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Monday
nights are never really one of my favourite nights for a gig, but as The
Wildhearts are always in that 'can't miss' category for me, I, er,
couldn't really miss them, could I?
Early on the audience was pretty sparse, (or standing at the very back
of the venue!) which was a shame as a lot of folk either missed /
weren't paying attention to No Americana's canny blend of what I would
call 'hard-Indie' rock. Hailing from Birmingham (the very Brummie
accent of the lead singer gave it away!) this four-piece of young 'uns
who even made me feel old were very energetic during their 20-odd
minute set of 90's influenced Brit-Rock. A look at their MySpace
page reveals that they've only been going for a year or so too.
Probably their best track was the bouncy 'Never Say Never', which closed
their set.
Next up were Black Spiders, a band who I'd been looking forward to
seeing since March when they supported Stone Gods upstairs in the
smaller Academy 2. Their stage presence and sound probably suits
the bigger venues better, being full of HEAVY! Sabbath-y
riffs and slow, stoner-rock type passages, especially on the excellent,
trippy 'Meadow' and 'St Peter'. Their style is also influenced by
AC/DC (a cover of Kicked In The Teeth from 'Powerage' is on their E.P.)
which is reflected in the heavier, faster riffs of 'Jitterbug' and 'Stay
Down'. Black Spiders are one of the best live bands I've seen in a long
time, and hopefully should be headlining venues in the not-too
distant future. Check them out!
Now to The Wildhearts. I'd been reading Ginger's blog on the
band's official website in the days leading up to the gig, and had read
that the set would be split into 2 parts, the first part showcasing all
the tracks from the bands cracking new album 'Chutzpah!', and the rest
of the set being a greatest hits type affair. A note about the
crowd here, I was quite interested to see that it was mainly made up of
older Wildhearts fans who have stuck with the band since their heyday,
mainly fans in their 30s, and also how much room there was to move
around, considering how packed the venue was 2 years ago when the band
last played here. Not that I'm complaining, as I like a bit of
space for air guitar!
The 'Chutzpah' set got an initial muted reaction, and I was surprised to
see that Ginger had to explain a couple of times why the band were
playing the new album in full. Starting off with the 'The Jackson
Whites', the band seemed to lack the ferocity this track has on the
record. However, by the time they got 3 or 4 songs in they were
into their stride, and by the time the crunching 'Tim Smith' was being
belted out 6 songs in, the crowd were starting to love it.
Probably the best performance of this set was the title track,
Ginger barking out his vocals like a man possessed! Unfortunately
it seemed that not a lot of the audience either had the new album or had
had time to digest it, leaving Ginger to call the crowd
"polite" in his blog of the night.
A short break followed before the longest encore ever, starting with the
very appropriate 'Geordie in Wonderland' (lighters in the air time!)
followed by classics such as 'Sick of Drugs', 'I Wanna Go Where The
People Go', 'Nita Nitro', 'My Baby Is A Headfuck' and 'Suckerpunch'.
These sounded better than ever before, certainly the best I'd ever heard
them, the band at its tightest for a long time. Surprisingly we
also got to hear the very poppy 'Someone That Won't Let Me Go' and
'Vanilla Radio' (one of the best sing-a-longs ever!) from the now half a
decade old (!) 'Wildhearts Must Be Destroyed' album.
The night finished off with an excellent rendition of 29 x The Pain,
which left me wondering how the hell that track was only a B-side! A
fantastic night overall, 3 great bands and a great performance of an
album that will go down in history as one of The Wildhearts best.
Review by
Dan Armstrong
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