I missed Black Rose last time they played so I was looking forward to them because they are definitely one of the region’s finest covers’ bands with an immense wall of Marshall sound. The usual two sets with the first kicking off with Thin Lizzy’s “Emerald” and “Rosalie”, the first of several T. Rex songs for the night with “20th Century Boy”, Slade’s “Cum On Feel The Noize”, possibly a first-timer with Humble Pie’s “Four Day Creep” and then back to thin Lizzy with “Waiting For An Alibi”. “Paper Plane” was next up from Status Quo, more Thin Lizzy and “Jailbreak”, Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out”, “Are you Gonna Go My Way” from Lenni Kravitz, Green Day’s “Boulevard Of Broken Dreams”, another Thin Lizzy with “Whiskey In The Jar” and rounding off the first set another Quo number “Matchstick Men”.
The second set started off how the first ended with Quo’s “Whatever You Want” then into the all-time classic Kinks “Lola” followed up with “Ace Of Spades” from Motorhead, ZZ Top’s “Gimme All Your Loving” preceded yet another couple of Thin Lizzy songs, “Dancing In The Moonlight” and “Don’t Believe A Word”, the only Dr. Feelgood track of the night “Milk And Alcohol” lead into a superb David Bowie “The Jean Genie” and then a rarity, “Turning Japanese” from The Vapors. We were heading towards the last few songs but not before “Get It On” from T. Rex, Slade’s “Coz I Love You”, another T. Rex hit number with “Solid Gold Easy Action”, and then the 1979 track “My Sharona” from The Knack led us to Black Rose’s final song of the night of “Delilah” from The Sensational Alex Harvery Band.
A superb couple of sets and if you missed them it looks like you’ll have to wait until next year to see them again!
A Friday night first time for this local band and awaited with interest since we knew they could play but how would they sound? Being honest, their sound engineering was not at all good, the bass was just about right, the lead was not loud enough and neither were the vocals but much of this was probably down to the drums being thrashed to hell!
Don’t get me wrong, Kyle can play the drums but he was unbelievably far too heavy beating the life out of the skins and drowning-out Dave and Carl’s guitars, quite simply they need a good sound engineer to sort it out since there were some great covers with lovely rifts and a solid beat ruined by overkill.
Apologies, I completely forgot to write this blog for an interesting new band at The Kings.
The really good news is that The Substitutes are a fantastic addition to the region’s music scene performing only two old classic rock songs, all the others were current genre rock songs, honestly I’m not quite sure what we call this genre therefore let’s call it noughties rock, and honestly they sounded just superb. Their sound engineering was excellent and their musicianship spot-on, so were there any downsides?
Yep, only two insofar as I am concerned. Firstly they need a to get at least another hoursworth or more of songs so they don’t have to repeat themselves and secondly, and this is purely personal, their band name is no reflection of noughties rock, it simply does not do them the justice they deserve.
So guys, get practicing some new stuff, get an up-to-date band name and we’ll all be waiting to see you again.
Mr Stiff stood in almost at the last moment for Mosquito who have now disbanded, however they did recommend Mr Stiff as a possible replacement and what a recommendation they were. A four-piece band including lead singer Paul Stiff also on the keyboard, Tony Stiff on vocals and bass who had a bit of a problem with his sound in the first set, Dave Stiff with vocals and lots of excellent drumming and not forgetting Stiff Little Willy on vocals and guitar.
They performed the usual format of two sets, I did miss the first one which included, I’m told, a great Pink Floyd “Run”, I assume “On The Run”, the bass guitar had a few sound issues but they obviously had this sorted by the second set since it was, quite simply, one of the best AC/DC cover tributes I’ve heard in a long time. Unfortunately there was no setlist therefore I have to try and recollect what they did but included were “For Those About To Rock (We Salute You)”, “Highway To Hell”, “You Shook Me All Night Long”, did they do “Back In Black”, and during their encore “Whole Lotta Rosie”.
Also during their encores a very surprising, and I’m fairly sure a first-timer at The Kings, Wild Cherry’s 1976 “Play That Funky Music” (White Boy), very impressive and the bar loved it. The encores lasted a full 30 minutes with a great medley of songs including The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There” and finishing with a very lengthy 1959 Chan Romero song popularised by The Swinging Blue Jeans in late 1963, “Hippy Hippy Shake”.
Great stuff, extremely well-performed by all four Stiffs and hopefully we’ll see them back again soon since they told me they have loads more music they can perform…as usual keep an eye on the calendar.