Electric Six – Fibbers, York, Wednesday 28th November

Electric Six – Fibbers, York, Wednesday 28th November
Supported by ‘Be Quiet, Shout Loud’ and ‘The Blue Prints’

I can’t believe it’s exactly year since I saw Electric Six live. Granted I saw the lead singer Dick Valentine earlier in the year on his solo tour to support his acoustic album, but it has been a whole twelve months since the six of them last stepped onto the stage and I was there to witness them.

A lot has happened since their last appearance. Aside from that aforementioned solo album we’ve had the incredible, but cut-back live-album ‘Absolute Pleasure’, a slight disappointment in the promised live-DVD at the upcoming Shepherd’s Bush date being shelves, an excellent new ‘Evil Cowards’ album and the Colonel jumping ship to be replaced by the seductively titled ‘Da Ve’.

It was great to return to Fibbers though but annoyingly this was the first time I’d not been there at the opening time on the dot – considering the supports don’t usually come on for ages – so we missed about fifteen minutes of opening band ‘Be Quiet, Shout Loud’, though I did meander a while at the merchandise table before picking up a physical copy of the second ‘Evil Cowards’ album to replace my lower quality .mp3 download.

‘Be Quiet, Shout Loud’ looked like, on the surface, as if someone had tried to assemble a replacement for Electric Six when they couldn’t make a gig, with each instrument that the six have present and correct but with a completely different person on them. They had a similarity in sound as well and this, combined with the fact the vocals were crisp and clear and the music interestingly composed, meant I really enjoyed them and regretted stopping off for an over-onioned burger at a local take-away instead of heading straight to Fibbers. They closed on a song with lots of lyrics named after the band – or possibly the other way round – (“You’ll Never Know How To Dance”) which is an interesting novelty and the crowd interaction during this was excellent, also helped by their riffing of ‘Down At McDonnelzzz’ during the instrumental opening, which is the best Segway of Electric Six into a support that I can remember. Granted, the only competition is the act a few years ago who said each song he was to play was called by the same title as an E6 song.

I can’t remember the titles of the songs they played but most were of the type that were instantly enjoyable and singable and they’re definitely a band I’d like to hear more from and their MySpace songs are well worth a listen for their similar sound but interesting production (http://uk.myspace.com/bequietshoutloud/)

The second support was the York-based ‘The Blue Prints’ (http://uk.myspace.com/theblueprintsuk) who, unlike the first band, didn’t enjoy the same clear sound and the lead singer’s vocals were quiet and muffled, an issue that unfortunately stretched into the main act. Though not as all-out party as the first support this was another strong act that I’d love to hear more from, so I’ll be holding out for their much talked about album that they chatted about between songs. The lead singer had a gentler voice than the first act but just as enjoyable and the four-piece band were tight and the synths at a good volume to hear. Stand out tracks for me were ‘Staring at the Sun’ and ‘The Wave’ and with a louder mix for the vocals would have been even more enjoyable. It’s great to go to a gig where the support acts are actually enjoyable rather than some I’ve been to.

Setlist:
Three Minutes
Black and Blue
Another Breakdown
Staring At The Sun
The Wave
Walk

Now onto the main act, but first a quick bit of a lesson on gigs. I’ve come to the conclusion that no matter what gig I find myself at there is always the ‘gig tosser pairing’. At ‘Spector’ in ‘The Duchess’ above Fibbers a month or so ago it was the middle-aged man trying to re-live his youth but coming across as a tosser. At last month’s ‘The Lancashire Hotpots’ gig, also in Fibbers, it was the young couple who couldn’t get the concept of not being heard above the loud music and wouldn’t take no for an answer. At this gig it was, primarily, the just past puberty kids near the front with one in particular already wasted – probably on just two ciders – by the time the Blue Prints came on and then proceeded to get more and more irritating as the gig wore on. I’m not against 14+ gigs but if it’s going to attract kids that get their first taste of alcohol and then proceed to regress ten years then let’s have an age cap. Either that or I am just sounding old. The crowd did seem to be pretty young in parts and, from when Dick asked if it was the first gig for anyone, it seemed to be a lot of people’s first time, perhaps attracted by the lure of hearing their ‘debut’ album ‘Fire’ in full for the first time, rightly or wrongly seen as their biggest and best album.

