the track. The end of the song builds from there, culminating with the backing vocals, Huffy’s high note, the solo, it’s just sublime.

The video? Dann Huff wearing a hairband that looks like one of those ones you can buy nowadays with the mullet attached? Shot on a beach, with a plot that makes absolutely no sense? Flitting between black and white and colour? The ripped jeans, leather waistcoats, pouty faces? Magnificent.

In all seriousness, Giant really, really do not get enough credit. They just happened to come along right as hair metal was having its face rubbed in the dirt by grunge. Stay is from the band’s second album, Time to Burn. The first, Last of the Runaways (1989), contains similar masterpieces, notably It Takes Two and I’ll See You in My Dreams. Time to Burn also gives us I’ll Be There (When It’s Over), which has, among many of the excellent qualities I’ve also attributed to Stay, a frankly excellent key change. By that, I don’t mean 80s hair metal excellent, I am in fact talking about a genuinely good key change.

There’s no bravado, no stupid outfits, nor does a fog of drugs and chaos suspend itself over the heads of Giant like it did those of the bands rolling, crazed and wild, off the Sunset Strip in the late 80s. Whether or not Giant were melodic rock or hair metal made no difference, as it was all destined to be swallowed by the rise of Pearl Jam and the globalisation of Nirvana. It doesn’t mean it isn’t still a shame that a new decade of music threw out the baby with the bathwater and a band like Giant never stood a chance.

I’ll be honest – the main reason I like this song is because it’s featured in Notting Hill, my favourite film. Aside from imbuing me with images of Portobello Road, the Ritz, the escapism of a romantic love story and the frankly laughable notion of ever being able to afford to live in London, it’s a great song.

The song is about a man missing a woman. Lots of songs are about men missing women. However, to say that the sun itself stops shining when his love interest leaves is an incredibly powerful concept if you think about it hard enough. The feeling that a single person can make the sun shine simply by existing is a beautiful, beautiful notion. Naturally, the idea of such a strong love mirrors the depth of sadness at the departure of the love interest. The song remains on the right side of sentiment, perfect for a romantic comedy which isn’t saturated with saccharine clichés. “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone/And this house just ain’t no home/Anytime she goes away.” It also perfectly fits Julia Roberts’ character, Anna, and her inconsistent appearance in Hugh Grant’s life.

Love isn’t complicated. Yes, it creates a 3-bird roast of a whirlwind wrapped inside a hurricane wrapped inside an earthquake within us, but those are the side effects, if you will. You realise you feel for someone, and suddenly your mind goes into overdrive with worries, thoughts, insecurities, excitement, nervousness. Meanwhile, love is just sitting there, filing its nails and watching the fireworks.

Ain’t No Sunshine distils the experience of love and heartbreak down to its basic fundamentals. There is no climactic point in the song. No melismatic scale-climbing typical of many soul or blues artists. Sometimes, however, understated is more effective. The song eschews a sense of dramatic catharsis and allows an engagement with the depth of the words.

It almost mirrors the famous scene from Notting Hill – Julia Roberts stands in a bookshop with a creaky wooden floor in front of Hugh Grant and simply states “I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.” Sometimes the soft, uncomplicated declaration can more deeply convey what we feel than the most dramatic and embellished of performances. Someone smiles at you and your sun comes out. See? Simple.

I adore this song. I love the comparison of physical attributes to nature; it’s a somewhat rare thing to come by in more modern songs. I can’t think of many, the only other one that comes to mind is (They Long to Be) Close to You by the Carpenters. “The first time ever I saw your face/I thought the sun rose in your eyes.” What a lyric. As if the sheer audacity of Ewan MacColl wasn’t apparent by this line alone, the rest of the song is as fluid and poetic as the rhythms of the natural world itself.

