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Review: 'TERRY & GERRY/ UNITED STOATS OF AMERICA, THE'
'London, 100 Club, 29th January 2016'   


-  Genre: 'Rock' -  Release Date: '29th January 2016'

Our Rating:
Yes it's over 30 years since I last saw Terry & Gerry play live in Battersea Park at a one day festival that opened with Ravi Shankar and was headlined by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. Terry & Gerry were somewhere in the middle with The Beat Farmers and Poison Girls among others which is probably why I don't remember too much of their performance that day.

Still I was happy to go along to this show that also doubled up as a 50th Birthday party for legendary London promoter Tony Fraser. He underwrote loads of the gigs I went to in the 80's and early 90's at places like The Mean Fiddler in Harlesden.

I arrived just after the United Stoats Of America had come on. I heard a couple of tunes while queuing to get in and they sounded like an old school Irish Showband or Ceilidh band with a bit of a hillbilly edge to them. By the time I had a pale ale in my hand the 7-piece band were singing what I think was the Arkansas Stomp, but whatever, it sounded great with some fine Washboard and the double fiddle attack sounded damn good, if not as good as it did on a monumentally good version of Fisherman's Blues. That may or may not have featured some ex-Waterboys but it got the whole place going and singing along and ready to raise their hands in the air for a cool version of Hank Williams' gospel classic I Saw The Light.

Then after they've wished Tony Fraser a happy birthday, they closed the set with a familiar song that has the chorus of Tonight's Gonna Be A Party and it certainly was a real hoedown. They are great fun and I'd like to hear a full set at some point. I'm sure most of them have been in dozens of other bands over the years!

We then had a real treat with Wendy May's Locomotion on the Wheels of Steel. It's been a long while since I last heard Wendy spin some vinyl and her selection was great as ever.

It was then time for Terry & Gerry to come on with the band's classic line up back together. Yes both Terry and Gerry are back as well as the mistress of the washboard Sue Richardson and on second guitar Mick Howson. They gave us a great set of Agit-skiffle with a dirty great grin on its face, but then you'll do well to have a bigger grin than Gerry sported for most of the night.

They opened with a song I'm unfamiliar with, but damn they sounded great from the one. They were quipping between songs and hitting us with a raucous version of Hello that had the first washboard solo of the set.

We then got Butter's On The Bread which is all about the inequality and how the rich man's life is so much easier than the rest of us. Everyone was singing along and although I haven't heard most of these songs in 25 years at least, I seemed to be able to recall the words to many of them and anyway Gerry made sure we all knew the choruses to sing along to.

Wolfman's Request had some great howls. Terry's double bass sounded great throughout, plus it was the first song to have a special guest accordian player on it. They then sang about poor old Joey whose life had gone wrong and he was struggling to recover. A sad and poignant song that made us all smile.

Wait Until You're Older has some great advice in it from Daddy and it sounded cool. We then got all political on Kennedy Says which certainly asks some of the right questions as to how good or bad Kennedy actually was. We then all got out our Lariats and howled like cowboys and cowgirls on, I think perhaps it was Victory Polka?

I'm honor bound to say one of the highlights was of course Banking On Simon. Go on, go for it as we all did. The dancing got a bit mad on this one. They then did the band's Gay rights classic Dennis & Brian: a song that was about 30 years ahead of the law in celebrating two men living together happily ever after. They also had the help of the Accordion Minx on this one to flesh out the joy Dennis & Brian had together.

How Long Johnny flew by as did many of the signs and was followed by the fabulous Fashion Rodeo, which was a proper old school hoedown. They gave us all the perfect instructions on how to sing along to C.A.R.S. and I think we all made the right sort of "Vroom Vroom" noises to make the song work.

The Ballad Of A Nasty Man sounded anything but nasty. Instead, it was almost a song of joy as they got ready for a Victory Polka for surviving this long. That was followed by Clothes Shop - all about the Old Kings Road where I would have been working the last time I saw them play. Although I was working in a shoe shop and the accordion really worked like they were busking outside the antiques market.

They then wrapped things up with Last Bullet In The Gun: a song about good old England and what I think was TV Song, though it was a song about taking the politics out of politics. The place went nuts for an encore and after much joking and band intros we did indeed get a two song encore that opened with a song off the difficult second album that should finally come out later this year. They finally closed with a mighty version of Reservation with its sharp lyrics about the mistreatment of the native Americans that had everyone singing along one last time before Wendy May returned to the wheels of Steel to finish a great night off.

I will try my best to not leave it another 31 years before I see Terry & Gerry again. To find more of the band's reunion shows go to Terry & Gerry online as they put on a great fun show.
  author: simonovitch

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