Tag Archives: live show

Give this band what they deserve!

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It was good to have Swarf back in London, last night, after a couple of journeys to Brighton over the last few months to catch their live show. Afterwards I felt distinctly mixed emotions – frustration and pleasure in equal measure.

The frustrations first. The venue was a little off the beaten track to say the least which meant that it wasn’t going to catch the casual audience. This resulted in a minuscule crowd – which must be discouraging for the band at this stage of their career. I think they’re one of the best bands around – both live and in the studio – but I sometimes feel that I’m one of the few who gets this. The actual venue was fine but the stage lighting was poor. Again, it’s all very well having a great live show but the set-up provided by the venue didn’t really help us appreciate it. They need to address this before future shows especially if this is going to become a successful club night. The performance was short but perfectly formed and I, for one, would have liked an extra song or two particularly as there was no support (aside from the silently-delivered wonderfully bad horror flick that was on the screen before the band took the stage). Finally, given that this was an audience who mostly knew of the band prior to the night, certain sections could have offered a little more encouragement. Some of the reaction between numbers was a little lukewarm and we could have least given Swarf the dilemma of having to consider whether they had an encore ready if they needed one.

The pleasures second. The band are great at what they do. In Liz, the lead vocalist, they have an energetic and winsome front woman who has the best vocal chops you’re going to hear this year. Chris and Andrew, the twin keyboardists, offer a great range of sounds, textures, dance beats and exotic rhythms which have been obviously carefully developed prior to the show. The range of sound and atmospheres are unique, going far beyond the built in samples and settings of their synths. They create the varying ambience allowing Liz to take care of the strong melodies which she is more than able to carry. High points of the set include the newer songs “Parlour Tricks” and “Don’t Silence” and tracks from their first album “Not Enough” and “Supine”.

It seems to be a key time for the band. Careful planning will be needed to take this to a higher level prior to the second album but they are more than capable of delivering.

Photography was difficult due to the (lack of) lights but hey, I tried:

Nu-maaaaaan!!

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Great night at the Gary Numan “Replicas” concert in Oxford last night. In geographical terms, alone, the London show would have made much better sense but I’m afraid I’m spoiled these days. I’m so used to getting free tickets at the big shows given to me by artists’ agents who want me to write something for their employers fro an EPK or something similar that I’ve lost all interest in going to the larger venues unless I’m guaranteed great seats or VIP privileges. Enough of my snobbery! When I was much, much, younger Replicas was a very cool album and its science fiction themes enthralled me. It’s good to know that all these years later the lyrics haven’t aged and Numan’s more aggressive mature persona doesn’t dent that edge. It was enough to send me off on the train reading a Phillip K. Dick novel this morning.
Thoroughly enjoyed the show. Have felt for at least twenty years that the rockier version of ‘Are “Friends” Electric?’ loses the atmosphere of the original where the sheer other-worldliness of that recording was the thing which launched Numan’s commercial career. Aside from this hearing “The Machman”, “Me! I disconnect from you”, “We are so Fragile” and all the rest, one more time, was a great way to spend an evening.

Support band, Rubicks, full of frenetic energy (7th time I’ve seen them):

and Numan at 50 still as strong (makes me feel young)

Bob Dylan – The Curse of Celebrity and the Cross of Christ

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(This was the original title. When it was published elsewhere, my editor chose to retitle the piece “Bob Dylan: The Spiritual Journey of a 20th Century Icon” which was not what I wanted AND rather seemed to miss my point)

When Leon Patillo was converted in the late seventies, the Christian music industry and its press was full of the news of the conversion of “Santana’s lead singer”. Those who are familiar with the music of Santana will know that the band revolves around and is named for its guitarist and has used a mammoth amount of vocalists over the last 30 years. But the facts don’t always get in the way of Christian reporting and a good story when it sees one.

Patillo may now only merit a footnote in the history of Contemporary Christian music but his launch into the Christian marketplace and its subculture was indicative of something that was going to happen time and time again in the late 70s and early 80s. The church had come to believe that celebrity converts in some ways added to the validity of the gospel. Perhaps if it waved the flag hard enough and high enough and showed that someone famous believed then those who didn’t would be persuaded by celebrity testimony.

Perhaps it was symptomatic of the times. It was the opening of an era in church life which was heavily influenced by the Vineyard fellowship, John Wimber and his teachings. The argument went something like this – if people see marvellous works of God then they would be persuaded of the validity of the gospel and accept Christ. Leaving aside troubling comments of Christ that suggested it was an adulterous generation that looked for a sign and that people would not be persuaded even if someone was raised from the dead, whatever the weaknesses of the theology and the theory of the church, the Vineyard movement would make a lasting impression on the church for the next two decades, until the passing of Wimber, its most persuasive advocate.

Which brings us to Bob Dylan. Not only was Dylan the height of the cult of the celebrity convert, his conversion occurred whilst he was under the auspices of the Vineyard movement. After his conversion, Dylan immediately began to record exclusively gospel songs and began to perform in concert in a way that was out of keeping with the first twenty years of his career. Someone who previously had needed to be encouraged to say “Thank You” between songs and who evaded questions presented by the press, now began to preach sermons about Armageddon and give interviews about his new found faith. Sometimes he was booed and heckled whilst on stage whilst others talked about it all being “a phase”. In 1982, he reverted to type refusing to talk about much of anything once more. He left Vineyard, began to study Scripture, occasionally with the Jewish Lubavitch sect, and declined to host a gospel music awards show. The church that had a use for Dylan’s celebrity now had no use for him. His 1983 album “Infidels” was searched by the Christian press for the expected disowning of the Christian faith and when none came the religious press paid less and less attention to each subsequent Dylan album. The Dylan Christian era was over, it seemed.

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