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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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THE SENSATIONAL ALEX HARVEY BAND (WITH THE REVEREND
D. WAYNE LOVE), The Mean Fiddler, London,
December 3rd 2005 |
| I
have to confess (and risk the wrath of all those
nice SAHB fans that we met) that the only reason
we were here was to see the Very Reverend
D Wayne Love, sometime of the Alabama 3, and
advertised as support to the Sensational
Alex Harvey Band, touring apparently
to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their Live
album and to promote new album Zalvation. |
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| And
to be really honest, we were only here at all because
we couldn’t get tickets for New York’s
hip favourites Gogol
Bordello, a sort of Pogues meets the Three Mustaphas
Three high energy punk outfit with an Eastern European
twist, fronted by Ukranian Eugene Hutz. Watch out
– you’ll be hearing more about this
bunch over the next twelve months. |
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So
instead we headed for the Mean
Fiddler, a tiny aluminium door squeezed between
a tacky London souvenir store and a sex shop on
the Charing Cross road. It’s a box like basement,
sort of attached to the Pickle Factory next door,
and owned by the same eponymous outfit (Mean Fiddler
that is, not the Pickle Factory Group). And like
the Astoria it turns into some sort of bohemian
nightclub on a Saturday night, so it’s only
seven o’clock and we’re here beer in
hand waiting for the Very Reverend to take the stage. |
| Maybe
there was some sort of mistake or misunderstanding,
or maybe D Wayne’s central heating system
packed up just before the gig and he decide to stay
home to get it fixed (mine did, I didn’t,
but that’s real rock and roll for you). Whatever
the reason he didn’t show. So we mingled with
the largely male audience, a very affable bunch
once you’d got past the ill advised paunch
hugging tour t-shirts from back in the 70s. And
as there were only about twenty of them when we
showed up not too difficult to sense check the whole
lot. There was a very strong Dads and Sons tendency,
with the Dads earnestly taking advantage of the
lack of support to explain to the Sons some of the
finer points of Alex Harvey’s history and
the rise and fall of his sensational band, a fall
provoked by them being simply in the wrong place
at the wrong time, trapped in a vacuum between progressive
rock and the punks, and finally brought about by
the untimely demise of Alex
Harvey in 1982. Or maybe they were
just trying to prepare the boys for Zal Cleminson
– but how could anyone do that? |
| And
as the place filled out there were even two large
family groups, Dads, Mums, Sons, Daughters and all.
Which I thought said something about the fans of
this band who only really lasted for four or five
years, but who earned the reputation of being the
best live rock and roll band in the world. And although
we are sadly without Alex and his gruff Glaswegian
voice (did I mention they’re from Glasgow?)
we do have the original band of the McKenna brothers
on keyboards and drums, Chris Glenn on bass, and
the incomparable Zal Cleminson on lead guitar –
you know he’s the one with the funny makeup
– who should be an inspiration for men in
their mid-fifties anywhere. And fronting is Max
Maxwell, a Glaswegian performance artist with a
beautiful Bridgeton burr and a theatrical Johnny
Rotten sneer – oh yes, and some very nice
three quarter length jackets. |
Alex Harvey 1975 |
| Personally
I’m not a big fan – the only song I
could remember was a solo Alex Harvey singing W
H Auden’s ‘Roman wall blues’,
which I recall the late John Peel played to death
for a few months in the late 1960s. Apart from that
and Delilah, SAHB's raucous take on that Tom Jones
karaoke classic (a top ten hit in the UK) I didn’t
think I knew any of their work. But as the gig wore
on more and more of the tunes had a familiar air
– ‘Swampshake’, ‘Next’,
‘Isobel Goudie’, ‘Framed’,
‘Tomahawk kid’, ‘The last of the
teenage idols’ , ‘Boston T Party’
and ‘Vambo’ to name but a few. And the
performance was of such gusto that it was really
outstanding – Maxwell sneered and growled
in guttural Glaswegianese, senior heavyweight bass
player Glenn snarled and threatened his way through
the set, and Cleminson delivered a master class
in rock guitar histrionics – School of Rock
guitarists please note – forget your lectures
and tutorials and take time out to see Mr Cleminson,
he’s worth it, for every note, every facial
expression, and every menacing pose. And half way
through – who’d have guessed it –
on came fellow Glaswegian the Very Reverend D W
L, having no doubt repaired his boiler first. |
Reverend D. Wayne Love |
Looking
frisky, fresh and gorgeously coiffured, he paid
tribute to the band, “I’ve been listening
to these boys sing rock and roll since I was a little
child in a plaid skirt, so I thought I’d pay
tribute by singing one of their more innocuous songs,
a little number called ‘Gang bang’,
which was followed by a very D Waynesque rendition
of the band’s classic, but sadly commercially
flawed, Christmas single ‘There's no lights
on the Christmas tree mother, they're burning Big
Louie tonight’, “apparently inspired”,
according to a piece in the Independent, “by
Francis Bacon's painting A Study After Velasquez:
St Nicholas, which shows Santa screaming in what
appears to be an electric chair”. Phew, happy
holidays everybody! |
| In
case you haven’t realised the Sensational
Alex Harvey Band never took themselves too seriously.
Their songs are wrung through with a wry humour
and sense of the absurd that’s not out of
place in the tradition of West Coast Scottish humour.
Their glam rock posturing was always slightly tongue
in cheek, a counterpoint to the sneering aggression
of some of their songs, and more rooted in the British
Music Hall (oh no – here we go again) than
in rock and roll. |
| And
what we got, in the jolliest of atmospheres was
a summation of all of that, perfectly executed by
a group of real professionals. And of course, the
Zal Cleminson performance - I still have to pinch
myself every time I think about it. You might not
want to buy the records, but if you get a chance
to see them, jump at it! - Nick Morgan (SAHB
concert photographs by Kate) |
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the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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There's nothing more down there... |
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