Review:
'NIGHTINGALES, THE/ CHIPPINGTON, TED/ JACKSON, DAVE'
'Liverpool, The Magnet, 19th May 2015'
- Genre: 'Rock'
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Our Rating:
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Tuesday night and the gate is low and…well, no, it’s not raining, it’s actually quite balmy on Merseyside, which rather spoils my attempts at cleverly paraphrasing the lyric from Half Man Half Biscuit’s Friday Night And The Gates Are Low. Yet the turnout is still disappointingly selective, especially when you consider that three cult-level legends have been shoe-horned onto the one bill tonight.
Undaunted, DAVE JACKSON & THE CATHEDRAL MOUNTAINEERS, fronted by (as their name suggests) ex-The Room/ Benny Profane vocalist Dave Jackson open the proceedings in style. Dave’s primary occupation is teaching film studies at Liverpool’s John Moore’s University these days, but we should be thankful music remains at least a semi-regular side-line for him as he’s released some of his most memorable material this side of Y2K, both with The Dead Cowboys and as a solo artist.
Though released under his own name, his last studio outing, 2010’s ‘Cathedral Mountain’ was actually a collaborative effort with Tim O’Shea and Shack’s John Head and it was also one of his best. Head’s absent from his current live band – the seven-strong Cathedral Mountaineers – but they do feature three female backing vocalists and (for tonight at least) ex-Benny Profane guitarist Robin Surtees.
Perhaps due to Surtees’ presence, the band’s set includes three choice Bennies’ numbers, ‘Devil Laughing’; a spirited sashay through the booze-soaked break-up ballad ‘Maureen’ and a rich, gospel-tinged reinvention of ‘Jerked To Jesus’, now with added a capella vocal trimmings. Rightly, all three are enthusiastically-received, as is the deceptively lilting set opener, ‘In The Mud By A River’; one of only a couple of tunes aired from ‘Cathedral Mountain’ tonight.
Instead, the Mountaineers’ set leans heavily on freshly-minted material, much of which sounds to be shaping up very nicely indeed. As with the best of ‘Cathedral Mountain’, murder most foul still prowls through songs such as the charismatic ‘Saltspell Man’ and the dark, evocative ‘Dragon-Headed Cane’ though the slightly faster, Velvets-esque ‘Lady Friend’ suggests new ground may well be broken on the band’s forthcoming LP, ‘Red Fin Sunset’ (I think this is the title) which Dave assures us “is really good” at one stage. Not that most of us here would really have questioned its provenance anyway.
The Cathedral Mountaineers leave us on a high, but we come crashing back to Earth during TED CHIPPINGTON’S stand-up turn. Ted’s an old Brummie mate of The Nightingales and those of you of a particular vintage will no doubt recall he was pretty hip in the NME around the middle of the 1980s. However, even allowing for his hip cachet, he was an acquired taste back then and now – as he witters on about life in London and Torquay; oxidisation and, er, the joys of travel atlases over a rumbling, taped jazz background - his droll, deadpan observations still sail over my head like the Goodyear airship.
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If I was being uncharitable, I could say Ted’s appearance rather queers the pitch for fellow Black Country indie/post-punk survivors THE NIGHTINGALES, who arrive in Liverpool on the back of one of their best LPs, the recently-released ‘Mind Over Matter’. However, they just troop on and get on with it; opening – like the recent LP – with the drilled, angular one-two of ‘For Goodness Sake’ and the infectiously catchy indie-Motown of ‘The Only Son.'
Featuring just stalwart founding member/ vocalist Robert Lloyd from their original line-up, this current ‘Gales bear little resemblance to the shambling, but likeable outfit that initially fired-up John Peel and the hipper elements of the rock press during the ‘80s. Though this latest incarnation clearly still feel linear song structures (y’know, verses following choruses and all that) aren’t for them, they are nonetheless a powerhouse of a modern quartet; performing around 20 songs or more in a taut and sustained hour-long burst that literally never lets up as track after track segues into the next.
Such is the bombardment that your correspondent is at something of a loss to recall the set list in great detail. Certainly there are dips into their recent catalogue with the brilliant ‘Bullet For Gove’ (if only) and a couple more from their previous LP, ‘For Fuck’s Sake’, but – as far as I can recall – there’s bugger all from the old days.
No matter though, for there’s plenty on ‘Mind Over Matter’ to warm the cockles; not least the dryly amusing ‘Ripe Old Age’ with its’ finger clicks and jazzy interludes; ‘The Man That Time Forgot’ - which concludes with Lloyd and brilliantly tireless drummer Fliss Kitson indulging in a Prolapse-esque call and response scream fest - and the cutting, Beefheart-ian Great British Exports.
To their credit, The ‘Gales ignore the depressingly meagre audience and attack their set with gusto throughout. They climax in style with Lloyd casually leaning down, grabbing the last two of his bottles of water and marching off the stage to the bar while his band enthusiastically mop up the outro. It’s a fitting conclusion to a set that’s impressively long on stamina performed by a revitalised band who still don’t give a fuck about what anyone else is doing. And more power to their elbow for that.
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author: Tim Peacock/ Photos: Kate Fox
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THE NIGHTINGALES
DAVE JACKSON & THE CATHEDRAL MOUNTAINEERS
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