The Killers, Train and Boddingtons Chimney!

Two nights out in a row at gigs last month! I thought those days were over, but apparently not, saw The Killers play Manchester arena on Monday 18/02 and Train at the Apollo on Tuesday 19/02, here's the lowdown.

 

 

Night 1: The good lady and I made our way to the Killers gig on Monday night. It was the first time we had been to the arena in Manchester since arriving back to the UK from our nine year overseas 'lost weekend', the obvious thing we noticed was that where the iconic Boddingtons brewery had once stood for the best part of two centuries, there was now a car park and a Travelodge, well actually its a travelod, the g and the e conspicuous by their absence. Honestly, you turn your back for nine years, come back and they've knocked down boddies chimney! As my daughter pointed out when I gave her the bad news, they have literally paved paradise and put up a parking lot! Even though we were out of the country when it was bulldozed, I'm still amazed that this sad news didn't filter out to the colonies!

We arrived too late to check out the support act, although that's not strictly true, as we heard a little of them from the bar queue! This was after we were through the doors and Mrs Baggers handbag had been thoroughly checked, quite right too, never know what these women are carrying into venues! Always makes me chuckle, there are fellas walking in with who knows what in their pockets, yet the ladies get the treatment in case their choice of lip gloss should offend the travelling troubadours! Needless to say we avoided the merch stand, which at 25 sheets a pop for t-shirts, was making a killing, pun intended!

The Killers took to the stage at 9pm sharp, just as predicted by the missus! and what a sound, rocking the house within the first few bars of the first song. Mr Flowers throat was certainly back on form, this being the rescheduled gig which was cancelled in December. The guys ripped through a boatload of stomping tunes before a couple of treats came in mid way through the gig. First, in the shape of a singalongamanchester 'Don't look back in Anger', tipping a hat to the brothers Grimm aka Manchester band, Oasis.  A bigger treat was the appearance of Bernard Sumner, he of New Order fame, introduced by Brandon as 'The Sheriff of Manchester' they dueted on a New order track called 'Crystal'. Not one we were familiar with to be honest, but its video is apparently is where The Killers took their name from. Learn something new everyday! The gems just kept coming in the shape of 'Read my mind', 'Runaways', 'Mr.Brightside'. I came relatively late to this band, only really getting into them via Brandon's solo album, 'Flamingo' about three years ago, then backtracking through the Killers stuff. Mrs B has been into them from day one, so I'm grateful that she turned me on to them , this was a great gig and The Killers go straight into my virtual list as one of the best live bands I've seen, I would highly recommend getting to see them next time around. We beat the solid traffic heading home by nipping down past Strangeways and out via Cheetham Hill, home in time for a nightcap, result!

Train and Gin Wigmore

Night two: Monday 19th, Train at Manchester Apollo, picked up my daughter, and headed into town. After a beer and some fine food in Chinatown we took a cab out to Ardwick,  I strolled into the venue as her bag was thoroughly searched for suspect lip gloss! After we had checked out the merch stand, which at 15 quid, was far better value than the Killers, we gathered a couple of beers and headed upstairs to the circle, the bar was very quiet up there, note to self for next time, 'use upstairs bar!'. We were shown to our seats by a very kind lady with a torch, old school or what!
The seats were in a excellent spot, left of and approximately 40 feet from the stage. Result! The support act was in full swing, and what a performance. A young lady by the name of Gin Wigmore was up there, rocking the house along with her fine band of merry men. Kiwi Gin is new to me but I bought her CD (Gravel and Wine) on the way out, I never, ever buy support merch, so that's a good indicator of how good she is, check out her stuff.
I went to this gig because my daughter is a big fan of the boys from San Francisco and she asked me if I fancied it. So glad I did, Train delivered an awesome set, very different to the Killers, more showbiz to be honest, but extremely good value all the same,  a hardworking band who go the whole nine yards to ensure their audience is fully part of the gig.
Lead singer Pat Monahan has a great voice, even though he was obviously struggling at times with a sore throat in this gig and had been told rest it, he delivered a great performance, highlight of which was when he put down the microphone altogether and sang to the Apollo unaided, very, very impressive! Drops of Jupiter, Save Me San Francisco, Hey Soul Sister, Drive By were the obvious gems, but also Mermaids, Marry me and Bruises for which Gin Wigmore joined the band for a duet were also excellent. This was a great night out, thoroughly enjoyed it, not least of all because I rode a double decker bus back into town for the first time in more years than I care to remember, it was an electric driven double decker at that...Go Manchester!

I received an email from PRSformusic recently advising that they now have a overseas music reporting tool on their website, they also invited me to check it out as I've had issues previously logging known international performances of Summats work, TV, Radio etc. Good to see that they are making an effort even if its still only tiny steps, I will certainly check out the functionality and report back! Or at least I will once I work out why my windows 7 desktop isn't able to login to the PRS site, even though my login works fine from the XP laptop! One senses there is a move from PRSformusic to 'put its house in order', that would certainly be appreciated. As I've mentioned in previous blogs, all radio stations are now be able to provide full information on ALL tracks they have played, there is no need for 'sample days', anyway, rant over for now! Watch this space.

