Gigs – Page 2 – James Chapple

Amplifier, Old Blue Last

Amplifier, Old Blue Last, London, 28/03/15.

It’s rare you get to see your favourite band. It’s even rarer you get to see your two favourite bands within a week of each other. But it’s almost unimaginable you get to see you two favourite bands within a week of each other – twice.

Back in November 2006, I saw Muse at Manchester MEN. A week later, I saw Amplifier at the Joiners in Southampton. This week, I saw Muse at the Brighton Dome. And just last night, I saw Amplifier at the Old Blue Last in London.

A lot has changed since those first two gigs, a little matter of leaving home, moving to Cardiff, completing five years of university, relocating to Guildford to start my first ‘proper’ job. To cut a long story short, I guess I ‘grew up’ in that time. Real life started.

Happily, these two bands have been a largely consistent soundtrack during those intervening years. And Amplifier were on astonishing form last night. After a barrage of choice cuts from their latest LP, Mystoria, as well as the very first live airing of pre-album download ‘Horse’, we were treated to a real trip down memory lane, with the band delving deep into their back catalogue and digging out some of their heaviest numbers – Motorhead, Airborne, Panzer, The Consultancy and Half Life from their self-titled debut album, the majestic Strange Seas Of Thought from Insider, plus The Wave and Interstellar from The Octopus.

Despite having seen the band a number of times before, this (I think) was the first time I’ve seen them in their latest iteration following the departure of bassist and founder member Neil Mahony. Thankfully, his replacement – the laconic ‘Magnum’ – absolutely monstered both Neil’s distinctive bass hooks as well as his own, while ex-Oceansize guitarist and backing vocalist Steve Durose adds an extra layer of depth to the band’s already expansive sound. Oh, and need I even state the obvious, but drummer Matt Brobin absolutely pummels his drum kit while singer and lead guitarist Sel Balamir defty negotiates his obscenely large pedalboard without missing so much as a note.

It was raucous. It was deafening. It was unexpected. It was perfect.

Muse, Brighton Dome

Muse, Brighton Dome, 23/03/15. Support from Marmozets.

I don’t usually write a lot about all the gigs I go to if I’m not actually reviewing them, but I’ll make an exception in this case.

This was my tenth Muse gig. Yes, I know. I first saw them back in 2004, a couple of years after I got into them in a big way. I’ve seen them at the Royal Albert Hall, at the Eden Project, at Wembley Stadium, at Reading Festival, in Teignmouth, and so on, but never in such a small venue as I did on Monday night. And it was magnificent in every respect.

Long have Muse had their heads in the clouds (or up their arses, each to their own) so when they announced their stripped back seventh album Drones and incendiary lead release Psycho, it seemed only right for them to go back to the roots and revisit a few of the dinkier venues where they made their name as the best live band around. Last night felt very much like a celebration of that journey.

The Stranglers, G Live

The Stranglers made an uproarious return to Guildford on Thursday (March 5) with a triumphant, hit-laden homecoming at G Live.

Some 40 years after founder members, Guilfordian drummer Jet Black and and singer Hugh Cornwell, met in the mid-70s, the band led hundreds of devotees on a career-spanning trip down memory lane at the venue in London Road.

Pounding renditions of the ubiquitous Golden Brown, with its skittish harpsichord swells, and sleazy stomper Peaches are obvious highlights, although No More Heroes was conspicuous by its absence.

It was back in 1974 that Black, real name John Duffy, and Cornwell formed The Guildford Stranglers, who were initially based out of The Jackpot, the off-licence run by the enterprising young Black.

The duo soon recruited bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel, a former Royal Grammar School pupil, who was joined by guitarist Hans Wärmling and keyboardist Dave Greenfield.

But after penning some of the band’s most immediately recognisable numbers, Cornwell later bowed out in 1990 and was replaced by Paul Roberts before Mackem Baz Warne took centre stage in 2006.

“Last time we were here, youse all said you couldn’t understand me, man!” drawls Warne in his thick Wearside drawl.

“Am I too northern for you?” he jests, shortly after the band walk on Waltzinblack, the opening track from The Stranglers’ 1981 album, The Gospel According to the Meninblack – best remembered as the theme music from eccentric TV chef Keith Floyd’s madcap cooking shows.

