Classic Gig Reviews #1: Whole Lotta Crap

Now that I've got a blog, I should keep adding things to it. Though very often I don't have the inspiration to pick up on a subject, it's important to keep the traffic flowing as it were. So on occasion I will be putting on here things I've written elsewhere, elsewhen. The first of these is a review of probably the most annoying gig I've ever been to. It happened in April 2010, and it still smarts now. Most of my gig reviews aren't like this, they're generally (a) quite positive about the band, as they're usually acts I actively want to see, and (b) shorter. So here goes...

They say if you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do a job, wait until you’ve hired an amateur. Whole Lotta Led are, allegedly, the only professional Led Zeppelin tribute band on the circuit. If this is the case, then I’m willing to pay way over the odds to watch the amateurs.

I came to this gig at Tamworth Assembly Rooms with few preconceptions about the band, but having already seen three Zeppelin tribute bands. So I was quite prepared for an enjoyable evening of being transported to the mid 1970s and being given a taste of what listening to Zep in full live flow would have been like. After all, their blurb promised much – no wigs, no gimmicks, just the music. Excellent – no silly posturing or half-hearted attempts to actually BE Zeppelin (US4/U2 please take note), I was expecting something along the lines of Gaga, who do Queen as if they were a three-piece from the accounts department, as opposed to the admittedly brilliant soundalike frontman of Mercury.

But something didn’t ring true about this lot. For a start, the guitarist and bassist were at least ten years older than the singer and drummer. It turns out the older pair were in a covers band who got such a good reception when doing Zep numbers in pubs that they decided to go all-out and jump on the burgeoning tribute bandwagon. The guitarist, surprisingly for a band keen to claim it’s not about the look, bore a passing resemblance to Page, wore his Les Paul and Gibson double-necks in the same low-slung manner and lifted his guitar skywards, Magus- like, whenever there were a few easy hammer-ons to toss off. His playing was competent but rarely did he stray far into full-on Pagular frottage. He clearly wasn’t comfortable playing slide in In My Time of Dying – his solo was basic to say the least, and he got the diminished chords in the fast bit wrong, making it sound completely flat. In fact that song, which had been whipped off with consummate ease and flair by the Rubber Plants, was stuffy, lacking in dynamism and frankly was slowing down so much toward the end I thought it, or maybe I, was going to die.

The singer was chosen at an audition, and all I can say is he must have put in a career performance that day, or the rest of auditionees were banshees. Coming across as the unfortunate lovechild of Roger Daltrey and a hamster, he seemed to have an inflated sense of his own adequacy. Even from the first number, his flat delivery and gratingly rounded vowel sounds which would have given Liam Gallagher a run for his money, at the very least irritated. Combine this with an unceasing procession of hand gestures more reminiscent of Will Young than Percy, an annoying tendency to provide intense discographical detail about every song (which had similarly spoiled my experience of the otherwise fine John Coughlan’s Quo) and that unwavering overtoothed grin that spoke of extreme self-satisfaction meant it was virtually impossible to warm to the man. One review says they don’t indulge in the sort of drinking and drugging that Zep were famed for, as it would impair their performance. I disagree. I think it might improve it. Or maybe I should.

Oh yeah, the bassist. There was one. He played bass.

A previous review of a WLL gig had said that the lack of violin bow in Dazed and Confused was “disappointing.” I would call it unforgivable. Apart from the fact that this song (like so many) was essentially a retread of the studio version, the omission of one of Page’s centrepiece elements was laughable. Perhaps it was just too difficult for the guitarist to attempt, but it leaves you feeling short-changed when watching a band that claims to be all about Zep’s music. If you want to see how Page used to entertain the crowds with his violin bow bit, Fred Zeppelin are the band to see.

They make a big thing about doing 2½ hour sets – which is fair enough, they did that at Tamworth, but when you do straight retreads of In My Time, Achilles Last Stand, Stairway and When The Levee Breaks, that’s probably about 45 minutes done and dusted straight off. They covered a lot of Zep’s repertoire, but somehow that’s not really the point. The overall impresion was of Zep By Numbers, a CD jukebox playing the album tracks in random order. One reviewer, who shall remain shameless, referred to them as “hits”, and also referred to a song called “Days Of My Youth”, so their opinion of the WLL experience cannot be that of an informed Zep fan.

