Alabama Safe

Men and women are separated as they enter...
Less than a week after the Paris attacks at the Bataclan, and I’m heading to the Brixton Academy. It’s the first time that my 50/50 challenge has taken me the short walk down Coldharbour Lane to this famous South London venue. It is good to be able to walk to a gig, but it’s a miserable night, calling for a warm coat and hat.

As expected the security is not only visible but very strict. From the Police presence outside the gig to the barrier of Orange Jackets that greet us inside. Men and women are separated as they enter the venue and are patted down by an army of security guards. I stand with arms outstretched in the crucifixion pose of submission; the guard just stands there and eventually nods to my hat. I take my hat off to him. Then I am searched. He takes time making sure the bulge in my left back pocket is just a phone and the slightly bigger one on the right is… what is it… he has a bit more of a feel… do I feel him tense a little… what can it be… oh a camera – OK you can go through.

The sedentary air that seems to have settled...
I find my way up to the circle and a seat on the front row. I feel safe in the knowledge that security has been taken seriously. Is it just my imagination or is the atmosphere subdued? Maybe it’s where I am seated, but there seems little of the usual pre-gig chatter I so enjoy listening to. The support is greeted on stage with warm but disinterested applause. Michael Kiwanuka’s set is good but does nothing to lift the sedentary air that seems to have settled over us.

 
Even the arrival of a group of guys drinking heavily and speaking loudly in the row behind fails to break the lethargy of the atmosphere. I just cannot be bothered to sigh at how widely they miss the mark in their summation of the support act and the mix. It’s turning into a strange evening.

I remind myself during the break that I have been looking forward to seeing Alabama Shakes for a while now and I head back to my seat full of renewed anticipation.

As the songs are ticked off the set-list so I too become more ticked off...
They take the stage to a great roar from the mass of fans that have assembled in the stalls. And for the second time this evening I find myself taking my hat off (metaphorically not literally this time!) to someone. Alabama Shakes are tight and professional and I admire them for their skill. However, (and this is where my hat, metaphorically, is replaced) they recreate their songs with too much precision.

It is not often I come away from a gig feeling underwhelmed. All night, at the start of each new song, I find myself thinking that this is the one when they will let go, let rip, improvise, add a devastating new dimension to their tune. But as the songs are ticked off the set-list so I too become more ticked off, at how safe they play the gig.

Perhaps we took a risk, perhaps we didn't ...
Safety seems to be the order of the day. Security and Alabama Shakes' set both safe. Yet live music should never be safe it is the unpredictability of a gig that is one of it's biggest pulls. Gone are the days of bands like The Beatles and Led Zeppelin recording their first album in hours. We know that artists spend weeks perfecting the recording with endless takes and retakes. Live music, at its best, is about the fusion of the band not seeking perfection but seeking a one off interpretation of the song in that time and place and for that particular audience.

Brittany Howard thanks us for turning up tonight after what happened in Paris. Perhaps we took a risk, perhaps we didn't or maybe we were protected by the very strict and visible security. What would have been good is if we had been rewarded, not just with a vote of thanks from the stage but, with a little live risk taking by the band...

I grew up with that round yellow sticker adorning the instrument case of any self-respecting musician: ‘Keep Music Live’. The digital compression and easily achievable perfection of modern recording technology has done much to help sanitise modern music but the best live music has always been more about the performance than the perfection.
 

Expecting to be shaken, but unfortunately I was hardly stirred...
I reflect on the walk home. I am glad I went and it was good, but I had really expected so much more. I had expected there to be at least one ‘wow’ moment. I had been expecting to be shaken, but unfortunately I was hardly stirred.

Gig: 35 of 50

Date of Gig: Wed. 18th November 2015


Venue
Brixton Academy

Artists 
Alabama Shakes

Michael Kiwanuka

Running total of artists seen 73

Happiness is a Warm Pun - My Tribute to a Beatles Tribute!

The rest they say is history…

The Beatles are so much part of everyday music history and we credit them with changing the face of popular music that we forget that it’s a simple pun that gave them their name. This blog is a homage to that forgotten pun, as I become a musical pundit, not necessarily as an expert but simply because I can say I punned it! If you expect the puns to get better don’t read on this is a long and winding road. I know I should let it be but with a little help from my friends we can work it out and if we let them into our hearts we can make them better… (I told you it wouldn’t get any better!!)