It’s almost exactly a year since the band last played G Live, but there are no signs of the band not being welcome back.

Every song is met with rapturous applause, every lyric belted out by a rag, tag and bobtail bunch of fans, many of whom have been with the band right from the very start.

After a high octane set by fellow 70s new wave punks The Rezillos, Warne and co rip into The Raven with its swirling synths, pulsing bassline and staccato guitar riff and also I’ve Been Wild, which despite being one of the band’s (relatively) newer numbers has a big, brash chorus befitting any Stranglers classic.

Deputising on drums, Jim MacAulay stands aside midway through the band’s set to allow sticksman Black to take the limelight, cue pandemonium as Black counts in Baroque Bordello, which sounds like some kind of demented fairground ride led by Greenfield’s synths.

Immediately, the lights go up around G Live, bathing the venue in a warm golden glow – everyone knows what’s coming, but the iconic harpsichord intro of Golden Brown is enough to make even the most hardened Stranglers fan’s hairs stand on end.

The song leaps and jolts between time signatures from phrase to phrase, an ode both to the tangled mind of a desperate heroin addiction and Cornwell’s fascination with a mysterious temptress. It’s long been heralded their greatest accomplishment, and with good reason.

Black remains on the drums for an equally well-received airing of Always The Sun, sparking another deafening sing-along to its soaring chorus, and also Genetix.

The run-in sees the band drop a squelching, grimy version of Peaches, propelled by Burnel’s burbling bass and Warne’s scabrous sneers, before the set is rounded out with Duchess, Lost Control, Curfew and finally Down in the Sewer.

With time in hand, there’s just room for an encore featuring Hanging Around – but there is no place in the set, oddly, for the anthemic No More Heroes, which elucidates a few murmurs of discontent from the masses.

It’s the only blot on an otherwise exultant homecoming for The Stranglers.

James Chapple

Originally published on Get Surrey, 06/03/15

Martin Harley Band, The Boileroom

There is an old, perhaps hackneyed, saying – what goes around comes around.

The logic being sooner or later, everyone finds themselves in the right place at the right time at least once or twice in life.

For Martin Harley, his star has arguably risen anew in light of a ‘tweevolution’ in the charts.

Not long before his show at The Boileroom on February 27, breakthrough folksters Mumford & Sons were unveiled as one this year’s Reading Festival headliners, hot on the heels of their 2013 headlining show at Glastonbury.

A slew of like acts, not to mention the return of Fleetwood Mac, has inspired an acoustic folk and blues revival in recent years, breathing new life into a genre of music that has long been dormant, at least in terms of mainstream acclaim.

Now, in light of old-fashioned blues and folk finding chart-topping success, Martin Harley similarly finds himself riding the crest of a popular wave, one which sees him, unsurprisingly, draw quite a crowd at The Boileroom.

Hailing originally from south Wales, Harley’s family moved to Woking in his youth so Friday’s show also comes as something of a homecoming for the bluesy troubadour, who has taken his act around the world since penning his 2003 eponymous debut album.

While delivering a career-spanning set, there is still a particular focus on 2012’s Mojo Fix, the title track of which provides a rip-roaring introduction to Harley’s music and his consummate showmanship after more than a decade on the road.

Blessed with a voice that carries a certain tenderness that resonates beautifully around the intimate environs of a venue like The Boileroom, Harley peppers his set with an early salvo of saccharine acoustic numbers.

Yet he holds back a fiery, snarling, rasping yelp that propels some of his more lairy numbers, which, after a slightly hokey start, drives the second half of the show on to a more raucous conclusion.

A fitting centrepiece is Harley’s cover of Tom Waits’ brilliantly twisted Chocolate Jesus, which despite being given a cutesy makeover by Harley and co, loses none of the intensity of Waits’ gloomy original.

During the latter stages of his set, Harley, his bassist and drummer, fully unplug and serenade The Boileroom completely acoustic.

It’s a poignant moment, if a little corny, but it’s as brilliantly judged as it is received. Again, it speaks of Harley’s stagecraft, as well as the crowd’s polite reverence, that the venue falls deathly silent while Harley’s gentle croons wash over proceedings.

