ARGENT

GIG: Argent

DATE: Saturday 4^th February 2012

VENUE: O2 Academy (Shepherds Bush Empire), Shepherds Bush Green, London

COST: £25.00 plus the usual extortionate booking fees!

OUR VERDICT: Heads Held High

www.rodargent.com

www.russ-ballard.de

Although it was snowing when we headed out to London’s Shepherds Bush Empire, we were determined not to miss this gig – the last night of a short, six date UK tour with the original members, Rod Argent (vocals and keyboards/organ), Russ Ballard (vocals & guitar), Bob Henrit (drums) and Jim Rodford (bass).

The flakes had trebled in size and were coming down steadily by the time we reached Shepherds Bush Green. We could see the queue outside the Empire (or O2 Academy as it is now called!!!) as we did a circuit of the green in order to find a suitable side road to leave the car.

The show was scheduled to kick off at 8pm, with tonight’s support act, Martin Turner’s Wishbone Ash, who gave us the best part of an hour filled with their melodic rock. Their set had a blend of harmonies with loads of guitar and Danny Wilson’s nimble finger work on his lovely PRS really shone through tonight (he was wasted in Showaddywaddy!).

Argent took to the stage right on time, and hearing the opening to “The Coming of Kohoutek” we settled in for a great night of rock. The set was the same as that just over a year ago when we saw this superb band in the Forum in Kentish Town (refer to our blog from Dec 2010).

The opener was just a smidgen of the song however, a bit of a teaser, before the band went into “It’s Only Money Parts 1 & 2” with Russ Ballard on fine form on guitar and vocals. Minty was happy as our seats were front row, right in front of Russ so she could sit and gawp! J

Rod Argent

Rod Argent then took the lead vocal on “Keep On Rolling” and “Rejoice” and then there was a fab primal drum beat from Bob Henrit for “Dance Of Ages” which included Rod performing his usual magic on his Hammond and Kurzweil (as he did throughout the whole gig).

“Be Free” swiftly followed and then “Sweet Mary” with Rod on lead vocal and some nifty guitar work from Russ included.

“Liar” sounded brilliant and then Russ introduced his favourite song that Rod had written at the tender age of just seventeen – “She’s Not There”, on which Rod played a sweet piano solo for the introduction.

Next up, Russ went to the other side of the stage and took up position by the keyboards to melt our ears with “I Don’t Believe In Miracles” which just gave goosebumps all over it was that good.

Russ Ballard sings "I Don't Believe In Miracles"

“Since You’ve Been Gone” was a particular favourite of Minty’s, when it was a hit by Rainbow. Hearing Russ sing it, is nothing short of brilliant and his guitar intro was awesome.

The night ended with two songs that perhaps Argent are really best known for, “Hold your Head Up” which Rod and Jim sometimes features in their shows with the Zombies, and then “God Gave Rock & Roll To You”.

A great way to end the night – on a total high.

Russ came to the front of the stage to shake hands with some of the audience who were still giving a standing ovation, which included Brian. Russ recognised him, and had a quick word with him which really made The Beeb’s night.

Russ Ballard recognises The Beeb

There was no hanging around afterwards, as the snow had continued to fall during the show which left a treacherous journey home…. taking two and a half hours to cover the 19 mile distance!

The venue had not been a sell-out (indeed we learned the Cardiff show from a couple of nights before had been cancelled), and with the hazardous weather, we suspect some ticket holders had not made the journey into London but those who did seemed to enjoy themselves. We certainly did.

The Flaming Cortinas

Gig: The Flaming Cortinas
Date: Saturday 21st January 2012
Venue: The White Hart Pub, High Street, Old Town, Hemel Hempstead
Cost: all free
Verdict: Flaming great

THE ZOMBIES

GIG: The Zombies 50th Anniversary Tour
DATE: Sunday 27^th November 2011

VENUE: Alban Arena, St Peters Street, St Albans, Herts

COST: £22.50 plus the usual extortionate booking fees! 
OUR VERDICT: The boys come home

www.thezombies.net

www.colinblunstone.co.uk

www.rodargent.com

We’ve seen the touring Zombies many times, and the reformed Zombies (with the four original surviving members) for the Odessy & Oracle Tour a couple of times, but have never seen The Zombies on their home turf. Fifty years since their first gig, the band was back in St Albans playing to a very appreciative, sell-out crowd (which included Rod’s mum!).

