Music
Another legend from my childhood gone. Sweet were one of the glam rock pioneers in the early 70s, and one of the bands I grew up with.
Well, that’s one down. I was due to see Bad Touch next week at the Bodega. I’d heard the band were going to reschedule, and now it’s official – the gig has been rearranged for September.
Fingers crossed things are better by then. This year was gearing up to be a big one, with lots of tickets already purchased. Some of the bigger events, like Joe Bonamassa (almost certainly off) and Hollywood Vampires (later in the year), are more likely to be cancelled than rearranged. George Thorogood, who’s been on my bucket list for years, is currently booked for July, which is borderline right now.
Rock City has announced it is closing until further notice.
I have a few gigs coming up. The first is at The Bodega next week, but I hear that the band has already decided to postpone the gig (not official yet). I have several big ones at the rate of about one a month, and it isn’t looking good.
This is a sad, sad day. It is reported that Neil Peart, drummer with Rush, has died from brain cancer at the age of 67.
I was still hoping beyond hope that I’d get to see them one more time, but sadly that is no longer to be. RIP Neil. And thanks for a lifetime of memories. I hope everything is clear now.
I’ve been to a lot of gigs the last few years, though I haven’t posted any articles about them. I need to do a bit of catching up on that.
Anyway, I went to a brilliant show on Friday at Rock City in Nottingham. After Rush, my favourite genres have to be blues and Southern rock – both of which seem to be very popular these days, and Planet Rock covers them a lot. That was how I came to know bands like Blackberry Smoke, The Cadillac Three, and Brothers Osborne.
In fact, I saw The Cadillacs a couple of months ago (hell, it was a year ago!), and Brothers Osborne were supporting them. So, Osbornes announced a headlining tour of their own, I got tickets.
Take a listen to this. They played one of my favourite songs, Copperhead Road, originally written by Steve Earle. They nailed it completely.
It came out of the blue, but I recognised it after the first few drum stomps, just as the mandolin came in.
I have to say that it was easily the best gig I’ve been to in a long time. The crowd was well up for it, and every song was worth listening to. Lots of slide guitar, keyboards, banjos, and mandolins – and extended solos. Although officially a duo, they had an admirable backing band, to whom they gave generous room to perform – the backing guitarist in particular, who I believe is called Jason Graumlich.
The encore seemed unusually long – I haven’t listened to the full recording yet, but there must have been five or more songs. Most bands don’t go above three. But it didn’t matter. It could have gone on for another hour and still been great.
The band seemed awed by the reception. T J Osborne (lead vocals) said that they’d been over here a few times, and if people kept coming to the gigs like this, they’d keep coming back. I’ll certainly be there when they do.
The only slight stain on the night was of our own making – well, my mate’s. That was due to his desire to drink the better beer in the Rescue Rooms instead of the weasel piss you get in the Main Hall. OK, I can relate to that, but it meant we ended up missing all but the last song and a half by the support act, Lucie Silvas. She’s got one hell of a voice, and she went straight on my watch list for her next tour.
I got my own back in the Indian restaurant after, though, where we had the usual decent curry and an argument about Brexit (which I won, as always).
Incidentally, Brothers Osborne performed at Rockstock over the weekend, and they were interviewed by Darren Redick.
I mentioned earlier this week the sudden death of Tom Petty – yet another legendary musician taken away from us.
How’s this for an awesome tribute? A football match in Gainesville – Tom’s home town – saw 90,000 spectators singing his hit “I Won’t Back Down” in unison.
If it’s true, it is yet another sad loss to music. Reports say that Tom Petty suffered a major cardiac arrest on Sunday and was left brain dead. As a result, life support has been removed. However, in spite of reports stating that he was dead, at the time of writing (23.30 on 2 October 2017) those reports have been withdrawn and his official death is not confirmed. If he is brain dead, though, it is much the same thing.
I’m sorry I never got to see him in concert. He didn’t do the UK much until the last two years, and those appearances were at festivals, which I won’t go anywhere near, because I can get wet standing in the rain and up to the ankles in shit right here at home without having to travel to do it. But when something like this happens, you wonder if maybe you should have.
All the legends are disappearing.
Update: No longer a surprise, but I woke up to discover the official announcement that Tom has died. RIP, Tom. Thanks for the music.
Originally published 25 December 2016.
This is a bit of bad news. Team Rock Ltd. – the company behind Classic Rock and Prog magazines (amongst others) – has gone into administration. The administrators were called in five days before Christmas, and staff were laid off with no pay with immediate effect. They watched as locks were changed on the offices.
This is the shitty way companies operate (I’ve mentioned before how I was told to make a load of temporary staff redundant just before Christmas one year, when I’d pleaded with the powers that be to at least wait until afterwards).
Hopefully, the titles will be bought by someone, although I sincerely hope that the trend towards articles about Depeche Mode and other 80s/90s pop crap in Classic Rock magazine is arrested by any new owner.
Since I wrote this, I received the next issue of Classic Rock as usual in mid-January. Today, I got an email from the magazine with a link to a free Pink Floyd ebook and the news that Classic Rock is now part of Future Publishing again.
This is really good news (as long as they backtrack a bit on that Depeche Mode thing!)
Last year seemed to have been a terrible year for legendary artists dying. It looks like 2017 isn’t going to give up on the trend, as I just read that Peter Sarstedt has died.
When I was very young, one of my earliest memories was of his hit ‘Where Do You Go To My Lovely’. In fact, I watched it on a BBC compilation just the other night.
Thanks for the great memories, Peter. RIP.
Incidentally, there will be people out there ready to take the piss when they see that video. A comment by someone under that YouTube video says it all, though.
I am 16 and this is one of my favourite songs along with Life on Mars, Sunny Afternoon and all the “classics”. To everyone on here commenting about how they remember buying this when it first came out – you are so fortunate to have experienced this live and at a time of such iconic music! Listening to these incredible songs almost makes me feel as if I lived a little slice of it myself… I’m not bashing the music of my generation, though, because I like lots of that too, but there is something timeless about this era which I really hope is treasured and never fades away.
There’s hope for humanity, after all.
It always seems to happen at this time of year. Famous people dying – although we’ve lost a lot of them during 2016. But I was saddened to read of Rick Parfitt’s death earlier today on Christmas Eve.
I went to see Status Quo last weekend in Leeds, and though it wasn’t the same without Rick – his health had prevented him taking part anyway – it was still a good show. But yet another great band has now reached the end of the road.
Rick has had various health scares over the last few years, and although the cause of his death doesn’t appear to be directly related, I’m sure it didn’t help.
He was about to release some solo material, I believe. Shame he didn’t get to see it.
Rest in peace, Rick, and thanks for the music over the years.