The point with Zep is that the album versions were never meant to be the definitive versions. They were always the foundations – tracks like Dazed and Confused and Whole Lotta Love were pretty rapidly extended from those recorded versions, to become different beasts altogether. As with the lack of violin bow, there was no attempt to cover any of the extended bits of Whole Lotta Love – no Let That Boy Boogie section for example. There was some theremin work which was ok, and he did use his teeth on it – but this will always pale next to the Rubber Plants lasciviously licking theirs.

I’ve deliberately left the drummer till last, mainly because I did want to try and end on a high note (which is more than the singer managed). Moby Dick was probably my highlight of the evening, (a) because it meant the rest of the band left the stage for ten minutes and (b) he’s actually a good drummer, probably the only really talented member of the band, all that might elevate them above being merely a decent pub band.

The acid test for any tribute band is how the original act reacts to you. Robert Plant can often be spotted at Fred Zeppelin gigs. WLL have a quote from Jimmy Page saying “you’re getting great reviews, I wish you all the best”. Don’t hold back with the gushing praise there, Jim. Would it be terribly cynical of me to suggest that the band got involved with the ABC charity (set up by Page’s wife) in order to get in with him and obtain a soundbite quote? If this is the case then they got the quote they deserve.

So, the fourth Zep tribute act I’ve seen, and I would rank them fifth. Maybe I’m being unfair. Maybe I should end with a few positive statements, so here’s three:

1. They have a good drummer;
2. Some songs they did quite well – Stairway was ok, Achilles was decent, and some of the acoustic set sounded good from the bar;
3. They didn’t do my favourite song of all time – if they had then I would have been going home from Tamworth in the back of a police car. Babel I’m Gonna Leave You, if you will.

I Like Birds

I've become a bit of a birdwatcher. How did this happen? I mean I've always liked observing birds, the little sparrows and blue tits buzzing around the garden, and I've been to Birdworld with its crazy prehistoric-looking hornbills and the penguin feeding sessions, but taking an active interest? Not me, guv. Waste of time. Couldn't grow the beard for it anyway.

I blame Chile. Spending three weeks touring South America in the company of people who can point at something and say what it is, meant you either got into the groove with it or rapidly lost interest. Interestingly we had the full spectrum, from

what Simon Barnes would term a bad birdwatcher (this is a good thing), someone who knows their stuff but is pretty laid back about it, to the all-out twitcher who rapidly gets bored with what they've just seen and is already looking for the next rarity. This wasn't even a bird watching holiday - why would I ever go on one of those? - it just happened to be a small group thrown together, most of whom happened to have an interest in birds. Of course it helped that there were, to the untrained eye at least, exotic birds aplenty - from the ubiquitous ibis to oystercatchers, flocks of flamingos and the mighty condor. And of course penguins. Funny, cute, waddling penguins en masse in their natural habitat.

So from that holiday, the seed of a new interest was sown. Bolstered by getting an RSPB pocket book for Christmas and the prospect of adding an extra dimension to country walks, a new adventure was embarked upon. One thing I like about taking an interest in birds is that my entry level knowledge is pretty poor - I didn't even know what a chaffinch looked like, and they're common as muck - so almost everything is a new discovery at this stage. I've learned quick, aided and abetted by having feeders in the garden, and by having an excellent nature reserve up the road, which was already our favourite local walk. So we joined the conservation group and

now have access to their hides, which have already proved bountiful. I love the fact that, just the other week, somebody pointed out a snipe, which apparently is quite an unusual site round these parts, but not knowing this meant I was just as interested in seeing a brace of more common redshanks. In fact I was probably just as excited at seeing a jay in the garden yesterday. I'm at what might be termed the "int everything brilliant" phase (Paul Whitehouse, Fast Show, natch). I hope I never lose the excitement of seeing something commonplace. If you ever hear me saying "oh, that's just a hoopoe", have a quiet word in my shell-like.

There's something satisfying about taking on a new interest at this time in my life. It would be easy to just bowl along, paying little attention to anything outside of music and football, but these interests - while still strong - place few new challenges in my path. Birds, on the other hand, as well as being worth two in the bush before you say it, provide a gateway to a whole new area of knowledge about nature as a whole, and have opened up my eyes and ears a lot more to my surroundings. I don't listen to my iPod while out in the open now - I'm listening out for bird song. Now that's a difficult area. Distinguishing one call from another at the moment is like trying to discern the playing style of an individual Boredoms guitarist. Unless he was a blackbird or a great tit, they're easy. But I'll get there.

