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Mesnes Power in the Park, Wigan 17/8/02
Who would have thought that a bunch of primary school kids from Scholes would come up with the most original piece of music
of the day. With a wide selection of percussion, including electro musical chairs, ‘The Kids from Scholes’ provided
a ten
minute avant-garde drum freak out with keyboards and the best bass playing since The White Stripes came to these shores. Here’s
to the future, as it’s always great to see young kids getting into music and playing their own stuff especially.
Garna stride confidently on stage and plough into ‘Kiss the feet of a rock star’. The last time I saw them they
were playing
the acoustic night at the Tavern, but amped up an plugged in is where it’s at for these guys. ‘Treading Waters’
and ‘Reflections’
are great songs with first-rate rock grooves and riffs. “We’re not used to playing with tents and trees about’
the singer
comments. They finish with the excellent ‘Love don’t ever drop your guard’ which is easily their best song,
sending riffs
blazing over your head.
It was on ‘Beautiful’ from Aisle 7’s slot that you saw a newly wed couple (even though they were both in their
fifties at
least) slow dancing to this slow, shimmering love song. “Aisle 7 – Available for weddings and anniversaries!”.
But they proved
they can rock with the best of them with the provisionally titled ‘Lollipop’ stomping and bounding about the stage.
Tender
and powerful, boy band and rock band – everything under one roof! They’re the future!
The first band to get up the council representatives noses are Kermitz Middle Finger with their speed punk metal, expletives,
necrophiliac song “Everybody do… the Necrapheliac….the Incest Rock” and decapitated Kermit the Frog heads
laid religiously
around the stage. Although their set was littered with swearing, especially aimed at some morons who’d broke into their
cars
the night before, you can’t take nothing away from the music, with ‘Spy song’, ‘Rear view’ and ‘My
Town’ and subtle attack
at the inbreeding of certain people in Wigan, there’s no denying that singer and song writer John Parry is talented and
a
clever and witty lyricist. The special treat promised for the festival was a punk cover of George Formby’s ‘When
I’m cleaning
windows’ complete with the Muppets themed Animal on drums on backing vocals. They even had some parents impressed!
Redhouse breeze on stage and combine with the glorious sunshine brilliantly. Much has been commented on Emma Stockton’s
singing,
certainly in these pages before, and today she is as captivating and seductive as ever. ‘The Tempest’, a slow and
easy blues
then funky tune wows the crowd, especially with the outro “Love, Life, It’s our destiny”, which may sound a
bit cheesy, but
sung by Emma is heart wrenchingly beautiful. Even the body armoured police could afford a moments chill with an ice cream
and take in the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Body Armour!
Things heated up greatly when Gunpowder Plot invaded the stage. Warned ten minutes before they went on that any foul language
used and the plug would be pulled, gave them an edge, an opposition to play against. They made a joke of the whole thing,
and rightly so, by using ‘Freaking’ and ‘Duck’ as substitutes. This kind of enforced censorship is just
the kind of thing
that the Plot fight against. Rob Baker even worked around this ban by getting the whole crowd to cry out “Fuck!”
at the top
of their voices “They can’t stop you lot from swearing!”. I wondered to myself how long they would last, and
credit to them
for lasting as long as up to their last song, where they just let go and ripped through ‘MCCP’ with the “Fuck
You’ s” certainly
aimed at some people in power. At the finish Rob Fairhirst shouted out at the crowd “Fuck Censorship!” over and
over before
being muted. A band of no consequence, they did themselves all the world of good with their performance and made those few
narrow minded individuals look foolish.
Rapid City’s bass player, all man mountain of him punches out a wicked funky bass rhythm while the three rebel singers
up
front sing about the joys of marijuana. “Some call it the weed!” “I wanna get high – So High!” they
sing. Coming up from London
with their back street hip hop soul reggae blend, they are a very tight and accomplished band, and a real highlight for today.
Their music fitting in easily with today’s eclectic billing and benefiting from the glorious sunshine that has come out
to
play. Many people unable to go to any festival this year use the day for relaxing and chilling out, dancing and freaking out
and it was Rapid City that got everyone in this kind of festival mood. Or maybe it was the cider that was seen all over the
place.
On a closing note, I had to leave before Hyperjax took the stage to blow everyone away, but going on what I’ve heard,
they
were fucking top! A hearty slap on the back goes to everyone involved with organising the event, especially the sound guys
as the sound was great all day. Apart from the bother with bad language and such, the whole day was great, with a nice relaxed
atmosphere and vibe going around. Next year, maybe the Mesnes Park festival could be built up as just a music event, with
warnings of bad language before hand, instead of a family fun day. That’s up to the Thought Police and the collective
to sort
out. All in all a great day!
