Thirty two years ago in a basement in Canada I first heard the band that was to unwittingly change my whole perception of music, and ultimately be responsible for wearing criminally tight trousers with zebra patterns all over them.
But that's a story for another day, and indeed book.
Last Friday I had the pleasure of seeing one of my guitar heroes live on stage for the fourth time, which in itself was fantastic, but given that the last three times he was plastered in makeup and a member of KISS, the band from the basement all those years ago, and this time he was headlining his own show, I was over the moon.
Ace Frehley has never been one of the world's greatest guitarists - he's certainly no Eddie Van Halen, or Steve Vai, or Jimmy page for that matter, but he's got that rare quality in that he knows his limitations, both in terms of guitar playing and singing, and plays magnificently to his strengths.
Backed by three young bucks dressed subtly, but effectively, in identical black jumpsuits, Frehley tore the London Astoria apart for ninety minutes, kicking off with Rip It Out, the opening cut from his 1978 solo album, and ending with a rousing version of Cold Gin.
Though KISS has long been dominated by the songwriting talents of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, whenever Ace threw one into the mix it was invariably a great one, and we got plenty of his KISS offerings as proof.
Parasite, Rocket Ride, Shock Me (complete with smoking, literally, guitar solo) and Hard Times had us old KISS fans in rapture, while Snowblind, New York Groove and a blistering Rock Soldiers did Ace's solo canon proud.
Dedicating Breakout to late KISS drummer (and co-writer) Eric Carr, and thanking Paul Stanley for writing Love Gun, which was given a supercharged workout during the encore, Ace proved himself the perfect host for an evening of rock and roll, even rescuing a dwarf from the audience and letting him watch the rest of show from stage left, telling him "We got to look after one another."
Given Ace's yo-yo relationship with alocholoism and rehab, I have to admit I wasn't quite sure what kind of evening we'd be in for, but Ace was back in full force ('cause he told us so!) and delivered a gig that blew our minds and exceeded our wildest expectations in terms of the set list.
Loud, energetic, funny, and above all entertaining, Ace is back!
Showing posts with label live music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label live music. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 April 2008
Sunday, 16 March 2008
The Past Is Not A Dirty Word
Mention the word nostalgia to certain artists and you'll be greeted with a retort full of hostility, as they insist that the past is the past, and that they're all about the here and now.
One such artist is Gary Numan, who for years has treated his early catalogue with at best indifference and more usually disdain, but who in the last couple of years has finally made a concession to his loyal fan base, of which I've been a part for almost thirty years, and toured two of his best loved early albums.
In the dying weeks of 2006 I saw him perform the whole of 1980's Telekon, complete with all of the b-sides, and with a recreation of the classic light show. Needless to say it went down superbly with long term fans, and so last night we found ourselves at the Indigo at the O2 arena to see him perform a similar show with 1979's Replicas album.
One of the main critiscisms levelled at nostalgia is that for anyone who openly admits a fondness for it, as I do, is accused of living in the past and not wanting to acknwoledge the present, and the future.
I have to disagree vociferously with this senitment, however, as for me the opportunity to both celebrate the music that I loved during my formative years, and still do, and to see many of the songs that I grew up with played live, some of them for the first time, is nothing short of fantastic.
As I stood in the crowd last night singing myself hoarse to the songs whose lyrics I know as well as I do my own name, I felt well and truly among friends (electric and otherwise), and for ninety minutes I was nine years old again, and recalling the feeling of discovering Replicas for the first time.
It's unlikely that Numan will play the vast majority of these songs ever again, which is a shame for many reasons, not least because most of them are genuinely excellent songs, but despite his admission that he has, after all, enjoyed revisiting past glories, he now wants to move firmly forward and effectively erase all but the last few years from his live repertoire.
The sad thing is that Numan, and he's by no means alone in this way of thinking - for years Paul Weller refused to play any Jam songs live, for example, and Morrissey for many years barely even acknowledged that he was ever in The Smiths - by making this decision is forgetting that although those of us who are long standing fans continue to embrace and more importantly buy his curreny output, it is because of these earlier songs that we are doing this in the first place.
The whole nostalgia thing is very much in vogue at the moment, with many bands touring complete old albums in an attempt to recapture the old fans who have since drifted away, and I count myself blessed that Numan has done the Telekon and Replicas tours, but it's a mistake to now refuse to play any of the old songs that made whichever band you care to name famous in the first place.
With music sales on the decline, the main revenue stream for any artist in years to come will be live shows, and so in my humble opinion this should be reflected in a balanced set that draws on all eras of the artist's career.
I'll happily continue to support my favourite bands' new material, but all I ask in return is that they don't forget their past. It is, after all, and as I've said before, where I come from - where we all come from - and has made me in to the person, and the fan, that I am today.
