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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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JAH
WOBBLE AND THE ENGLISH ROOTS BAND
- 100 Club,
London - December
7th, 2004 - by yotta-deluxe guest writer
Nick Morgan
Few
performers can have taken as culturally diverse
and eclectic a musical journey as Jah
Wobble (actually it's John Wardle
– but apparently this was too much for the
linguistic skills of the late Sid Vicious, so
he became at some point in the late 1970s Jah
Wobble). |
| And
maybe this is what you have to do when you realise
your own musical limitations, and those of Dub
style bass lines – move rapidly through
genres (and like marketeers, never hang around
long enough in any one in case you get found out)
and surround yourself with a succession of highly
talented and obviously committed musicians.
So
tonight we have Jah Wobble (“I am 45 years
of age and still extremely good looking”),
with all the easy humour and latent menace of
an East End market trader who looks as though
he’s lived life on the outside and the inside,
as do much of the audience, some of whom appear
to be having a Wormwood Scrubs reunion in the
corner. |
| With
Wobble is his English Roots Band, of whom singer
Liz Carter and long-time collaborator, piper Jean-Pierre
Rasle (yes Serge, a Frenchman playing English roots
music – this European stuff is really getting
out of hand !) particularly excel. And what we get
for most of the evening are tunes from Wobbles last
album, English Roots Music, spiced with a few older
songs, notably the hit ‘Visions of you’.
It’s a sort of Fairport Convention in-a-dub
meets the Upsetters. |
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And
when it's good – it's very very good –
in fact almost sublime. But when it's bad –
well, you know the rest …
On the left hand side of the stage it's solid Wobble
bass – he directs the band, grins, occasionally
mutters at the audience in a cheeky-chappy sort
of way, and carries on a sophisticated dialogue
with the sound-desk (for much of the night) which
comprises a single message – “Fuckin’
turn it up !!!!”. On the right a bewildering
array of pipes, horns, whistles and flutes, not
just for Rasle, but also Colin Bell. Guitarist Chris
Cookson divides his attentions between acoustic
and electric and is consistently mesmerising. |
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What
results are pulsating drum and bass rhythms and
surprisingly subtle and well defined (when you can
hear them properly – “Fuckin’
turn it up !” – or actually, maybe just
turn the bass down ?) layers of guitars, pipes and
voice with an almost hypnotic effect (Wobble seems
to be in such a self generated trance that he fails
to notice that half his audience has left with two-thirds
of the gig to go). At the end the addition of a
pedal steel guitar and percussionist produced what
seemed like 30 minutes of largely self-indulgent
jamming. Good fun with your pals in the bedroom
when your mum’s out shopping, but pretty heavy
going for the punters. The result is something of
a curate’s egg – which is probably a
pretty good reflection on Wobble’s work as
a whole. |
But you know – at least he tries, and is worthy
of considerable respect for that. So if you’re
not up on the Wobble oeuvre, then here’s a
tip for a last-minute Christmas stocking filler
– his just released three CD anthology, perhaps
fittingly titled I
could have been a contender, which at around
£15 is, if you ask me, a far better investment
than some dodgy independent bottling !
[censored - the editor] - Nick Morgan (photos
by Kate) |
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the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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