To my shame, due to the combination of an unexpected early start and an absent-minded belief that the gig was supposed to be on in an entirely different venue, I managed to miss Steve Wynn’s opening number (which I later learned was “Days of Wine & Roses”! Gutted). So I’d like to open with an apology to Mr Wynn, if he chances to read this.
However I did catch “Merrittville” and everything thereafter, and, first timer and all as I am to his live shows, it seemed to me that Steve was in cracking form. Not that this was a just a simple solo outing. As the set progressed, Steve accumulated members of the current Willard Grant Conspiracy line-up, including Miracle 3 stalwarts Erik Van Loo (on stand up bass) and Jason Victor (switching between electric and acoustic guitar).
The latter illuminated “Wild Mercury” with a suitably liquid slide part, while Van Loo helped to rip it up with an almost jug band bass line on Dream Syndicate standard “The Medicine Show”, which also featured Josh Hillman on fiddle. Yuko Murata contributed some plangent keyboard chords to meditative “The Deep End”, and everyone stuck around to make a joyful noise on a hopped up, life-affirming “Amphetamine”: ‘I’m gonna live until the day I die’ indeed.
Here’s hoping Steve took note of the enthusiastic Glaswegian response and will favour us with a full on Miracle 3 show someday soon...
Time was tight in the ABC, as it’s one of those strict curfew must-get-the-punters-out-by-10-must-get-the-dancers-in-by-10:15 venues, at least on a Saturday, so Robert Fisher & Co approached their set in a business like less talk more songs fashion.
And what a set. Opener “Breach”, a brand new nine minute plus, put-you-through-the-wringer WGC backwoods waltz, set the scene, if not necessarily the tempo, for what was to come. Fisher delivered an oblique, redemptive lyric centred around the casting out of shadows, as the band gradually intensified the musical backdrop.
From there the back catalogue was plundered with versions of “Evening Mass” and “The Trials of Harrison Hayes”, played at at least twice the speed of their recorded versions. Both benefited from the crunchy tones of Victor’s Rickenbacker and Tom King’s solid but propulsive skinsmanship.
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When Fisher introduced “The Girl in the Well” as a ‘a song about a girl who falls down a well and dies’ he elicited more than a few chuckles from the assembled fans, a fact which made him ‘perversely happy’ apparently. As Josh Hillman ushered the tune in on his violin you could also catch a smile or two on his bandmates, which pointed to the fact that made the evening as special as it was: Even on the slower numbers Willard Grant Conspiracy were quite simply cutting loose and having a ball, while celebrating death, misery, redemption and fatal plunges.
Further evidence of fun in the face of mortality was to be found on “Crush”, which exemplified the garage side of their particular brand of “garage-folk” (Fisher’s current favourite out of the various genres imposed upon the band in futile attempts at pigeon holeing). Best moment occured when Fisher continued to holler the "Yeah alright there's always tomorrow" refrain while Murata and Victor fought it out over which one of them could coax the most discordant squal from her keyboard.
More good natured melodicism abounded when Steve Wynn returned to provide guitar and backing on "Flying Low", a co-write with Fisher incorporating a dream of angels, the voice of God heard around the back of a Taco Bell and a dead catchy hook of a chorus.
Dispensing with a sham encore and being all too aware of the impending curfew, Fisher summoned his cohorts to bring it all back home with a furious, raging 10 minute monster of a song called "Let it Roll", the title track from WGC's new album. Fire, brimstone and then some, reminding us that for all their new found and richly deserved rock and roll joyfulness, the dark heart of WGC still beats the strongest.
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