Look out for the ‘Kids from Scholes’ demo ‘Water rabbits shot through darkness’ on Limited Ed yellow vinyl
coming soon.
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Amberwood, The Tavern, Wigan 20/8/02
Although The Tavern wasn’t particularly as busy as it normally is on a Tuesday night acoustic, Amberwood succeeded in captivating
those that were there, drawing a great response from everyone, especially with regards to the welsh maiden Rachel and her
relaxed woodland vocals. I’ve specifically come tonight to review Amberwood as the last time I saw them I thought they were
brilliant, but was a little too inebriated to remember anything of them. I made notes but they ended up indecipherable. That’s
what too many conversations with Mr. Daniels can do to you I suppose.
With the added electric guitar effects, their acoustic foundations have been built upon greatly and they now have fluid atmosphere
running through their songs, along the lines of what Nick McCabe brought to The Verve, but maybe not as cosmic. On ‘Burning’,
the earthy, warm vocals from Rachel are lovely and when she sings “Maybe I was just a fool”, well I guess we have all thought
that way to seek redemption sometime or as an after thought for some lost cause. ‘Angel’ is the kind of love song that most
people would love to be sung to them and here it’s genuinely touching.
It was on the opening song ‘So what can I do?’ that they capture almost everything they will probably go on to achieve “Face
my fears, wipe away these tears”. The humanistic and naturist sound and lyrics work greatly with Rachel’s voice they are a
band that will go on and improve with each gig, building upon their sound. They have a bright future ahead and I wish all
the luck to them. Oh, and by the way, I did manage to stay sober this time, so there was no stumbling or lapses of consciousness
throughout the entire gig.
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Steve O’Donoghue – Life Laundry
From the fellowship of acoustica, Steve O’Donogue picks up the ring this time with the mission to find a way into your
soul
and maybe make you smile, laugh and cry all at the same time. Tales of love, hope, rejection and the everyday struggle of
life against life. On the first song ‘Don’t give up the ghost’ he sings “Love and hope hide in the strangest
places” and this
is the kind of feel this album brings.
Round every corner and under every rock there are snippets of optimism and buoyancy along with the downbeat ballads that love
brings as well as socio-humour with the excellent ‘England’s Glory’. A jolly tuned lament for the fall of our
society and
the apathy which holds the majority of our nation round the neck. “A princess dies there’s a new religion, a nation
cries,
and buys a picture plate” he sings, along with wry rages against Blair, corporatism, German steering wheels and England’s
Glory. His angle is “The world’s not round, it’s twisted and bent” and you can feel this coming through
in his songs.
A lonely ‘Cathedral Bells’ later, a stark Beautiful South-esque melody on ‘Snow White’ sings about washing
hair and setting
free. The lovely piano on ‘Vanity’s case’ hides the break up of communication between two lovers. The influence
of Dylan is
felt on quite a few of the songs, with a references made on a few songs, and the lyrics have a certain dylanesque belief about
them in their descriptive tones and colourful scopes. ‘Stranded’ is one of my favourites, while ‘Find me a
Rainbow’ singalongs
about a girl searching for the love of a guy but not really finding it “She’s looking for some love and a little
affection
but all she gets are likely lads - lying about their erections” she should stop going up King Street, Wigan then.
The viewpoint of women is often sung from on this album, but not in a more haunting and shocking way than on ‘Lover’s
Sunset’
where a wife/girlfriend sings of the breakdown of a marriage/relationship maybe including rape, not recognising the man she
met and fell in love with. Subjects not heard of on local scenes or even nationally, marital rape.
The closing track ‘Close and true’ is a Beatle sounding hymn-song that through every thing that’s gone on in
this album, we’ve
made it, complete the journey, the bells are ringing, our loved ones are waiting to welcome our triumphant return, and home
is where we rest. No matter what the state of the human condition, there will always be people like Steve O’Donoghue
ready
to pick up the responsibility and march straight on into it. “We’ll weather the storm, we’ve made it through,
close and true”.
Close and true, a statement of this album’s intent that hits the hammer on the head.
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The Zutons – Devil’s Deal
Hailing from Liverpool, mates of The Coral and playing fresh guitar music. Are they riding on the hoodys of The Coral? Sure
they are. They might not have got where they are if not for their mates, but hey, they are still making shit hot music.
Sounding a little like their scouse counterparts, with the jolly rhythms, the multi chorus singers and scraggy guitars,
The Zutons blister through some cartoon rock song. I can just see a tom cat being chased by the police for stealing some dog’s
dinner. In their own right, they are an exciting band. The kind of band where you don’t really know what they are going on
about but just shake along to.
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