With the country still in the midst of lockdown and no sign of any live music in the foreseeable future if at all this year I thought I would take the opportunity to look back in the archives, sounds posh I know but it’s just an spreadsheet, and revisit gigs I attended on this day down the years.
May is typically a very busy month for gigs being part of the usual album release cycle and today is no exception with four for my trip down memory lane for you down the years.
1991, Julian Cope, Brixton Fridge, London
Another long trip down memory lane with just John and myself venturing to South London for this gig. This was Cope at his most esoteric and certainly unpredictable. It was the tour when he had the microphone stand that he stood on and it swivelled into the crowd. Much use of this was made during the set along with him I’m sure climbing the speaker riser at the side of the stage and jumping off. It was the Peggy Suicide tour and the set draws largely from that album but of course there’s room for his ‘hit ‘World shut your mouth’ and the great ‘Space hopper’. It was a crazy night on and off stage with the crowd absolutely crazy at points. Sadly it will be a long time till we see any kind of mosh pit again.
2002 Dolly Varden, 12 Bar Club, London
Another sadly departed venue in London’s Tin Pan Alley, the 12 Bar. If you’ve never been it’s the weird venue. It’s tiny with a very low celling so if you are downstairs you cannot see the head of the performer and if you’re upstairs you can’t see below their waist.
Dolly Varden are predominantly husband and wife duo Steve Dawson and Dianne Christianson. They specialise in glorious harmonic songs with their beautifully complementing voices sharing vocal duties. I actually got talking to Dianne before this gig when she asked where the bathroom was. There followed a chat about transatlantic words that haven’t crossed the ocean in either direction and the fact we call it a toilet.
This tour would have been for ‘Forgiven Now’ which is up there with their best in my opinion ‘The Dumbest Magnets’ and again it’s the three amigos for this one. A great show, ignoring the optics, of Americana/country at its best.
2013 Josh Rouse, Islington Assembly Hall, London
We have been going to see Josh Rouse since back in ’01 at the Borderline and since that time he has produced a number of my favourite albums. ‘1972’ and the corresponding tour were absolute high points for me. This time around he is back with ‘The Happiness Waltz’ tour. The set takes in tracks from down his career and it’s a fine show but sadly for Josh everything will always be compared to a Dingwalls shows which is right up in my all-time favourites.
2014 Jason Isbell, Electric Ballroom, London
I wrote effusively about this gig at the time here. I have often written about the joy of sharing new music and artists with my friends. I put this night down as my finest moment. They say there is nothing like the first time and that is no truer than when you see St Paul and The Broken Bones for the first time. It’s not normal for us to catch support acts but I had got their debut album and so dragged the whole crew, probably seven of us, that night to see them open up for Isbell. It’s safe to say we were all blown away. They say don’t judge a book by its cover and if you see a picture of singer Paul Janeway he looks like an overweight Alan Carr but man what a voice. It’s a stunning 30 odd minute set that dares Isbell to better it. Put simply Isbell does just that, but of course he does. He had recently released his masterpiece ‘Southeastern’ so the set draws heavily from this and so what could go wrong. Nothing and this night is still one of the greatest nights in a music venue not just in the last twenty years but in my nearly forty years of gig going. Though unlikely, fingers crossed his gigs in November still go ahead.
That’s it for today’s trip down memory lane. Here’s hoping we can get to some form of normality soon. Support your small local venues and smaller artists in these difficult times, stay safe and keep on rockin y’all.