That said, there were nicer members of the crowd and it was great to meet K-Man and Mel again, including some that treated those gathered there to impromptu versions of ‘Chocolate Pope’ and ‘The Band In Hell’ between E6 and the previous support act. Perhaps they weren’t aware of anything beyond ‘Switzerland’, like a travel-reticent cuckoo-clock maker.

Rant over, Electric Six came on stage to much applause and a packed venue and gave us three tracks initially, starting with a spot-on cover of The Osmond’s ‘Crazy Horses, as heard on ‘Absolute Pleasure’, and it sounded just as good as on the live CD even if the backing vocals were a little too quiet. As a follow-up we were treated to a big thing for me, a live version of KILL track ‘The Newark Airport Boogie’, one I’ve never heard live and it was amazingly done and great to hear as a full sung song and not through a vocoder; it proved to be one of my favourite tracks of the night and really showed off the band and had some great synth from Tait Nucleus?

The opening trio was rounded off by one of my favourite songs by the band, ‘Jam It In The Hole’ which was, as expected, great.

We then got the whole of ‘Fire’ presented to us. It was paradoxically unusual to hear ‘Dance Commander’ this early on, usually an encore song, and Dick’s showcasing of each band member during the last bit seemed weird, but it was a well rendered version of the track and got the crowd pumping.

Now, having not seen the band live until their ‘Senor Smoke’ tour, I missed out on hearing a lot of the songs from ‘Fire’ live and thus hearing ‘Electric Demons (In Love)’, one of my all-time favourite songs by the band, was a real treat and was nailed as a song. They continued rattling through the songs with ‘Naked Pictures (Of Your Mother)’ and ‘Danger! High Voltage’ (complete with Monifah ‘Touch Me’ addition) were both as well received as each other. We got ‘She’s White’ complete with the usual ‘My Drummer’ monologue. Though a little shorter than usual we did get the gem of a line, following chants of ‘Yorkshire! Yorkshire!’ by the crowd after mentioning the drummer is from Doncaster, Dick saying ‘Doncaster is in Yorkshire. Asshole’. Great put down!

The tracks came thick and fast with little speaking between them, with ‘I Invented The Night’ being another track new to me and it fitted in well. ‘Improper Dancing’ got the crowd going – perhaps a little too much as a fight broke out in the mosh pit and I nearly got in the crossfire of some fisticuffs – though it was a shame that there was nothing slotted in between the ‘Stop!’ and ‘Continue!’ (and I was annoyed that I missed these lines because of the stupid fight.

The appearance of ‘Gay Bar’ with its extended middle section naturally got the crowd going and the short-but-sweet ‘Nuclear War (On The Dancefloor)’ sat there nicely, and as they continued it was difficult to believe that guitarist ‘Da Ve’ has only been with them a short time. ‘Getting Into The Jam’ passed by nicely – though it’s not one of my favourite tracks and ‘Vengance and Fashion’, with ‘The Dirty Shame’ version of one of the lines, was great to hear and said to be Dick’s favourite track on the album. I don’t necessarily agree but it was nice to hear live even if I have fond memories of the mash-up they once did between it and ‘Vibrator’.

‘I’m The Bomb’ was another joy to hear, even if the spoken bits in the bridge got lost due to the sound mix, and album closer ‘Synthesizer’ was strong on synths, crowd buzz and, of course, waving.

With the album dealt with, we got three more tracks from the band, three tracks which could be seen as the band’s showcase. ‘Down At McDonnelzzz’ got the crowd going even more with its call-and-response bridge and personal favourite ‘Dance Epidemic’, with an unusual, unexpected but ultimately enjoyable chorus change to Dick going ‘Hey! Ho’ (not in Robbie ‘Candy’ way) whilst the rest of the band did the honours of the usual chorus, proving to be a hit. They closed the main set, naturally, with ‘I Buy The Drugs’ which rounded things off nicely and the crowd were happy to oblige in singing the middle-eight back to the band.