One such artist is Gary Numan, who for years has treated his early catalogue with at best indifference and more usually disdain, but who in the last couple of years has finally made a concession to his loyal fan base, of which I've been a part for almost thirty years, and toured two of his best loved early albums.
In the dying weeks of 2006 I saw him perform the whole of 1980's Telekon, complete with all of the b-sides, and with a recreation of the classic light show. Needless to say it went down superbly with long term fans, and so last night we found ourselves at the Indigo at the O2 arena to see him perform a similar show with 1979's Replicas album.
One of the main critiscisms levelled at nostalgia is that for anyone who openly admits a fondness for it, as I do, is accused of living in the past and not wanting to acknwoledge the present, and the future.
I have to disagree vociferously with this senitment, however, as for me the opportunity to both celebrate the music that I loved during my formative years, and still do, and to see many of the songs that I grew up with played live, some of them for the first time, is nothing short of fantastic.
As I stood in the crowd last night singing myself hoarse to the songs whose lyrics I know as well as I do my own name, I felt well and truly among friends (electric and otherwise), and for ninety minutes I was nine years old again, and recalling the feeling of discovering Replicas for the first time.
It's unlikely that Numan will play the vast majority of these songs ever again, which is a shame for many reasons, not least because most of them are genuinely excellent songs, but despite his admission that he has, after all, enjoyed revisiting past glories, he now wants to move firmly forward and effectively erase all but the last few years from his live repertoire.
The sad thing is that Numan, and he's by no means alone in this way of thinking - for years Paul Weller refused to play any Jam songs live, for example, and Morrissey for many years barely even acknowledged that he was ever in The Smiths - by making this decision is forgetting that although those of us who are long standing fans continue to embrace and more importantly buy his curreny output, it is because of these earlier songs that we are doing this in the first place.
The whole nostalgia thing is very much in vogue at the moment, with many bands touring complete old albums in an attempt to recapture the old fans who have since drifted away, and I count myself blessed that Numan has done the Telekon and Replicas tours, but it's a mistake to now refuse to play any of the old songs that made whichever band you care to name famous in the first place.
With music sales on the decline, the main revenue stream for any artist in years to come will be live shows, and so in my humble opinion this should be reflected in a balanced set that draws on all eras of the artist's career.
I'll happily continue to support my favourite bands' new material, but all I ask in return is that they don't forget their past. It is, after all, and as I've said before, where I come from - where we all come from - and has made me in to the person, and the fan, that I am today.
Saturday, 8 March 2008
People *do* Smile More...
Thursday night found us at the beatiful Roundhouse venue in London's Camden Town to spend a couple of hours in the company of Newton Faulkner.
Looking like a refugee from The Levellers with his waist length dreadlocks and goatee beard, Faulkner is one of the latest crop of singer-songwriters, but what sets him aside from the Jack Johnsons of this world, who I also like very much, is the way that he plays his acoustic guitar.
Not only does he play it the conventional way with a mastery that suggests he's been playing guitars for as long as he could hold them, but he also uses the fingers and palm of his right hand to beat out a rhythm to accompany himself.
This technique is best illustrated on his inspired covered of Massive Attack's Teardrop, which despite the original being such an iconic song, Faulkner has made his own in much the same way that Johnny Cash made Nine Inch Nails' Hurt his own, even prompting an impressed Trent Reznor to declare "It's not my song any more."
Faulkner's album Hand Built By Robots is packed to the gills with catchy pop songs (though whether he'd agree with the 'pop' label is another matter) and so I was looking forward to being entertained for an hour and a half purely on the strength of the material.
However, Faulkner's trump card is his stage presence and, more importantly, his humour. I can't remember the last time I've laughed so much at a gig, for the right reasons, anyway. Cracking jokes at his own expense and coming out with one liners that some professional comedians would kill for, he had the audience eating out of his hand mere moments after taking the stage.
He dropped Teardrop into the set about two-thirds of the way through, and for me I thought that would be the highlight of the set, but his master stroke came with his final song, another cover, that as a veteran gig goer of some twenty-odd years had me as impressed as I ever remember being.
Telling us that he had been tinkering with another cover, he launched into a version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody using just his voice and his unique guitar playing style. The audience went into rapture, singing along while simultaneously looking on wide-eyed as he again made the song his own, and ending the gig on the highest note that I've ever know a show to conclude on.
We laughed, we sang, and we witnessed the culmination of the first year of what I'm convinced will be a long and successful career.
Teardrop aside, one of Faulkner's best known songs is called People Should Smile More, and for the ninety minutes he was on stage we did. A lot more.
Looking like a refugee from The Levellers with his waist length dreadlocks and goatee beard, Faulkner is one of the latest crop of singer-songwriters, but what sets him aside from the Jack Johnsons of this world, who I also like very much, is the way that he plays his acoustic guitar.