However, the set thankfully culminates with a vicious flurry of slide guitar numbers, including a spellbinding rendition of Love In The Afternoon where we see the Martin Harley Band, as a collective, finally cut loose.

It feels like a fitting conclusion after a topsy-turvy journey through Harley’s influences and heritage, which he wears proudly on his sleeve.

Martin Harley clearly has the skill, talent and presence to grace venues far in excess of the size of The Boileroom so it is with gusto the crowd give him the warmest of send offs after a near hour-and-a-half set; catch him now while he’s still doing the rounds.

James Chapple

Pictures by Sophie Garrett.

Originally published on Get Surrey, 03/03/15

#AshWednesday

Ash, Camden Barfly, London, 18/02/15.

I was lucky enough to bag a ticket to catch Ash’s comeback show at Camden Barfly in London on Wednesday night (February 18) – timed appropriately to coincide with actual Ash Wednesday, of course.

First thing on Wednesday morning, the band announced their new album Kablammo! and new single Cocoon, as well as a gig at Barfly that very night. Having seen the band a few times in the past, I jumped at the opportunity.

And as ever, they certainly didn’t disappoint. Opening with new song Fortune, which the band debuted in the US in October last year, it’s evident Kablammo! is set to more than live up to its name.

Fortune features a massive driving riff, not to mention frontman Tim Wheeler’s trademark guitar histrionics. Cocoon went down similarly well, as did two other new’uns aired for the very first time – Evil Kinevil and Shut Down.

As for older numbers, while Clones still evades me despite this being my fourth Ash gig, I was delighted to catch Wildsurf and Petrol again, Evil Eye for the very first time and, of course, the blistering Joy Kicks Darkness. All the old favourites were there too.

The full set ran:

Fortune / A Life Less Ordinary / Wildsurf / Goldfinger / Evil Eye / Evil Kinevil / Kung Fu / Cocoon / Oh Yeah / Shut Down / Shining Light / Orpheus / Girl From Mars / Joy Kicks Darkness / Petrol / Burn Baby Burn

The band have shot off back to New York to finish off Kablammo! which is due to be released in May. The band are coming back for a string of dates in June, including another show in London, this time at the Scala on June 11 – the day before my birthday. How could I refuse?

Mariachi El Bronx, The Boileroom

Mariachi El Bronx shouldn’t work.

Five hardcore punk rockers eschewing their riffs and power chords in favour of flamenco guitars and burbling brass while leading their fans through a cheery array of polkas and waltzes?

Get real.

The thronging hordes crammed into The Boileroom on Tuesday night (February 17) would, however, suggest otherwise. It’s a sell-out, and with good reason.

Let’s spool back a bit. In 2002, The Bronx were founded by five like-minded guys in Los Angeles. Their sound was raw, punchy and abrasive.

Then, in 2007, they announced they were recording not one, but two new albums. The first, a straight up ballsy punk album; the second, a mariachi album entitled El Bronx. And thus, Mariachi El Bronx were born.

The band have since released three albums as their flamenco-inspired alter ego and on Tuesday, they made their bow at The Boileroom, ably supported by Pounded By The Surf, who entertained with their 50s-inspired surf rock stylings reminiscent of The Tornadoes and The Shadows.

Swelling to an eight-piece to accommodate a host of weird and wonderful new instruments, El Bronx barely have room to breathe on The Boileroom’s diminutive stage.

There is nothing diminutive about their performance, however.

Every song during the band’s more than hour-long set has room to develop, to progress and to meander without members treading on each other’s toes – musically as much as physically.

Empty beer bottles soon litter the stage as the band quickly grow into their performance, led by frontman Matt Caughthran, who is warmly greeted by hundreds of Guildfordians.

Suited and booted in traditional Mexican attire, albeit without a sombrero in sight, there is a slight of hand about El Bronx’s carefully constructed melodies and rhythms you might not necessarily associate with a group of musicians so firmly rooted in hardcore punk, an ethos rarely famed for subtlety.

Flicking between intricate time signatures in a stroke, the band lead their audience, almost involuntarily, on something of a merry jig, although decent trade at the bar doesn’t harm their cause.

Fan favourites such as 48 Roses and a triumphant rendition of Litigation litter the set, which draws heavily from both the band’s guises and, of course, plenty from El Bronx’s third eponymous album, released last year.

