I don't get to as many gigs these days as I would like so it was good this week to have two bands to see live and after the debacle of The Bunnymen the other week I had high hopes for both. Last night I went along to the ABC in Glasgow to see Roddy Frame's first live outing in over 10 years with a full band and The Boy Wonder delivered and more. I will post a review over the next day or so but until then have a look at Drew's excellent review here that perfectly sums up what a truly outstanding gig this was.
The other gig was to a slightly smaller audience at Apollo 23 on Sunday night where we went along to see The Beat. Ok it wasn't really The Beat but Ranking Roger and some great musicians but obviously minus Dave Wakeling and others. When I say slightly smaller I really mean a lot smaller as sadly only about 150 hardy souls turned out to witness The Beat deliver a set of 2 Tone classics and a couple of covers including a lively version of Rock the Casbah in tribute to Joe Strummer.
From the off we knew we were in for a night of the Best Of The Beat which is exactly what we got. All the hits,one new track and the energy from Ranking Roger in particular was hugely infectious. It's a while since I have done much skanking but really you couldn't stop yourself even if you tried. It's sometimes easy to forget how many top tunes they had when they regularly troubled the top echelons of the charts in the late 70s/early 80's. Tracks such as Mirror In The Bathroom, Best Friend and Save It For Later are more than equals to the best tracks from their more successful contemporaries Madness and The Specials.
It's a shame that more people didn't come along on Sunday as we all had a good night and the band, which included former Dexy's keyboardist Mickey Billingham, were truly inspired. Which is more than can be said about the venue which does not add much to Glasgow's abundance of top class venues. A good gig could have been elevated to a great gig if the choice of venue had been more appropriate.
The Beat - Save It For Later
No comments:
Post a Comment