Alarmingly, I haven’t yet got round to putting a Bunnymen post on this site.

I say alarmingly because Echo and the Bunnymen are the band I have seen the most – some 26 times in total.

I have seen them in fields, in tents, in clubs, at the home of Shakesperean theatre and in the Grade I listed neoclassical splendour of St George’s Hall.

I can only find the one ticket though so bear with me. It won’t all be about the one gig.

When I started my first job, the Bunnymen gave me an `in’ with a couple of the other staff as they were talking about having seen them at the Royal Court a few weeks earlier.

Having been at the same show I could confidently join in the conversation and set my stall out as a fellow lover of that slightly doomy, long overcoat-wearing turn of the Eighties scene.

I remember wearing a long overcoat to one of their gigs. In the standing section of the Royal Court this wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.

There’s a much longer essay to be written on the Bunnymen’s failure to become the biggest band in the world and I saw them on about 15 of those 26 occasions with the fervent belief and hope that’s what they would become.

Latterly, with just Will and Mac as the remaining members from the classic four-piece line-up, I’m content to see them run through their impressive highlights.

I never thought it possible that I would like someone more than The Smiths, but I play the Bunnymen’s records far more these days and Heaven Up Here would be in the Desert Island Top Ten albums.

I watch the YouTube clips of them at the Albert Hall in 1983 and marvel at what an amazing band they were and I was fortunate enough to be at the same venue when they did an anniversary show for Ocean Rain a couple of decades later.

I welled up when, during the title track, Mac dedicated the song to drummer Pete de Freitas who was killed in a motorcycle accident some 20 years earlier, and with the songs given the full orchestral string backing they sounded as good as ever.

There isn’t one show above all that sticks out. More moments from many of them.

In the rain at Glastonbury, at the end of the wonderfully silly Crystal Day that involved bike rides and tea at the Adelphi, standing next to magazine big cheese Mark Ellen in a tent at Cornbury, the comeback at Cream – they were all magnificent.

 

 

 

I once wrote a joke headline about Prince playing Widnes Labour Club to illustrate something highly improbable.

Then Elton John announced he would be coming to town and playing at the home of Widnes Vikings and suddenly that headline didn’t seem that funny.

Elton, with his Vegas residency and 300 million worldwide record sales, would surely not be pitching up in Lowerhouse Lane.

Not THE Elton John. Has to be a tribute act.

And yet, at exactly 7pm on Sunday June 18th, there he was. Emerging into the sunshine from the side of the stage in a long sparkly jacket to a rapturous ovation and launching into a beefy version of The Bitch is Back.

I was moved to comment that it was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen.

After a couple of songs he greeted the crowd with the words `Good evening Widnes’ and the weirdest thing I’d ever seen title had lasted for just eight minutes. We had a new winner.

Twenty-four hours after watching Guns n Roses tear it up at the London Stadium I was near enough in my own back yard watching someone who could scoff at the 100 million units they’ve shifted and point to seven number one albums in the US in one incredible three-year period, Tony, Grammy and Academy Awards and just about every other honour the music world can bestow.

And he was really good.

Not in a life-changing, blowing the roof off (metaphorically speaking as the Select Security Stadium has no roof) OMG what have I just seen kind of way. But in a professional, honed, perfectly judged, hit-laden kind of way.

He delivered sincere tributes to George Michael and those killed in the terrible incidents that had shaken London and Manchester, and also to the thousands who were in attendance.

Elton’s songs are the part of the the very fabric of the 70s and 80s and he treated us to a fair selection. Your Song, Rocket Man, Philadelphia Freedom, Daniel, Tiny Dancer, Sad Songs, I’m Still Standing – the list just grew and grew.

He ended with a solo version of Candle in the Wind, the crowd swayed and then he was gone.

But he’d really been there…hadn’t he?

You can go to plenty of gigs and come away thinking you’ve had a good night, enjoyed the band and that’s it.

