Band: B Movie Heroes Venue: Trillions Rock Bar, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK Date: 4 June 2001
Listed only as '+ Support' this treat to the old eardrums came to town and
played with all they had.
Rather shocking was the poor turnout tonight but that may have had
something to do with the poor promotion the bands were given for tonight's
gig. Never the less although they weren't performing to a packed room by
any stretch of the imagination they came on and they gave us one hell of a
set.
Looking more like
a bunch of jailbirds with their short haircuts and dodgy clothes they
stormed the stage and proceeded to impress the crowd with the powerful and
very tuneful delivery of their songs.
They looked young, they looked cheeky, and in fact the drummer Scott
Garrett looks about 12 years old. But don't be fooled by these chaps they
totally rock big time!
It was easy to compare their sound to the likes of The Wildhearts with
their biting guitar riffs and also Blink 182 because quite a few of their
songs had that rock/pop feel to them and sat nicely between the two.
Having been billed as the support act they were still the last band to hit
the stage and it was Dr Zhivago, sorry that should be Johnny Zhivago
(although that's not what it said on the flyers!) that ended up playing
support to these lads.
The bass guitarist David Halloran jokingly asked the band if they were in
fact DR's and said that he had a little something that needed looking at
if they were! In fact the band actually made quite a joke about being a
comedy band and said they often had people laugh at them.
This statement could be taken out of context and mistakenly taken as
coming from a band that make people laugh as they have no, or very little
talent. With The B* Movie Heroes this is most definitely not the case,
make no mistake about it.
You could tell quite easily which genre of rock they were coming from and
who would be into their good time style of rock n' roll. Hardly surprising
to find out that they were going to be supporting none other than Silver
Ginger 5 the following week.
I'm sure they will attract a lot of new fans and reach a much wider
audience by doing that support tour. SG5 fans will love them to bits, mark
my words.
If the main
singer/guitarist looked a bit familiar then that was because it was none
other than Neil Phillips fresh from The Yo-Yo's fame. The band actually
reformed earlier this year after Neil returned from his stint with hugely
popular band The Yo-Yo's.
That was one band that should have stuck with it a bit longer but decided
to call it a day much to the disappointment to a lot of people.
However! Never fear! B* Movie Heroes is here! They rock in much the same
vein and keep all the fun and happy rock and smirk feeling with their
songs that his last band were famous for.
The fourth member of the band was the wonderfully charming Dean McCreadie
on guitar. All three guitarists took it in turns to sing and they all had
really impressive voices.
I always think it's such an added bonus if you have more than one person
who can sing in tune in a band, but to have 3 is just a blessing. It gives
a band so much more depth and variety and also the members to each play
the front man part at some time during the gig.
Stops any ego's getting too big which is always a danger in rock bands
these days. These guys looked really good together, they sounded fantastic
and they all looked like they were having a good time, which is good for
both them and the people watching them.
The band had a 3 song CD available and joked that everyone should buy it
as it was done really professional like and they only made 3 mistakes on
it in total! They then went on to play the aptly named song 'Running on
Empty' which is what they told us their bus was at the minute.
They said if we didn't buy their CD they wouldn't have enough money to buy
some petrol to travel up to Glasgow for the following nights gig.
They finished the set with the song 'Million miles an Hour' which they
said was heavily Dogs D'Amour influenced and was written/dedicated to a
girl from Preston who works in Tesco's.
The start of this particular song sounded a bit like The Who's - Pinball
Wizard and had some immensely wicked guitars in it.
Just as we thought it was all over, as the crowd
screamed out for more, we might have been small in numbers but we were
loud in gobs! They band came back on and did an encore for us which was
that little known rock ditty … Summer of 69! Yeh!
I'm not sure how the band felt the gig had gone that night, but I know the
people who were there all thoroughly enjoyed it and are looking forward to
going to see them in action again next month at The Office in South
Shields. A review of that gig to follow!
What can I say other than if you dig the sound of the bands mentioned
above then check these guys out. At present their gigs are cheap to get in
to, but if they carry on like this they won't be for long!
Setlist:
Science Fiction
The Drug
Give me Tuesday
Simplicated
The Image
Damned if you Do …
Running on Empty
Miles Away
Million miles an Hour Encore:
jailbirds with their short haircuts and dodgy clothes they
stormed the stage and proceeded to impress the crowd with the powerful and
very tuneful delivery of their songs.