They even break out a brand new song which, says Caughthran, was penned just hours earlier at the George Abbot pub overlooking the River Wey. Cue hysteria, of course.

Make no bones about it, El Bronx are a band revered the world over by their hardcore fans – but it comes as something of a surprise the sheer affection with which they are held here in Guildford.

Who knew there was such a demand for something as relatively diverse and alien as mariachi music, let alone a twisted hybrid of mariachi and punk?

Mariachi El Bronx’s infectious grooves are as much a joyous antidote to dozens of rock and punk gigs as they are a tender homage to a style of music that clearly means a huge amount to every member of the band.

It is a rare delight, as is watching a band with the talent to switch so readily between two very different styles of music with ease. Olé amigos!

James Chapple

Pictures by Sophie Garrett.

Originally published on Get Surrey, 19/02/15

Frankie & The Heartstrings, The Boileroom

The jangly indie-pop stylings of Frankie & The Heartstrings saw Independent Venue Week (IVW) celebrations at The Boileroom in Guildford kick up a notch on Wednesday (January 28).

The Sunderland quintet have built a small, but loyal, following since the band’s chance encounter in a bar on the city’s left bank in 2008.

Three years’ hard graft later, 2011 debut album Hunger charted at number 32 – earning Frankie and co knowing nods on the national and international stage.

Their 2013 follow-up The Days Run Away spawned single Nothing Our Way and fan favourite Everybody Looks Better (In The Right Light).

In the intervening period, playing second fiddle to the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs, The Vaccines and Florence And The Machine did little to stymy a steady flow of glowing reviews.

Ably supported themselves by Wiker, Future Talks and the anarchic Arctic Monkeys-esque sneer of Woking rockers The Sheratones, there was an understandably fuzzy feeling of community at the venue on Wednesday night when the band took to the stage, slap-bang in the middle of IVW (January 26 to February 1).

It was vocalist Frankie Francis who perhaps summed up the real importance of initiatives like IVW most succinctly, quipping in his Mackem burr: “They’ve got a noodle bar here – perhaps all venues should have noodle bars!”

In many ways, there is arguably something ever-so-slightly immaterial about the actual gigs held as part of IVW, which aims to celebrate everything that is so unique and often unusual about the country’s slew of embattled independent music venues.

The Boileroom has been the last bastion of Guildford’s alternative music scene for nearly a decade and continues to thrive, despite a myriad of obstacles which have, at times, put the Stoke Fields venue at risk.

However, from Wiker through Future Talks, The Sheratones and finally Frankie, there is a sense that the crowd as much as the bands understand just what is at stake if support dwindles for venues such as The Boileroom.

And it speaks volumes of the venue’s quality and draw that it was able to swing, as part of IVW, a gig on Friday (January 30) by Weybridge chart toppers You Me At Six, which saw thousands of fans try to bag just a couple of hundred tickets.

Dapper Frankie frontman Francis quickly makes the stage at The Boileroom his own, strutting about with an air of confidence and vigour you might expect from a young Mick Jagger.

He is flanked by guitarists, founder member Michael McKnight and ex-Futureheads axeman Ross Millard, who take it in turns to briefly tear away from the band’s twee verse-chorus barrage with the occasional flash of virtuosity.

Rhythm section, bassist Michael Matthews and drummer Dave Harper, tie the band’s tight sound together, elucidating a handful of passionate sing-alongs as the gig reaches a crescendo after a slightly slow start.

Choice cuts from Hunger such as Fragile and the title track bring the band’s 45-minute set to a raucous, yet also understated finale.

The band pay their respects with a nod to the IVW before they stroll off stage and out into the crowd to wind down with their loyal fans.

It’s such a simple gesture, but one that can only be achieved at a venue like The Boileroom – and one their fans, most importantly, will remember and cherish.

James Chapple

Pictures by Sophie Garrett.

Originally published on Get Surrey, 29/01/15

Reel Big Fish, The Boileroom

It has been a week of contrasts for California ska punk icons Reel Big Fish.

Their show at the vast Sonisphere festival at Knebworth House was duly followed by an appearance at the intimate Boileroom last Friday night (July 11).

But then Reel Big Fish have always been something of an enigma.