Not only does he play it the conventional way with a mastery that suggests he's been playing guitars for as long as he could hold them, but he also uses the fingers and palm of his right hand to beat out a rhythm to accompany himself.
This technique is best illustrated on his inspired covered of Massive Attack's Teardrop, which despite the original being such an iconic song, Faulkner has made his own in much the same way that Johnny Cash made Nine Inch Nails' Hurt his own, even prompting an impressed Trent Reznor to declare "It's not my song any more."
Faulkner's album Hand Built By Robots is packed to the gills with catchy pop songs (though whether he'd agree with the 'pop' label is another matter) and so I was looking forward to being entertained for an hour and a half purely on the strength of the material.
However, Faulkner's trump card is his stage presence and, more importantly, his humour. I can't remember the last time I've laughed so much at a gig, for the right reasons, anyway. Cracking jokes at his own expense and coming out with one liners that some professional comedians would kill for, he had the audience eating out of his hand mere moments after taking the stage.
He dropped Teardrop into the set about two-thirds of the way through, and for me I thought that would be the highlight of the set, but his master stroke came with his final song, another cover, that as a veteran gig goer of some twenty-odd years had me as impressed as I ever remember being.
Telling us that he had been tinkering with another cover, he launched into a version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody using just his voice and his unique guitar playing style. The audience went into rapture, singing along while simultaneously looking on wide-eyed as he again made the song his own, and ending the gig on the highest note that I've ever know a show to conclude on.
We laughed, we sang, and we witnessed the culmination of the first year of what I'm convinced will be a long and successful career.
Teardrop aside, one of Faulkner's best known songs is called People Should Smile More, and for the ninety minutes he was on stage we did. A lot more.
Saturday, 16 February 2008
Live and Smilin'
I mentioned previously that I'd managed to snag us a couple of tickets for the not-so-secret Sheryl Crow gig at the Scala, so off we went on Thursday night, riding the train into the Big Smoke.
As it was St Valentine's day we were half expecting to find outselves dodging and weaving our way past scores of swarthy looking men asking "Rose for the lady?" in broken English, but no, our path from Kings Cross to the Scala was romantic blackmail free. (Not thatI have anything against Valentine's Day as such, it's just that I'll buy the lady a rose when I damn well feel like it, not when told to.)
The gig was amazing. I've wanted to see Sheryl Crow for years, but didn't want to go and stand in an aircraft hanger for the privilege, so instead we stood at the upstairs bar looking down on the stage, and enjoyed the best part of a couple of hours of live music.
The thing that I really enjoyed, though, was not watching Sheryl (though it has to be said I do find her very easy on the eye, and there's something about the slightly older woman that's always done it for me), but instead watching her keyboard player Mike Rowe.
Here was a guy who was clearly having a blast indulging in his art, something that I can identify with by way of the sheer joy that writing brings to me. The grin never left his face as he deftly switched between the three or four sets of keys surrounding him, and I found myself grinning along for the duration of the gig.
It reminded me once more that while I love music in all shapes and forms, you can't beat seeing it live, particularly when the performers are clearly doing it for the sheer joy of actually being up there on stage and playing.
We've got a whole series of gigs planned so far this year, with artists as diverse as Newton Faulkener, Radiohead, Iron Maiden, Ace Frehley and Gary Numan on the calendar, and I can't wait to see each and every one of them.
As it was St Valentine's day we were half expecting to find outselves dodging and weaving our way past scores of swarthy looking men asking "Rose for the lady?" in broken English, but no, our path from Kings Cross to the Scala was romantic blackmail free. (Not thatI have anything against Valentine's Day as such, it's just that I'll buy the lady a rose when I damn well feel like it, not when told to.)
The gig was amazing. I've wanted to see Sheryl Crow for years, but didn't want to go and stand in an aircraft hanger for the privilege, so instead we stood at the upstairs bar looking down on the stage, and enjoyed the best part of a couple of hours of live music.
The thing that I really enjoyed, though, was not watching Sheryl (though it has to be said I do find her very easy on the eye, and there's something about the slightly older woman that's always done it for me), but instead watching her keyboard player Mike Rowe.
Here was a guy who was clearly having a blast indulging in his art, something that I can identify with by way of the sheer joy that writing brings to me. The grin never left his face as he deftly switched between the three or four sets of keys surrounding him, and I found myself grinning along for the duration of the gig.
It reminded me once more that while I love music in all shapes and forms, you can't beat seeing it live, particularly when the performers are clearly doing it for the sheer joy of actually being up there on stage and playing.
We've got a whole series of gigs planned so far this year, with artists as diverse as Newton Faulkener, Radiohead, Iron Maiden, Ace Frehley and Gary Numan on the calendar, and I can't wait to see each and every one of them.
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