Yes it's time to go to The Gypsy Hotel once more and as the cat was out of the bag as to who the Voodoo Surprise was this show was rammed to the rafters from reasonably early on.
The first act that DJ Scratchy introduced was Nick Marsh.
Tonight, he was was playing a solo acoustic set as a sort of mordant troubadour singing songs of despair at the wreckage of relationships past. He opened with a very slow and carefully picked song about the Inky Black Waters that he has been led into. Soon enough, Nick was making sure no one thought he sounded like Flesh For Lulu on a song about Waltzing Bones. It was affecting and rather downbeat with some very cool guitar lines.
Last Train To Wherever is a song about the feeling of destitution you might have when you board the last train just to have somewhere to sit for a while rather than a place to go. Having arrived at Where ever it was time for Nick to sing us "Don't Give Up On Me." Well of course we won't Nick.
But then he almost gave up on singing the next song as he couldn't get his capo to play in tune, but this being the Gypsy Hotel he was soon being offered several replacement Capos and we got to hear the dark tale that is Destiny Angel: a very cool dark song. He closed the set with a "rousing" sing-along version of Rhinestone Cowboy sung in the style of, say, Townes Van Zant: a nice upbeat ending to a good downbeat set.
Next on was KINGSIZE SLIM who is a Delta Blues singer up from Brighton and doing his best to sound like a cross between Robert Johnson and Lightning Hopkins with a good dose of Sonny Terry thrown in for good measure. From his opening of Back To Mother he was engaging and got the place to almost pay attention to him. She's Real Gone was especially good and featured some excellent picking on his steel guitar.
He may have been Looking for an Angel but Paul-Ronney was standing by the side of the stage so one was not very far away and I have to say he really sounded like he believed he is living This Sweet Life. This World Is Yours was a good bit of self-help advice blues song before he finished with the nicely downbeat Dark Soul. A good set that did get a bit samey as it went on.
Next on was the Fabulous LAURIE HAGEN who performed the Liza Minelli Chair dance from Cabaret but in reverse. Yes, she started off with almost nothing on and danced backwards until she was fully clothed along to the music that was also being played backwards!! It was a great twist on a well worn routine and needs to be seen to be fully appreciated.
Next on was the evening's secret special Voodoo Surprise guests THE URBAN VOODOO MACHINE playing their own club night and promising a set made up mainly of material from their third album due out on September 9th. It will be preceded by a couple of singles if I heard all of Paul-Ronney Angel's comments correctly, while tonight we were also promised a selection of old songs the band hasn't played in a while.
They came on-stage to the normal 'Godfather' walk on music before opening with a very affecting instrumental called Last Dance Of The Silver Wolf: a title I would never have guessed, still it sounded as mighty as ever and if we had enough room we would have been dancing to it. They then did a short but good and frantic version of Down In A Hole that seemed to really get Jary and the Late J Roni Moe going good and proper with their normal mad drumming antics.
They then took us right back to the band's early days with a cool version of Corpse In my Trunk with some great accordion work from Slim as well as the brass section really getting into the swing of things. Lloyd and Luci Fire seemed to have really gelled. Getting Hot Going Down, meanwhile, has become one of the bands classics and sounded great with Paul-Ronney really going for it.
Not With You is one of those "I'm glad I left you" songs that works brilliantly and had some very cool sousaphone playing from Lady Ane Angel. The Trainwreck Blues sounded good but it also sounded like they haven't quite got the live version right just yet. Does it need more Violin from The Kid or more guitar battling between Paul-Ronney and Nick Marsh? I'm not sure, but I am certain it will only get better as this year's shows progress.
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They then pulled up the first special guest of the evening: a certain Mr Joe Whitney of The Flaming Stars, oh and some band called The Urban Voodoo Machine, who was mysteriously dressed in White trousers and shirt which made him only the second member of the band I can recall playing in white in the 10 years they have been together!! The other one was at the first UVM show I saw at a party at Lloyd's house where Paul Ronney was in white fur if I remember rightly. But then it was a long time ago.
Still they had got Joe up to sing backing vocals on Pipe And Slippers Man: a new song that was great fun but I need to hear a few times to let the full sarcasm of the lyrics get to me.
Goodnight My dear/2nd Line was next and they were building a head of steam now. The almost gospel feel of this song worked well with Lloyd's trumpet playing and the Reverend Gavin Smith's walking bass lines. As ever death and tragedy are not far away, however, and came to the fore in In Your Hour Of Darkness.
Paul-Ronney then asked if they had anyone called Maria in the audience and half the women said yes!! Which was odd but then they played Crazy Maria and I'm not sure all of them would want the song to be about them, though I'm sure it will sound good on the new album. They closed the set with a raucous, slightly mad version of S.O.S. Sink Or Swim and left the stage to huge applause and cheers.
It didn't take much help from DJ Scratchy to get them back and Paul-Ronney came back first and hauled out Barney Hollington out of the audience as the band's second special guest of the evening. Now Barney is of course another UVM Alumni as well as being in Miranda Sex Garden et al and he played a little violin with P-R before the rest of the band came on to play No Bail Blues. This also meant that The Kid switched to acoustic guitar from violin and they went pretty much straight into The Real Criminals where Paul-Ronney even managed to introduce the band to us as well.
They got called back for a well-deserved second encore and closed the show with a great if ragged version of Six Weeks On The Road which was one of the first UVM songs that we loved singing along to. It got almost everyone singing the "I Hope You Kept your Pussy Clean" line. It was great to hear it live again and it was a good finish to another fine UVM soiree. Overall, the the new set will take a little bedding in but it already sounds pretty mighty.
Having to follow The Urban Voodoo Machine is one of the more thankless tasks in music and PATTI PLINKO certainly wasn't up to it and suffered from having to follow them. Even opening her set with a good version of Houndog barely made much of an impression and the next song about being Wasted was OK but reminded me why I didn't get her the last time we saw her. There is something missing and I can't quite say what but she is close but not quite there.
To be honest we were still buzzing from the UVM and no matter who she was singing that we looked like it wasn't enough to make us want to stay and hear the rest of her set so we made tracks at the end of another great Gypsy Hotel night.
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