The melodic intonation is the key part of the entire song for me and makes the song soar, but not in the way that other soul singers may have done it. The music is demure, stripped to only a piano, barely-there strings, acoustic guitar and bass. Yet the vocal performance perfectly walks the line of complimenting the tone of the song and lifting it to simply ethereal heights with no dramatic flairs necessary. That warmth successfully creates the vocal equivalent of an embrace filled with a pure, glowing sense of love.

The entire song is such a delicate declaration, yet there is infinite power behind those words. Like a single hair holding up a skyscraper. There is strength in that beautiful fragility. Anybody who’s felt that will know the love that manifests itself in gentle, tender ways, but also that this gentleness comes from a white-hot, unyielding foundation rooted seemingly at the centre of the Earth. Where else does the power to love someone so ferociously come from?

This review was published in the May issue of Classic Rock magazine, no. 274.

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Storm Dennis who? Immerse yourself in the easy, breezy rhythms of Young Gun Silver Fox’s 2020 instalment.

Opening track Kids is an ode to vintage nostalgia, evoking images of West Coast sun and hopelessly aesthetic American convertibles. The duo’s staple harmonies take centre stage on Who Needs Words, and a horn section manages never to overpower the clean guitar and smooth, funk undertone. Overlapping backing vocals create a beautiful melodic curtain in Long Distance Love Affair; Danny Jamaica, about the friendly neighbourhood weed dealer, is upbeat and energetic, the antithesis of piano ballad All This Love (“Just tell me, what am I supposed to do with all this love cause it’s going to waste.”) Along with Things We Left Unsaid, the closing numbers of the record are soulful tales entwined with wistful regret and the gentlest of vocals.

Canyons departs from the lightness of West End Coast and AM Waves, showcasing heavier synths. A tour-de-force of contemporary yacht rock, Andy Platts and Shawn Lee have successfully continued their revival of a bygone era in the most sophisticated of ways – a spectacular record.

9/10

This review was published in the March 2019 issue of Classic Rock magazine, no. 260.

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Twelve years’ worth of melodic rock crammed into one box set, and then some.

You Can Tune a Piano but You Can’t Tuna Fish was the warmup for REO Speedwagon, and this re-release offers additional tracks Piano Interlude and 157 Riverside Avenue, the biggest hit from their 1971 debut record. Going through three lead vocalists before hitting their stride paid off by 1980, when Kevin Cronin returned for Hi Infidelity, the album from which mainstream success and four hit singles were drawn. A whole CD is dedicated to Fidelity bonus tracks, including unheard demos – such gems include Someone Tonight and a very special Keep On Loving You: the Reggae Edition – make of that what you will. Rest assured, 1987’s Life As We Know It hides no secret country renditions of Can’t Fight This Feeling, nor a thrash metal Gotta Feel More, though both short and long edits of the latter lurk among the last few numbers. The ninth instalment of this monster box set ties together the golden age of Speedwagon: an extended Live, 1980-1990, showcasing their greatest hits and reaffirming REO’s clout as a live act.

With every song in almost every variation, The Classic Years delivers all fans could possibly want, and more – and more on top of that.

8/10

This review was published in the January 2019 issue of Classic Rock magazine, no. 258.

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The album Mumford and Sons would make if they suffered a deep, personal tragedy.

If I’m Crazy portrays the oft-overlooked, torturous side of love, a pain clearly portrayed through the Devil’s voice. First Day of the End of My Life exhibits but one example of the astonishingly dark lyrics – ‘I took years to find a meaningful and peaceful place to die,’ and Preacher Feature combines Leonard Cohen’s poetry with Johnny Cash’s southern twang, all with a decent portion of lost hope.

The acoustic, Southern gothic style doesn’t showcase Brad Wilk’s drumming; Ross Robinson’s excellent production emphasises the ardent misery of the entire record. If you’ve lost your keys or missed the bus, don’t listen to it. If everything you love is suddenly consumed by blazing fire and destruction, be my guest.

5/10

This review was published in the December 2018 issue of Classic Rock magazine, no. 256.

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A Robben Ford album on which the guitar does not take centre stage.