There is obviously a frustration as with any area in which you're a novice - coupled with the desire not to embarrass yourself by not knowing what a dunnock looks like - but that's part of the joy, part of the challenge of learning.

I feel like I've learned loads already in the last three months or so, and already have a fairly impressive list of spots. Of course I have a list, I'm a geek. But there's so much yet to learn. Not only song, but all the other dimensions like the differences between male and female, juvenile and adult, where and when you might expect to see them, there's a lot to take in. I'll never master the subject, but then I wouldn't want to as there'd be nothing new to learn. But I'll have a go. Though I still wouldn't go on a birdwatching holiday. And I still couldn't grow the beard.

Dipping my toes in the water....and the Game's up

Hello. This is a blog. Those of you with computer savviness will be thinking, yeah right. Been there, done that, worn a hole in the armpit of the t-shirt and am now using it as a shoe buffing cloth. Fair enough. I'm not so much a late adopter as an old spinster taking in lodgers when it comes to things ITular. Which is where the first topic of bloggery comes in. By the way, don't go expecting frequent updates or anything - this is my opportunity to occasionally brain-dump and vaguely arrange thoughts into grammatically acceptable sequences.

Anyway, to the subject of the impending adminstration-going-intoness of the high street perpetual teenager's electronic entertainment shop, Game. Apparently the playing of video games is, or as now appears to be the case, was big business. This has always been a source of amusement to me, seeing that I left home computer gaming behind in around 1985 when it became increasingly difficult to play games without having an extra hand, or the patience to read a small novel before being able to kill anything. Having grown up with games of a left-right-fire, or up-down-left-right-jump level of complexity, there came a point at which the effort required to simply come to terms with the basics of a game was greater than the effort required to complete others. Why would I want to spend an evening dicking around in the practice zone of a skateboarding game when I could spend that time getting halfway through Jet Set Willy?

And this is coming from someone who was at one point seriously addicted to video games. Back in the day it was a joy to find a random bin of Mastertronic tapes stuck away at the back of a short-lease Grey's department store, or on a never-before-seen stall down the Rag Market. I recognise the escapism value of games - I distinctly remember the morning I failed my first driving test, getting home and engaging in a marathon Son of Blagger session that saw me eventually stagger red-eyed into bed at 3am. And who knows how many of the dodgy chippies and taxi offices of Birmingham I would, without fear, stride into in the hope they had a decent

video machine - maybe a Scramble, Rally-X or, joy upon joy, Crazy Climber. This was the acme of games - a unique two-joystick affair wherein you scaled a series of skyscrapers and avoided plantpots, dumbells, pooping gulls and the occasional random gorilla, for no other reason than to be airlifted off by helicopter at the top. A brilliantly futile expedition, available to view in all its glory at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKIoIx9XPO0&feature=related

But there came a time when, as the Apostle Paul pompously had it, I put away childish things, boxed the Commodore 64 up in the loft and left the house between school bell and bed times. Since which time I have had but the fleetingest dalliances with the world of gamery - playing Crash Bandicoot very badly in a vain attempt to impress a girl; tinkering with that wax-on-wax-off window cleaning affair (a strange concept, why would I want to relax by pretending to do housework?); even dipping my toes into the world of consoles by buying a Dreamcast. Come on, I thought, Sega, internet connectivity, how can it fail? Simple - it had no good games. Along with buying a Fiat Stilo, this was my Betamax moment, my Laserdisc folly.

Which brings us to the present. I still have the Dreamcast, though its destiny is clearly eBay. And I still have the Commodore, which I dig out once every five years to remind myself how naff the synthesised voice was on Arabian Nights, and how easy it was to score goals in International Football by running with the ball bouncing on your head. But I just don't see the role of computer games in my life. I've played on Wii, which is a neat bit of kit, but all that does for me is remind me how bad I am at darts and golf in real life.

So the possible passing of Game will have no effect on me. I don't do games. What? iPhone games? Oh well, yes Angry Birds. And Doodle Jump. And Cut The Rope. And Harbourmaster. But they're not proper games are they? They don't really count. I mean, they're a bit simple aren't they? Oh...