But every so often you see something that you know is out of the ordinary; that raises the hairs on the back of your neck and gives you the feeling that you really were in the presence of something special.

Watching Guns n’ Roses at the Olympic Park I felt exactly that. But I also felt a massive pang of regret.

The show was epic, of course, and anyone with half an ear for music cannot fail to be moved by the opening bars of some of their classic tunes.

But the regret came from seeing them now. And not in 1988.

This is the closest approximation to the classic line-up I guess anyone will see nowadays, but to have seen them at the time of Appetite for Destruction must have been truly extraordinary.

When they were still untouched by the baggage that comes with being the world’s biggest rock band and they had one of the greatest hard rock albums ever recorded in their back pocket.

Not being able to compare the two I can’t really say that this show was diminished in any way. It was a two-and-three-quarter hour demonstration of what a stellar rock band can do.

There were no phoney showbiz moments, no lengthy call and response passages to fill time, just massive anthems, perfectly chosen covers – including The Damned’s New Rose which they included on their Spaghetti Incident album and Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun as a tribute to the recently departed Chris Cornell – and a boatload of energy.

Sure Axl disappeared occasionally to change into another big hat and possibly get a slug of oxygen and there wasn’t huge amount of interaction between the three principals to suggest they are now getting on like a house on fire but it didn’t look or sound like a cynical money-making exercise.

And when they kicked in to Welcome to the Jungle and Axl did his trademark side-to-side shuffle for the first time it was worth every penny.

And, just as an in joke, now literally everybody in the Western world knows the intro to Sweet Child O’ Mine.

It’s always entertaining looking back through old magazines and seeing bands who had that buzz around them. That for six months or a year the music press were desperate to convince you that these were the real deal.

Some genuinely were but most disappeared, leaving you to wonder fondly `I wonder what happened to…?’

That question could be asked about either of the bands on this ticket, although only one is named and they weren’t who I had gone to see.

The special guests in question where Black Kids who for a while were just about the hottest thing going and who I got to see twice in a matter of months and then never again.

Club Academy was packed and, to be fair, there was also quite a bit of fuss being made about Sons & Daughters so it wasn’t as though they were being usurped by their support.

Black Kids had a boatload of catchy tunes, a single with an insanely memorable chorus and looked like they were having a whale of a time. A couple of months later in Liverpool they were equally as good in another tiny venue after which I literally ran into singer Reggie Youngblood as we both tried to go through the same door at the same time.

Graciously I deferred to his soon to be massive status and stepped aside. History shows I was within my rights to go first.

Sons & Daughters were a bit `meh’. It all seemed a bit obvious and by-the-numbers with songs that lacked the bite and wit of Franz Ferdinand with whom they shared a label.

 

 

 

 

 

I know I’ve probably mentioned it once or twice already, but there’s nothing quite like that fresh blast of energy from a song you just know is going to change your world.

I’m not going to run through other examples here because there would be too many – and this is only about one performer.

I’d already got a seven-inch single by his band when the follow up came out, but on first hearing it was clearly the best straight up and down pop music of my young life so far.

I was so enthused by Wham! and Young Guns (Go For It!) that I took the newly-purchased 12-inch single to the pub to enthuse about it even more to people who were probably tired of my enthusing by this time.

But I knew this was different – and better than most of the other stuff I’d previously been championing loudly (sorry Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears et al).

.And so it was that George Michael earned a place at the Seeyoudownthefront top table.

Unfortunately I wasn’t to see Wham! at the time being much more likely to be wearing a long overcoat than a pair of Fila shorts

But years and years later I did get to see George play a remarkable show at the MEN Arena as part of his 25th anniversary tour when he demonstrated what a consummate showman he was by dominating a huge stage single-handed.

His band were almost hidden on platforms behind him so the focus was solely on George and he didn’t disappoint. It was very much an exhibition of this songwriting talent, his stage craft, his voice and his star quality.

We came away absolutely thrilled by the show and wholly convinced we had seen one of British pop music’s genuine all-time greats.