This show was the touring Zombies, with Rod Argent (keyboards and vocals), Colin Blunstone (vocals), Jim Rodford (bass), Steve Rodford (drums) and we were seeing the new guitarist Tom Toomey for the first time.

The set was a mixture of old Zombie classics and many new songs from their recent CD, “Breathe Out, Breathe In” and also included some Colin Blunstone solo tracks, such as “What Becomes Of the Broken Hearted” and some Argent songs, “Hold Your Head Up”, and “God Gave Rock & Roll To You”.

Colin Blunstone’s vocals just get stronger and stronger with time, and how he holds that final note for the time he does at the end of “Say You Don’t Mind”, we’ll never know. Flawless is the way we would describe his vocal performance tonight. Rod was right at home behind his Hammond and Kurzweil organs and delivered some stellar vocals too.

A real highlight was Tom’s guitar solo at the end of Colin’s big hit “Old and Wise.” It would have given Dave Gilmour a run for his money. The Beeb can’t remember the last time he heard a better solo.

For the Odessy & Oracle tracks, the audience were really happy to see founder members Hugh Grundy and Chris White join the band on stage, and with Chris’ wife, Viv adding some excellent vocal harmonies, we let some of the O&O songs tingle our ears. It was great to see the guys back together again as a special one-off in the town where it all started fifty years ago……..

“She’s Not There” ended the main part of the night but the audience would not let The Zombies off the hook so quickly and they bade us farewell with the sultry “Summertime”, which had also been used as the main intro music to a recent BBC4 documentary about the Gershwin song.

PAUL MERTON

GIG: Paul Merton - Work In Progress
DATE: Saturday 26^th November 2011
VENUE: Old Town Hall, High Street, Hemel Hempstead
COST: £10.00 and no booking fee
OUR VERDICT: 

BARB JUNGR

GIG: Barb Jungr sings Dylan
DATE: Saturday 12^th November 2011
VENUE: Old Town Hall, High Street, Hemel Hempstead, Herts
COST: £12.00 and no booking fee
OUR VERDICT: Dylan-esque

www.bargjungr.com

The Old Town Hall in Hemel Hempstead is a very intimate venue – seating only about 120 bods. And those 120 seats were filled with a discerning audience, who came to listen to Barb (and her pianist Jenny’s light tinkling of the ivories), share with us her personal interpretation of Dylan’s songs, and also hear some of the wonderful tales Barb shared.

Barb’s love of Dylan and her knowledge of the songs and Bob’s history shone throughout the show. Infused with a bit of jazz and blues, we were treated to Dylan’s catalogue, such as “It Ain’t Me Babe”, “Times They Are A-Changin’”, and “Blind Willie McTell”. All the songs were sung with a passion that was so evident.

At the same time, we were educated in the history of all things Dylan. Just a couple of the many educational insights were tales of Dylan’s time with Joan Baez and we learned that “Sarah” had been written as a result of going through a divorce with his wife.

Ending on “Forever Young”, the show was over, but Barb was gracious with her time after the show to meet those of the audience that waited for 10 minutes for so. We feel that Barb would be contented signing nothing but Dylan!

The Beeb met the wonderful Barb Jungr after the gig

ALICE COOPER

GIG: Alice Cooper, Halloween Night of Fear with support from the New York Dolls
DATE: Saturday 29^th October 2011
VENUE: Alexandra Palace, London, NW2 7AY
COST: £34.50 plus extortionate service fee of £5.25/ticket PLUS the luxury of having to print our own tickets!!!!
OUR VERDICT: Ghouls gone wild

Links:
www.alicecooper.com

The Beeb is Ghouled!

The entrance to Alexandra Palace was adorned with monster paraphernalia, and ghouls and zombies awaited us as we filed in, each trying to spook the crowd.

Inside were more ghouls and zombies who were part of the show, alongside a mixture of normally dressed people and those who had really dressed for the occasion, in fancy dress, characters from Alice Cooper’s vast back catalogue and even some Alice lookalikes. First time we’ve been to a concert and felt under-dressed!

