It's time once again for Rachel Stamps annual gig in London. This year they are celebrating the re-issue of the bands legendary second album Hymns For Strange Children, that's been re-issued by Easy Action Records and is available on Vinyl for the first time. One day hopefully the bands never released debut album will finally emerge from WEA records archives, that it's been languishing in since the band were dropped by the label all those years ago.
First on tonight at the Late Night London starting time of 7.30 are Rich Ragany & The Digressions who are promoting there recent album What We Do (To Not Let Go) they feature Gaff on lead guitar who it's been at least 8 days since I last saw him playing with Milly Manders at the Vive Le Rock awards show, alongside his Desperate Measures band mate Ricky McGuire on Bass with Kit Swing on guitar and far too quiet backing vocals and Simon Maxwell on drums.
They opened with a song I guess might be called Dead & Gone but is probably something else, it was a decent enough opener while Rich Ragany did his best to get the still arriving crowd going, before he claimed we should all Make it, Fake It but never give up on you as the bands power pop glam rock kicked into gear and Rich brandished his acoustic guitar emphasizing the lyrics.
Beyond Nostalgia & Heartache worked well apart from how quiet Kit's backing vocals were, also Gaff seemed a bit restrained. Just how quiet Kit's vocals were became even clearer, as she took lead vocals on Pretty Breeze, thankfully they were turned up a bit so we could actually hear how much her love was burning like a cigarette as Rich replied to her, this was a highlight of the set.
How Much Of Me Is You worked pretty well but like a good bit of the set it felt like something was missing, not sure what, apart from the keyboard player, but it was one away from being great. I'm On My Feet Again had a fist pumping intro as Rich did everything he could to get us all going.
Before they closed with One Last Thing To Prove Rich dedicated the song to the memory of Belle Star, the London rock scene legend and sometime Rachel Stamp drumming deputy, whose recent death has left a huge hole in the scene, this was a fitting tribute to one of the most glamourous men you could ever meet.
After the break a fairly full Islington Academy gave a huge roar as Rachel Stamp came on stage with David Ryder-Prangley resplendent in his legendary black lace catsuit and a red flasher mac as they launch into Monsters Of The New Wave sounding every bit as tight and wonderful as they ever have done. As usual most of the audience sang along for the entire set with Brand New Toy upping the energy as Will Crewsdon's guitar lines just slayed against the always entertaining and often flashy drumming of Robin Guy.
For obvious reasons for anyone that knew Belle Star David dedicated I Got the Worm to a crucial member of the Stamp family, as this anthem to drunken glory with messy results blasted at us still sounding fresh, yet with the added poignancy that none of us would ever get to see Belle strutting around a rock club again.
As always David let us know that I Wanna Be Your Doll with everything that involves, including some ripe keyboards from Shaheena Dax the perfect keyboard minx, this had loads of attitude and swagger like always.
Ladies + Gents is another solid gold hit to the ever-loyal Stamp army, before they really let loose with a good wild version of Spank a song so good they named a tour after it back in the day, this was fun with that ever so slightly seedy edge to it, that guaranteed they appealed to all the Strange Children.
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As that ended side one of the album David showed everyone how great the pink vinyl looks as he urged everyone to buy a copy before they dipped further into the bands back catalogue for a song from an early demo that might be called Creeps and came from before Robin Guy or Shaheena had joined the band, it was damn cool and followed by a speedy run through Jetblack & Supersonic as if they wanted to blast off into the hypersphere.
David they explained that Baby Baby was on a 1994 demo tape and it sounded like a good signpost of things to come. The magnificent Stealing Clothes From Shelley Barrett was introduced as being from the unreleased debut album, it struck just as many brilliant poses as it always does.
Then before they played the B-side of Hymns For Strange children David rather ceremoniously removed his red flasher mac to reveal the full glory of that see through lace catsuit so he could emphasize every last word of Didn't I Break My Heart Over You I almost expected a bunch of lighters to be held in the air at this point.
Take A Hold Of Yourself was romped through with Shaheena's keyboards coming to the fore. Will then took a long slow solo that slowly became the intro to Pink Skab that once again had David wondering how he ended up nailed to your bedroom wall before it was time to take us all to heaven on a Dirty Bone once more with all its sleazy glam glory.
They closed the set with the only single I have of Rachel Stamp's that came out on vinyl My Sweet Rose the song that got the band onto Top Of The Pops back in the day, it was as wonderful as it has always been.
Of course, they got an encore that started when Robin came back out first, to make sure we all knew his t-shirt for the night was a custom Belle Star t-shirt, before he played a monster of a drum solo that as the rest of the band came back on morphed into a magnificent version of True Love which is something Rachel Stamp has always shared with their audience.
They then played another monster hit single with Black Cherry a song guaranteed to get everyone singing the chorus OOOh Black Cherry over and over and probably for the rest of the weekend before they closed the show with early single Hey Hey Michael You're Really Fantastic that for this fan was a prefect end to yet another great Rachel Stamp live show no matter how much they were joking that they are breaking up again I hope to see them again next year.
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