And what the coverage of his untimely death has proved is that he was great for other reasons besides his music career.

After also losing Bowie and Prince amongst others, losing George at Christmas made a bad year just that much worse.

Now it might seem like I have a great time going to gigs. Fun-filled frolics with friends for all you alliteration lovers out there.

But that’s not always the case.

There have been a few truly horrendous nights/days/weekends and they have nearly always involved a large estate in Stafford.

When the V festival began, it started out in Victoria Park in Warrington, and Hylands Park in Chelmsford with bands like Pulp, Elastica Supergrass and many more. Fantastic.

Then it decamped to Leeds for a bit with the Chelmsford leg remaining a constant, before the northern section settled on Weston Park in Staffordshire.

And for a while everything was cool, It always had an indie leaning mixed in with a bit of pop, but year by year the indie acts began to get shaved and the mainstream chart stuff began to take over.

Nothing wrong with that. There was always some quality chart pop to watch – and who doesn’t love quality chart pop?

But the biggest change was the audience (music snob klaxon alert). With each passing year it seemed to become less and less about the music with a huge majority of the thousands in attendance seemingly oblivious to what or who might be on stage. Lairy gangs on stag and hen weekends, post exam result revellers having a break they would never remember and those who had swallowed a magazine guide on `how to do a festival’.

In the end I got fed up and declared I’d never go back even to see a re-formed Smiths. (That was an idle threat because if they did re-form I’d go anywhere to see them).

So I left it for a couple of fallow years until the line-up was announced for 2014 and there, headlining the Saturday, were The Killers – a favourite of both me and Mrs C.

`How bad could it be?’ I asked myself.

`Very’ I answered before I even got through the gates.

Even the car park was worse than any other. Gangs of lads roaming round obviously looking for vehicles to break into and not really hiding what they were doing.

The queue for the the wristband exchange wasn’t the usual banter-filled 10 minutes or so, but a pushing, seething scrum as if failing to get in right this minute would be the worst thing on earth.

So by the time me, Mrs C and regular Tony had reached the main arena we were already less than thrilled.

And it got worse from then on.

Handily some of the acts alleviated the general unpleasantness, particularly Rizzle Kicks and Lily Allen whose rhyming of Tesco and al fresco makes me laugh every time I hear it.

But by the time The Killers came on after a particularly dull Paolo Nutini set we were more than ready to see them and then get off.

And amongst the crowd members we could see in the dark, we looked like we were the only ones ready to watch and enjoy the band. We were completely surrounded by groups chatting, selfie-taking, updating social media accounts, and generally doing anything except looking at the stage where Brandon and co were working their way through the kind of Best Of… set that usually constitutes a headline performance.

Even the usually undemonstrative Mrs C was forced to throw her hands up in despair and ask `why did you bother to come?’ out loud to anyone who might hear.

So in the unlikely event of some Smithsian hatchet-burying and them deciding that V would be the perfect forum for their return I think I can safely say my days at Weston Park are definitely over.

I doubt they’ll miss me.

 

 

 

My cousin sent me a message yesterday. It had been 32 years to the day since we saw Melle Mel and the Furious Five at Liverpool’s Royal Court.

About that time we saw quite a few bands together – including Melle Mel on two occasions – at this venerable Liverpool venue.

I particularly remember us drinking bottles of Newcastle Brown while watching PIL who were in their weirdest phase of all at the time. Not weird in terms of playing atonal, off-kilter, bass heavy new wave. But weird in terms of having what looked like `rock’ musicians from central casting in the band.

And why as teenagers we were drinking Newcastle Brown I’ll never know.

The Royal Court was virtually a second home for about five years.I’ll be surprised if I didn’t go almost once a  week to see someone – anyone!

Not that MMATFF were just anyone. We were huge fans of the nascent hip-hop and rap movement and more than 30 years on, Melle Mel’s rapping on The Message and White Lines remains as familiar now as it was then.