DATE: Saturday 11th December 2010
VENUE: British Legion, Croxley Green, Watford, Herts
COST: freebie
RATING: Flaming Groovy
This time it is Minty reviewing The Beeb, as he appears with The Flaming Cortinas for their 2nd ever gig with this line-up. The band are a four piece who do 60’s and 70’s covers.
Dressed all in black, with fluorescent ties, the 4 piece takes to their stage and kick off with “Old Time Rock and Roll”. Their 1st set takes you through a bit of Santana and “Black Magic Woman” (with a guest on vocals – I think he is a member of another local band), and amongst others, John Lennon’s “Ballad Of John and Yoko”, T-Rex, Free and The Beatles being “Back in The USSR”. Some people were still wandering into the hall when they did a fantastic rendition of Badfinger’s “No Matter What” and you could see them giving a second look and “strutting” to their tables, singing along. The 1st set was rounded off with a bit of the Big O singing about his “Pretty Woman”. All members of the band, (Mark, Clive, Steve and of course The Beeb) share lead vocals which gave a great mix of voices and fitted the songs in the set just fine.
When The Flaming Cortinas started playing, with the venue being a club, rather than a music venue, most of the audience, who had only just arrived and were seated towards the back, generated an awful lot of background noise as everyone caught up with everyone else’s business. That kind of background buzz can be quite annoying when you are trying to listen to a band play, and it brought back memories of the notices up at London’ Luminere club telling the audience to go outside if they want to talk!!! If only.....
Even the raffle and auction in the interval was hard going, as everyone seemed to ignore the proceedings and carry on with their chatter! It was a wonder that £1,000 was actually raised!
The 2nd set seemed to get more attention, and even had some people up dancing and jiving. Included in the this set, alongside a bit of Bowie’s “Man Who Sold The World” and The Rolling Stones “Jumping Jack Flash”, was a Rock and Roll mix of “Rock Around The Clock”, “Oh Boy”, “Hippy, Hippy Shake” and a rather tremendous version of “Twist and Shout”.
“Living Next Door To Alice” was a bit of a highlight. This is a song not normally found in a covers band’s set and I don’t think the drummer, Clive, heard the back of the room singing along with the alternate version because he gave up on the official version and sang the “naughty” bit instead!!!
The night ended with a medley of “Money” and “Mony, Mony” which went down very well and sounded good and rounded off with the “Hokey Cokey” complete with the dance that accompanies it!!!!
So for a 2nd gig, this was not bad at all. The lighting was not great, so the video I shot had loads of shadow, and considering there was just a basic PA system, they sounded rather good.
No comments:
Post a Comment