Well, it was gig 17, you know what I mean and I’m watching The Fab Beatles! My excuse? I’m on holiday in Devon, it’s Sunday afternoon, the sun is struggling to shine and it’s free!

So it’s confession time – lighters in the air anyone else who has seen a tribute band! I will admit I have seen a couple before. The Bootleg Beatles, who were just a night out in the student union back in my under-grad days at Hull (at this point you would be forgiven for thinking I am a massive Beatles fan as two out of three of the tribute bands I’ve seen are Beatles tributes, but I’m not nah nah nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah) and The Musical Box.

The Musical Box, a Genesis tribute act, were a much more conscious decision than either of the two Beatles tribute act gigs I’ve been to! My excuse was that I never had the opportunity to see Genesis in the best era of their career, the Gabriel era. So a tribute band was the only way I would ever be able to experience a little of what it must have been like to see Gabriel in his ‘slipperman’ outfit pushing back the boundaries of what would become known as multi-media. However, as interesting as it was for an avid Genesis fan too young to have experienced Gabriel, it was not a wonderful gig, just a simple reenactment with some other guy playing the role of my hero.

Let sleeping acts lie…

So tribute band - yes or no? Despite my confessions, on the whole, I would say no! If it was 20 years ago today that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play and the band has long since split then you should probably let sleeping acts lie!

Unlike classical music, live performance of popular music has become firmly wedded to the composers and that has built in a life span when it comes to performance. If the original band splits, so the chance to see the songs performed live is, generally, lost. It is this marriage and ultimate divorce that has spawned the tribute band – people want to get back to where they once belonged before the bird had flown or simply experience what they had missed! So if I kind of get a tribute act of a band that no longer tour, I certainly can’t understand tribute acts for artists who are still performing!

You’re back again – no no no not a second time…

However, the tribute band is now under treat as yesterday’s bands have realised there is money to be made in their own nostalgia, and so the tribute band is being replaced by the reunion tour! Yesterday, all those bands seemed so far away, now it looks as if they’re here to stay, Oh they believe in yesterday. Tribute band or reunion tour I still can’t help feeling that a band and its live performance are always of its time. If I missed it because I was too young, not hip enough, or too broke to see them I can’t recapture that now!

When going to a gig I will always aim to catch the support act. On the one hand I want to discover new music, and on the other I want to brag about seeing them before they were famous! Whilst albums can be enjoyed and rediscovered 30 years on, the thrill of catching a band live at the height or - even better - just before the height, of their fame and power is very much part of the experience and however good the tribute act or reunion tour may be nothing can recapture, replace or relive the first time round because little darling, its seems like years since they’re been here. I am much more jealous of a colleague who saw Led Zeppelin live in Birmingham with a handful of people before they were famous than my friend who got tickets to the 2007 reunion gig!

I can hear them this time…

Yet, I’m still at this gig. Not because it’s a Beatles tribute act, but simply because it’s a free performance on a Sunday afternoon at a local theatre in an English seaside holiday town. I’m not even a daytripper I’m here all week - thank you very much! What a fabulous initiative by The Exmouth Pavilion the place is full and its proper family entertainment. Yes, there is a grandmother who had seen The Beatles in their heyday and there are children young enough to be Paul or Ringo’s great-grandchildren but everyone is having a great time. People are singing along, dancing (there is something in the way they move) and so the band is not allowed to leave the stage until they have exhausted their Beatles repertoire. This is Devon at its best, this is English summer holiday at it best – you don’t need a settled climate to have holiday fun!

Asked if there is any difference from the original, the lady who was there in the 60’s replies with a grin, ‘yes I can hear them this time!’ The Beatles’ grandchildren’s generation don’t care - baby they don’t care, if the suits, boots and hairstyles are authentic or if the Hofner Bass is a copy or real this is live music and they are loving it.

Those of us caught somewhere in between are happy to be entertained. The band are as tight as the mop top wigs they wear and they are playing songs we know all the words to. They have made a real effort to look the part and it’s all adding up to a lovely Sunday afternoon. No, I wouldn’t want every gig to be like this but it’s a gig that’s guaranteed to raise a smile, so may I introduce to you the act you’ve know for all these years….

Gig: 17 of 50

Date of Gig: Sun. 23rd August 2015

Venue
Exmouth Pavilion

Artists
The Fab Beatles

Running total of artists seen 39