As this was at Fibbers, it was once more too short a set, coming in at around eighty minutes, and it’s my one annoyance about gigs there that I’d rather have one less support – even when they were the quality of those on the night – and more E6. And though the expected encore was a measly one song, concluding twenty-minutes before the advertised curfew, it was a corker and my favourite song of the evening. ‘Clusterfuck!’, one of my favourite tunes on ‘Zodiac’ was an even better beast live with the tempo-changes handled incredibly and the singable nature of the live song something to behold. It was truly a great ending to the gig.

Overall, it was brilliant to see the band again. The ability to hear ‘Fire’ in full in celebration of the album anniversary was well worth it, especially when I never saw the original tour ten years ago. The seven songs selected to accompany it were a good range of tunes – though no love for ‘Flashy’ or ‘Heartbeats and Brainwaves’ – and though I could list a long list of tracks I missed not hearing, for a special tour it was ideal really.

The supports were equally as good to hear even if it did mean the main act was shorter at eight minutes, and the vocal sound was disappointing in a venue that usually excels in this area, and some of the crowd would have been better outside than in.

However, it was a great night from a fantastic band, delivering twenty songs with energy and fun and I look forward to seeing them again on the 15th in London where they’ve promised even bigger things.

Setlist
Crazy Horses
The Newark Airport Boogie
Jam It In The Hole

Dance Commander
Electric Demons
Naked Pictures (Of Your Mother)
Danger! High Voltage
I Invented The Night
She's White
Gay Bar
Nuclear War (On The Dancefloor)
Getting Into The Jam
Vengeance And Fashion (The Dirty Shame version)
I'm The Bomb (Computer chorus)
Synthesizer

Down At McDonnellzzz
Dance Epidemic
I Buy The Drugs

Clusterfuck!

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The Lancashire Hotpots – Fibbers, York – Saturday 10th November 2012

The Lancashire Hotpots – Fibbers, York – Saturday 10th November 2012
Supported by the Lumberjack Cowboy Heartbreak Trucking Company

And so, by a random collection of coincidences, this was the fourth time since June that I’ve seen the Lancashire Hotpots, a five-piece band famous for their comedy folk songs about modern life, a band I’ve grown to really enjoy since their first CD was used as a test disc at the Students’ Union club nights back in the day.

Returning to the Fibbers venue in York, the one where they spend all the money refurbishing but then forgot to replace the chipboard toilets, it was thankfully a better sounding gig than the Spector gig I heard at their upstairs neighbour the Duchess five days ago where the sound mix was shocking; so at least they spend the money wisely on some decent sound and acoustics.

Having seen them for the past three times without support it was interesting to find them supported tonight by a new band after the sad splitting up of the excellent Re-entrants. In their place we got the “Lumberjack Cowboy Heartbreak Trucking Co.” who, as you can imagine by the name, were probably a joke band. And this is where I stood there scratching my head.

The problem with the support was that it wasn’t entirely clear whether they were serious or not. They purported to be a band from the American Mid-West, as cemented in by their costumes and accents. The six-piece band of a guitarist, drummer, bass, singer / guitar and two female backing singers ticked all the boxes of being a serious American country band down to their opening four songs which, starting with the toe-tapping ‘Promised Land’, were very much religious themed with most of the songs being based around praising Jesus, all delivered well and sounded fantastic, even if the choruses were over played and most songs fitted into the template of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus sung acapella-chorus which tired pretty quickly after they did this over, and over, and over again for what was, having said that, a generous fifty-minute support set, far more than you’d expect and, if I’m being honest, far more than I’d actually want.

Then, after delivering these four songs with a religious message which really sat awkwardly with the firmly secular and overtly funny style of the Hotpots, they threw a curveball and sang a song about the leader singer finding his wife upstairs with another man and deciding to take advantage of the situation and “film a porno”. “Let's Make a Video” was a huge juxtaposition and a very funny song, and was followed by a smattering of other genre mickey-takes including a song where he’s visited by Jesus and asked to write a song to unite the world which would be called “Don’t Take The Piss Out Of Me” which would later be transformed into the sexual-innuendo-filled chorus of “Don’t Take Your First Out Of Me”. They would also sing it in French and German (but not Mandarin). This was equally a great sing-a-long track, even if it did slightly outstay its welcome and was joined in the set by a few other obviously comic tracks, but was surrounded by more straight up tunes.