Tangle With Ya is heavier than expected, whereas Empty Handed is sultry, rich in acoustic twang and Southern imagery (“West Virginia bound, I never heard the sound of her frustration”). Shemekia Copeland provides guest vocals on Break In the Chain, although it’s a shame that she didn’t have a more substantial song on which to showcase her evident talent. Wild Honey is reminiscent of our short-lived, world-cup-heatwave portion of the summer (“Raise up my window, feel the beautiful breeze”). Travis McCready’s vocals on Somebody’s Fool ease the song into full-on blues rock territory, while Drew Smithers’ solo in Willing to Wait has a distant quality, as if recorded among the rock formations of Monument Valley.

With emphasis on songwriting and the faultless production talents of Casey Wasner, this album brilliantly combines Southern drawl, just enough distortion and the recognisable Ford solos that we all love him for.

8/10

At the end of October, I toddled off to see Tony Hadley at the Manchester Opera House, and reviewed the gig for the Mancunion, our university’s newspaper. The following review was subsequently published on the paper’s website here: https://mancunion.com/2018/10/31/live-review-tony-hadley-a-night-at-the-opera-house/

 

Tony Hadley has left life in Spandau Ballet behind to embark on a solo tour with a new album, Talking to the Moon, from which he performed several original songs, as well as some classic Spandau ‘gold’ (see what I did there) at Manchester Opera House on the 13^th October.

The show opened with the superbly energetic Take Back Everything, the first track of the new album. Whilst receiving a very good reception, it was clear that most of the audience were there primarily for the classics. This theory was proven by the unmistakable synthesised introduction to Spandau’s To Cut a Long Story Short; the atmosphere of the hall turned on a dime, the entire audience were suddenly on their feet, dancing in the aisles, screaming, and having a ball all round. The clear difference in attitude towards songs new and old was not a problem for our host. During a break between songs, Hadley acknowledged the wide-ranging desire to hear Spandau Ballet’s eighties classics, and graciously obliged whilst also appreciating the very warm reception of the new album, a reception which only grew stronger the more originals he performed. These included Skin Deep, a ballad about inner beauty, which Hadley related to the age of social media and the current climate of obsession around physical and superficial beauty, Accident Waiting to Happen and Killer Blow, both providing a punchier, more intense antithesis to the softer tone of Skin Deep.

And then came the classics. Peppered throughout the set were the songs that made Spandau Ballet an eighties sensation. Through the Barricades featured the powerhouse vocals of percussionist Lily Gonzalez, Round and Round, Only When You Leave, Chant No. 1, Lifeline and Highly Strung all featured maximum audience participation, as did a stripped back, acoustic rendition of I’ll Fly for You. A surprise anomaly came next in the shape of Queen’s Somebody To Love, and whilst it wasn’t quite Mercury-standard, it was yet more proof that age has in no way had an affect on Hadley’s voice. The set concluded with the ever-beautiful True. After two minutes of teasing, the audience becoming rowdier and rowdier with requests for One More Song, their wishes were granted with the long-awaited Gold, followed by the closing track of Talking to the Moon, entitled What Am I?, a semi-autobiographical ballad with personal sentiment regarding Hadley’s decision to leave Spandau Ballet. As the cheering died down, the night ended with a rendition of Sinatra’s That’s Life, momentarily transforming Manchester Opera House into a 1930s New York jazz club.

Any artist worries about audience reception to new music. Of all of them, Tony Hadley needn’t concern himself in the slightest; I have rarely been to a concert where the artist was wrapped in such a warm, accepting and encouraging atmosphere. Every song was like an encore – these were fans who had grown up with Spandau Ballet’s music and given Tony Hadley’s very apparent credentials as all-round Lovely Man, and his gift for showmanship, there was no danger of his new album being greeted with anything less than sheer joy, a joy which stems from an all-encompassing love for the artist himself. Tony Hadley has still got it, and he’s got the fans to match.