Until next time, take care and keep smiling

Baggers

How to win a bet - Dirty Old Town

If you fancy a tip on how to win yourself a bet in an Irish bar, stick around & I'll explain.

Ask someone where the classic folk song 'Dirty Old Town' is set & you will generally receive the following responses, Dublin?, Belfast? At which point, you can correct them & pick up your winnings as I've done in Irish bars previously, by advising that it  was written about Salford, Greater Manchester, where its composer was from.
The association with Ireland one suspects, is in the fact that it has been covered successfully by both
 The Pogues & The Dubliners,  it has actually been covered many many times by a very diverse set of artists, from Rod Stewart to The Specials.
The song was written by legendary folk singer songwriter Ewan MacColl, father of the late, great Kirsty MacColl, and also wrote, among others, the Grammy award winning 'The first time ever I saw your face'.
Bearing in mind that I've always loved the song, it was a very nice experience to be at The Matchstick Man pub in Salford Quays last December, when an old guy by the name of Jim, got up to sing, mercifully curtailing the tired old karaoke songs which were being ritually put to death in the bar & belted out a beautiful rendition of the the old song in homage to his hometown. Whilst the days of a good old singalong in North West pubs are largely long gone, as they are elsewhere in the UK,  it was especially unexpected as it was pleasing, to hear this authentic slice of northern gold served up in Salford on a cold December night.




Refreshments in Salford Dec 12

We were in the pub following the Squeeze gig at the Apollo, it is incredibly difficult to give a balanced view of this gig as I've been a fan for such a long time but in the interests of a objective critique, here goes!  Musically they were amazing, Glenn Tilbrook has lost nothing of his excellent vocals and remains a very underrated guitarist, some of his solos on the night were pure joy. When they played the hits and much loved songs we had all come to hear, it was awesome. However, they spent way too long self indulging in both new & obscure tracks which quite frankly, in parts had us yawning. Seriously guys, you know what everyone was hoping for, its not all about you, its about the audience you are entertaining, unfortunately it didn't quite come off & ended up a little bit disappointing. I suppose when you have been around as long as this band has, they have the right to a little self indulgence but come on, Squeeze, you can do better! Highlight for me, outside of the obvious 'Up the junction' and singalonga-labelled-with love, was Black Coffee in Bed, this track really works surprisingly well in a live environment.
One person who certainly didn't disappoint was support act  Paul Heaton, the ex Housemartins and Beautiful South singer/songwriter treated us to tracks from all phases of his brilliant career, with the emphasis particularly on the early Housemartins stuff, he was expertly assisted by his own three piece band, an acapello rendition of 'Caravan of Love' as a finale brought the house down. Without doubt, the best opening act I've seen for some time. I'm sure the crowd at the Apollo would not have complained at all if he'd have played on for another hour, outstanding!

The night was introduced  by comedian Peter Kay, another lifelong Squeeze fan, very random opening, but very funny! Fans of Corrie will be interested to hear we got a taxi to the gig from Streetcars! Alas neither Steve nor Lloyd was driving!
Gigs a plenty coming up this year, February will see us at both the Train & The Killers gigs in Manchester, The Fratellis are up next in Camden Town in April & Springsteen and the E Street band in Cardiff in July! Not bad for starters, hopefully going to be a great year for concerts!

Sad news about the demise of HMV but is anyone really surprised? The idea of a record store has been out-dated for years, surpassed with the no-nonsense, stock everything black holes that are Amazon and iTunes and generally the world wide interweb!. I loved mooching around record stores back in the day just as much as anyone else, but the music industry and how we peruse and purchase our music has changed dramatically, and for the better in this bloggers humble opinion. Instead of thumbing album or CD covers I now sift through the mountain of music at my fingertips on Youtube, if I like, I buy, there and then. I intend to cover more on the changing face of music making and purchasing in a future blog, but for now, HMV like the rest of the high street has failed to move with the times and is now paying the ultimate price. The high street has to reinvent itself, there are still, believe it or not, suburbs in a number of the UK's major cities and towns, where the High street is flourishing, they are doing so becaused they have evolved to adapt to the needs of their consumers and are vibrant places to visit, spend your hard earned pennies and simply enjoy being out in town. Unfortunately they are in a minority, more need to follow suit if we aren't to be completely taken over by the relentless march of betting shops, takeaways and hairdressers!

On a brighter note, a brand new Summats single will be released shortly, stangely enough via the aforementioned iTunes, Amazon, Spotify etc, with a new EP hot on its heels before the summer. Its been a long time coming, our unerring ability to procrastinate never fails us! However, the tracks are largely ready to go with a little more effort put in, studio time coming up to finalise vocals, then its down to our friend and producer Danny Wyatt aka Fractured Calm to deliver the finished tracks, no pressure Danny! :) https://soundcloud.com/fracturedcalm

Until next time, take care and keep smiling.

Baggers