The gig was all standing and as the hall was so massive, two large screens were hoisted in the air right and left of the stage so if you couldn’t see through the throng of big heads and tall people, you could always see the live action on the screens!

Earl Slick

We had wandered through to the main hall not long after the New York Dolls started their set. The sound was very clear, and although they didn’t have a massive stage presence, the Dolls sounded really good. The Beeb was well impressed that long time David Bowie guitarist Earl Slick was part of the band.

Minty was not really familiar with this band, but they have a good rock sound, a bit of harmonica thrown in every now and then, and one of the guitarists had a lovely gold Gretsch! They did manage to play their whole set without breaking sweat. They’re built for more up close and intimate venues rather than arenas.

The New York Dolls

Their set ended and we had a 45 minute wait while, behind the Alice Cooper stage curtain, the gear was set up for the Halloween Night of Fear. We had worked our way through the masses of bodies by this point, and found a tiny bit of unoccupied space about twenty five metres from the stage.

The Stage Curtain

The heat from the bodies packed into the immediate area around us was overwhelming and about five minutes before Alice’s show began, right  beside us one very tall gentleman had just taken his leather jacket off  then passed out cold, giving everyone around him a bit of a fright as he just fell backwards and hit the floor hard! Within seconds he had recovered, thankfully. The first thing he did was asked where his jacket was. The Beeb told him he had it, then gave him it back saying the pockets were empty!

The Black Widow

So the lights went down and a Vincent Price voiceover introduced the show……. The curtain was dropped and Alice was there, dressed in black and orange, centre stage at the top of a set of steps so everyone, no matter how tall or small, how close or far, could see him, with sparklers in the palm of his hand while his did his first song “Black Widow”. What a start!

His set was a bit of a greatest hits show, with “Billion Dollar Babies”, “I’m Eighteen”, “No More Mr Nice Guy”, “Hey Stoopid” and “Poison” complimenting his visual artistry. Alice Cooper is definitely a true performer. “Only Women Bleed” was really fantastic, singing along to ‘Cold Ethel’ his toy doll.

 

When it was time for a change of costume, he left the stage, leaving the bass player and drummer to keep the beat going….. and they did! An extended drum solo and the crowd encouraged to reprise the “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey”  from “Hey Stoopid” kept the pace up for about ten minutes before Alice came back on the stage this time dressed in black and white.

 

To introduce one of his new songs, “I’ll Bite Your Face Off” he came on stage wearing a jacket that had “New Song” splayed across the back, just so we all knew it was exactly that!!

There were the expected shockers: early in the show he brought his friendly snake on stage, wrapped around his neck, and towards the end of the show, we saw Alice being beheaded and then the executioner drinking his blood and spitting it out into the crowd!

The last song of the main set was the cult classic, “School’s Out” which everyone in the crowd shouting along with and which morphed into a superb rendition of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.

Elected

There was an encore, “Elected” where Alice came back on stage in a ring master coat and Top Hat, carrying a huge Union Jack Flag and then a Halloween guest appearance from Arthur Brown, who gave an energetic performance of his classic hit “Fire,” complete with huge flames engulfing the head-dress he was wearing. We feel it got a bit hot under the collar for him and there was a spot of difficulty in removing the head-dress at the appointed time!!!

Arthur Brown & Alice share a laugh at the end of the show

It took a while to file out of the hall and by the time we joined the queue to pick up our pre-ordered copy of the 3-CD set recording of the show, it had extended way back to the end of the hall! The queue did move quickly though and before long were on our way, CD in hand and talking about how great the show had been.

It’s hard to believe that Mary Whitehouse and her ilk were up in arms when Alice first came on the scene here. What Alice cooper really is, is just the biggest and best and truly entertaining pantomime villain there has ever been. Oh, a pantomime villain with a great back catalogue of songs that is.

Alice certainly has his dedicated fans. There was a really wide age range in the audience, and you could tell different ages had their own particular favourite song eras. We can’t think any other gig where so many people came specially dressed for the occasion. Some of the costumes were amazing.