I’m still in two minds about the band: were they meant to be a comedy band or not, and were they even American as their first song made a subtle reference to ‘Robin Hood’s Bay’? Obviously the songs I’ve outlined above could never be sung with a straight face so were the four songs that opened either a false opening to make the porn video song more of a shock or was it the subtle humour of sending up mid-West religious bands? It did feel like I was missing something: either the joke was too subtle for the majority of the performance or they were just confused themselves.

It’s difficult to review them as the band was tight, the songs catchy and the funny songs well judged, but many outstayed their welcome and would have made better tunes as tighter, shorter songs and their regular switching to acapella became tedious after they were done for the third, then fourth, then fifth times. It was a very generous support at fifty minutes but a shorter time would have been better as my attention did wane near the end.

After the confusing opening set, we got the Hotpots and, because of the support act or because Fibbers seem to do shorter act lengths, we got pretty much the set we got for Lancaster, Bingley and Leeds but with many numbers cropped out:

Let’s Get Leathered
Bitter Lager Cider Ale Stout
I Fear Ikea
Roy
Uncle Bernard
Chav
Cinema Smugglers
The Perfect Pint
Keys Wallet Phone
Indie Disco
Beer Olympics
He’s Turned Emo
A Lancashire DJ
Me PSP
Chippy Tea

Encore:
Shopmobility Scooter / Hey Jean
Hotpot Style / Bang Bang Thumpy Megamix

Victims of this thirty-five minute shorter set were ‘I Met A Girl On MySpace’, ‘Ebay Eck’, ‘Has Anyone Seen My Dongle?’, ‘I’ll Ave One Wi Yer’, ‘Kebablishment’, ‘Cottaging’ and ‘The Girl From Bargain Booze’, a fair selection of songs including some personal favourites. Now, I’ve seen them performed recently so their absence wasn’t missed by me but there were probably some in the audience who would have liked to have heard them. Like a tree-loving food connoisseur I would have rather had twenty minutes less Lumberjack and twenty minutes more Hotpot, but the set was still a strong one and delivered in their usual enthusiastic style, even if it times they did feel like they were rushing to squeeze as much in as possible into their shorter set time, though we did get an expanded version of ‘Roy’ – or at least its variations.

‘Let’s Get Leathered’ was as fun an opening as ever and ‘Bitter Lager Cider Ale Stout’ continued the theme, and personal favourite ‘I Fear Ikea’ is always welcome. Though the surprise for me was spoilt by already hearing the adaptation at Leeds, the Saville-lyrical tweak of ‘Uncle Bernard’ went down a storm, alongside possibly the best puppet sequence I’ve seen before this track. The YMCA-style dance to ‘CHAV’ was as popular as ever and the dance section kicked the crowd off, with the hotpots once more switching into their rave gear, with the conga-line going down well and setting the venue alight. It was just a shame that, like every other gig I’ve been to recently, there’s always a drunken idiot nearby that seems intent on being an idiot.

Last Monday it was the middle-aged bald-headed man in the Duchess drunk on god knows what and being an arse; this time a blonde-haired woman in a flat cap and a man in a red shirt who seemed more interested in facing away from the band and acting up then his friend / partner preceding to keep drunkenly trying to tell me something but not loud enough to hear them over the music and then wouldn’t go away when I tried to ignore them.

The main set was brought to an end with the great ‘Chippy Tea’ before they returned in spangly jackets for the encore, to bring the singable ‘Shopmobility Scooter’ with the ‘Hey Jean’ ending to the responsive crowd and then a fleshed out version of their “Gangnam Style”-spoof they aired at the Well in Leeds, now serving as an introduction to the dance music medley of the ‘Bang Bang Thumpy Megamix’, the fantastic way to end the gig.

At the end we also managed to finally pick up some of the Hotpot pint glasses.

Overall it was another entertaining night from the Hotpots. The presence of a support band added an extra element back into the night but the joke was too thin or obscure to really score big points and, though their fifty minute set was big for a support, I would have rather had less of them and more of the hotpots. With thirty five minutes dropped from their set it couldn’t match the Well in Leeds for the range of tracks and the crowd weren’t quite as fun but they played all their big hits and the band were on top form again and, though seeing them four times in as many months can wear the magic away, it was still a great night and Fibbers, as a venue, was far clearer for the music than their competitors upstairs, which is something the Duchess should learn from.

7/10

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