It's been about 15 years since I last had nothing better to do than go and see John Otway play. He could always be guaranteed to make me laugh as one of Englands finest one hit wonders,but in the intervening years he has actually managed a second top ten hit, played a sold out show at the now demolished Astoria and nearly sold out the Albert Hall in and amongst touring and playing all over the place.
After some trouble with the Overground getting (including watching them run empty trains through the station in both directions) I got on the much delayed train and got into the Dublin Castle just as special Guest Otway was coming on for his short set opening for The Quirky.
I grabbed my Red Stripe and was glad to see John is pretty much as he always was, only older and a bit balder. He opened the show with his first hit single yes the perennial fave Really Free and it's now as much a comic routine as a song with most of it being sung along to by the packed crowd and as it always was. He then played the b-side Beware Of The Flowers (Cos I'm Sure They're gonna get you yeah), a song that according to a BBC poll
contains the 7th finest lyrics in a british song of the last millenium! It is of course a great hippy send up and got us all smiling.
He then concluded the special guest slot by stapping on his twin neck guitar that he plays left and right handed for his great version of The Sweet's Blockbuster that just shows how absurd the lyrics are, but of course we can all sing along to them anyway!
After a short break on came The Quirky who had wanted to launch there new album between two hits apparently. Well there were no hits here, that's for sure and they are nowhere near quirky
enough to call themselves The Quirky. How could a band with a guitar, bass, drums, keyboards set up be that quirky? Well not like this it was like some Jazz oddyssey gone wrong and yes they did call the inbetween song interludes just that. Damn I was bored enough to go out for a smoke mid set and it didn't get much better when I got back.
On the up side the girl on keyboards has a voice that sounds a lot like Deer France and should probably be the lead singer rather than the twat in the top hat out front. Still it wasn't long to wait until John Otway was standing in the audience leading the cheering and getting the crowd going ready for him to walk onto the stage to a huge round of applause.
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We got a great set and I love his way of reinventing songs and having a gimmick for everything. He explained how he wrote his second hit while helping his daughter do her homework. He did Bunsen Burner, but for me the b-side is better as he deconstructs The House Of The Rising Sun into a call and response workout with the audience. He does a hilarious versioof Bachman Turner Overdrive's You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet complete with some very sexual Theremin solos! He reworks I Will Survive into a Bob Dylan song or should I say sings it in the style of Dylan with his roadie on harmonica.
Body Talk sees him turning himself into drum machine with touch pads. I forget what he did on Rumplestiltskin but that was another highlight and by the time we reached the encore most of the shouts were of course for Headbutts. After doing I think it was Cheryls going Home, he finally obliged with Headbutts and as ever attacked himself with the mic and did his somersaults and backflips and threw his guitar at the roadie before diving off a ladder: the sort of thing that you really should be past at his age!
It was great and everyone left smiling, while several of the less regular fans like myself bought some stuff from the very efficient Otshop that has it's own ticker tape style sign above the cd's books and t-shirts for this Microstar Legend.
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