RED BARON'S WORDS

The Bluetones have been around for a little while, you may not have heard of them, they’re the sort of band that had a couple of hits some time ago and then would have appeared to vanish if you weren’t a fairly dedicated fan, however they continued to release records and as a result would have had a fanbase until a couple of years ago when they did seem to disappear. The last album I have is 1998 and their last tour was I believe 2001. So it was a bit of a comeback special. To my mind if you like The Thrills and bands of that genre, you’ll see where a lot of their music came from when you hear The Bluetones.

First of all came Sky Parade who are American and had to apologise for not being able to find the venue and thus the resulting 15 minute delay. Sky Parade are proof that good things can come out of the US, they are a classic rock 4 piece, their set beginning with the excellent rasping semi-psychadelic ‘Losing Control’. I really like this group, they are unsigned but they could well go far. The whole band is pretty tidy, the bassist looked baked throughout and the drummer was so in the zone it was almost like having a young John Bonham on stage. You don’t get so much of that on the album, partially because the band have used 2 drummers but I guess also because it’s a more polished performance that they’ve recorded than the more high-octane live act. I hope they spend more time over here, they have a sense of the indie movement of the early 1990s with a bit of the neo-punk that’s so pravalent at the moment, and a dash of Lou Reed thrown in for good measure. I would not consider them typical of West Coast American music it’s more gritty, more grey city New York style for that. There’s elements of The Stone Roses and the Mock Turtles in there which is why I reckon they’d have success here. Well worth seeing in their own right if they do any pub gigs. I met the lead singer after the gig and shook his hand and wished the band well. I even bought their album, as, it seems, did a lot of others at the gig.

The second support act were The Conway Story, they drew the short straw because people seemed to have widely enjoyed Sky Parade and The Conway Story were a different type of band. They were decent without being spectacular but their set was marred by a couple of idiots in the crowd giving them stick. I find this somewhat ridiculous because they are not going to be on stage for long and they do their bit and they are after all merely a support act so why would anyone want to give them a load of shite…? They played on regardless and fair play to them for that, it can’t be easy in that situation.

It had felt like quite a long wait for The Bluetones, not as long as it had been for The Paddingtons though, and if one had expected the heckling to stop when the main event started we were disappointed. It was quiet and respectful at first but there were signs that the rowdiness was returning early on. Midway thru’ the second song Mark, the lead singer of the band made a foray into the crowd returning with a hat. At the end of the song he made it clear that he had seen a bloke pushing a lady around and had gone in to break it up and returned with the offenders hat.

During the third song on one of Mark’s forays around the stage he came over to the far left where I was (ain’t that always the way!) and asked if I thought we were penned in, I replied that we were ok. I was certainly happy to be at the edge than in the middle where it did seem very crushed.