The Beeb has been waiting for forty years to see this man perform and he was on a high (or maybe just a bit lightheaded from the headshaking to the music!!!).

Two let downs of the night:

The company running the bars have dodgy practices. We bought 2 bottles of Pepsi and as we were not allowed to take bottles into the hall, the contents were poured into paper cups for us by the bar staff. Well, they poured about two thirds of each bottle into cups and then handed the cups over. When I pointed out we had paid for two bottles and I therefore I expected the FULL contents of those bottles to be in the cups, they were a bit incredulous!!!!

The representatives of the company selling the 3-CD recording of that night’s show told us that if we didn’t pre-order and waited instead until after the show to buy the CD, the chances are we would lose out and not get a copy. We were a bit miffed that as soon as we walked out, we could have purchased the said CD directly from the girls flogging them, instead of waiting in the extremely lengthy Q to get our pre-ordered copy. Also, you can order the CD directly on their website even if you never went to the show. Hmmm, questionable practices to secure your money upfront, especially as they would have known they were also making the CD available to buy on on line!

GLEN CAMPBELL

GIG: Glen Campbell
DATE: Saturday 22^nd October 2011
VENUE: Royal Festival Hall, South Bank, London
COST: £42.50 (no fee as were members)
RATING: Thank You and Good Bye

Links:

www.glencampbellmusic.com

www.instantpeoplemusic.com

This show was a sell-out, and the RFH had even opened up the choir section behind the stage to cram more people in!

Instant People opened up the night’s proceedings – a 5 piece band, 3 of who (we were later to find out)  were siblings and had the Campbell name…. they were Glen’s children. They were actually really good – the banjo playing keyboardist was Glen’s daughter Ashley, the Ovation guitar player was his son, as was the drummer (safely caged behind Perspex!). The main lead in the group was not a family member but he had a very fine strong voice. The bassist was a mite annoying with a chicken walk and he kept coming off his perch, and then got his lead tangled!

Their style of music can best be described as hypnotic groove and are not unlike the band ‘Grand Drive’ (which includes three brothers called Wilson!) with acoustics and some good harmony.

After a short interval, Instant People were back on stage, this time as Glen’s band. When he walked onto the stage the place erupted, he had a standing ovation and he hadn’t even uttered a single word! His opening number was “Gentle On My Mind” and by the second song, “Galveston”, The Beeb had reached for the hankies. This was going to be a very emotional evening.

Glen has not lost his sense of humour, striking a pose for the press photographers, imitating Elvis during “It’s Only Make Believe” and doing Donald duck impressions! Years of entertaining audiences became clear early on, and the way he moved around the stage showed incredible understanding of how to reach out to everyone there.

His daughter challenged him to a duel, and what we got was “Duelling Banjos.” with her on banjo and him on guitar and what we got was a few minutes of bluegrass delight! No wonder Glen was such a successful session musician – he has not lost any of his finger work on a guitar!!!

Glen left the stage while his kids introduced the band (The Beeb was quite taken with the drummer’s middle name being Caledonia!)… which included his long term keyboardist, T.J. Kuenster, who also seemed to be the musical director and then the band did a lovely cover of one of Glen’s songs, “Hey, Little One”.

Glen came back on stage and gave us “Ghost On The Canvas”, the title track from his new album, which sounded superb. The next set of songs included “Southern Nights” and then he said that if it wasn’t for Jimmy Webb he probably wouldn’t be here doing this right now…. and The Beeb just melted when the first chords of “Wichita Linesman” were played. Without a doubt, one of his top five songs of all time.

The final song was “Rhinestone Cowboy” which had the 4000 strong audience singing along, and Glen, understandably seemed to really love and appreciate this.

As he left the stage, the applause was thunderous and it wasn’t long before he was back in front of the microphone for two final songs, “In My Arms” and the incredibly moving “A Better Place” before he really did mean, “Thank you and goodbye”.

This was a particularly emotional night for The Beeb, because Glen Campbell has always been a particular favourite of his from way back in the sixties, but never got the chance to see him live. The Beeb has always appreciated a good voice.

So, a poignant evening, knowing that after this tour Glen will never hang up his guitar, and no matter what the future holds for him he’ll always have his music to help him on the rest of life’s journey.