Like their peers, Less Than Jake, Sublime, and so on, they have carved a career from a style of music which arguably saw its heyday while the band were still in short trousers.

But despite never enjoying a ‘hit’, per sé – save for the popularity of 1997 single Sell Out – it’s hard to argue with a career that stretches back the best part of a quarter of a century, spawning eight studio albums.

Ska has always been the preserve of the outsider, of the also-ran, and it is this underdog mentality that seems to chime with the hordes who packed into The Boileroom on Friday.

Following lively warm-up acts, The Magnus Puto and The Jellycats, a heady haze of steam, sweat and anticipation hangs over the sell-out crowd. There is no pretension; everyone’s here for a good time.

It’s an intoxicating feature of The Boileroom, a venue, which over the best part of a decade, has established itself as arguably the last bastion of live alternative music in Guildford.

It has built a reputation for giving top acts a reminder of the club circuit where they made their names.

The band’s infectious enthusiasm as they bound onto a stage, barely big enough to accommodate them – let alone their brass ensemble – is testament to the kick they still get out of performing.

Delving deep into their fulsome back catalogue, the band’s hour-long set draws as much from the likes of fan favourites Beer and Trendy from 1995 debut Everything Sucks as it does from 2012’s Candy Coated Fury.

But it is the blinding finale, featuring hit covers Monkey Man by Toots and The Maytals and A-Ha’s Take on Me that bring the house down.

Limbs flail and beers are spilled as the skanking and the po-going reaches a crescendo. It may be just another night on tour for Reel Big Fish; but it feels like The Boileroom has scored a coup.

While the band may have been selling out much bigger venues more than a decade ago, Reel Big Fish come over as a group enjoying their twilight years.

And if the dozens of smiling faces who trouped out of The Boileroom are anything to go by, they will be welcomed back any time.

James Chapple

Pictures by Sophie Garrett.

Originally published in the Surrey Advertiser, 18/07/14

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Nick Oliveri, The Boileroom

Rome, June 3, and Queens of the Stone Age (QOTSA) have just walked on stage at Rock in Roma, one of Italy’s biggest music festivals.

Led by the band’s daunting frontman Josh Homme, they rip into Millionaire from their 2002 hit album Songs for the Deaf. Thousands go wild at the city’s Capannelle racecourse.

The same night, more than 1,000 miles away, another man has just walked on stage and kicked into Millionaire.

But in stark contrast, former QOTSA bassist Nick Oliveri’s audience is little more than 100 devotees, packed into Guildford’s rock and roll refuge, The Boileroom.

Does he care? Not a bit of it.

Now touring his all acoustic one-man solo show, Oliveri – complete with his distinctive shiny bald head and trademark six-inch goatee – paints the picture of a man finally at peace.

In January 2004, he was unceremoniously booted out of QOTSA after his relationship with Homme broke down.

While the band has ascended to headline status, due to top the bill at this year’s Reading and Leeds festival in August, Oliveri’s career has been characterised by false starts.

Tuesday’s show at The Boileroom (June 3) was the third in a 19-date tour in support of his new single Human Cannonball Explodes and new album Leave Me Alone, due later this year.

It’s a refreshing new beginning for Oliveri.

His 50-minute set draws variously from his 20 years in the business, including Kyuss classic Green Machine, while a handful of new material is well-received by the knowledgeable audience.

But it is Oliveri’s QOTSA numbers they have come for, having co-written the band’s 2000 album Rated R and the aforementioned Songs for the Deaf with Homme.

Cheers greet acoustic takes on songs like Gonna Leave You, Another Love Song and Auto Pilot, sparking what feels like a boy scouts’ campfire singalong, only with far more beards.

Oliveri invites a dozen or so fans up on stage with him for a rousing rendition of QOTSA drug anthem Feel Good Hit of the Summer, which features the rhythmic chant of ‘nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol’.

But opening gambit Millionaire remains Oliveri’s most distinctive contribution, one he performed with QOTSA in April for the first time in 10 years during a gig in Portland, Oregon.

While his exile from the band seems set to continue, Oliveri’s career and outlook appears the healthiest it has been in the best part of a decade.

His show at The Boileroom underlines his talent to go it alone.

James Chapple

Originally published in the Surrey Advertiser, 06/06/14