Hi all,
Remaining gigs for 2013:-
Friday 27th December
The Brunswick
Crewe
Saturday 28th December
The Griffin
Newton le Willows/Earlestown
Tuesday 31st December (New Years Eve)
The Royal Oak
Lytham Road
Blackpool
Well its Christmas Day on Wednesday so on behalf of the Clan; I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. Have a great day.
Since the last update we have had a couple of gigs, Chester Alexanders last Thursday and Preston the Cattle Market last Saturday. Both gigs went well and I managed to get through them despite suffering with some form of major cough/cold/flu which kept me asleep all day Friday. Still suffering actually, hopefully get better this week.
Not over impressed with the car at the moment, starter motor seems to have refused to do its job. Car runs fine with a bump start but cant really use it as relying on there being people around to push it or finding slopes to park on is a bit hit and miss. Plus if it stalls for any reason I will be stuck.
I have actually taken it to my usual garage only to discover that they dont seem to be working this week.
At the risk of sounding like a Bah humbug, Christmas can be quite inconvenient. L
Hmm, contingency plan required.
I contacted the T-shirt printers the other day as my one off clan shirt still hasnt arrived. Apparently it is being sent out today (Monday) first class, cant see it arriving before the weekend though.
So as you know I went to see Black Sabbath last week in Manchester. I have added a full review at the end of this blog for those interested. For those who dont want to read the full thing it is suffice to say if you like Black Sabbath I dont think you would have been disappointed.
Rants
It was forty five minutes before we even moved in order to get out of the Manchester arena car park after the Sabbath gig plus a further 20 minutes actually getting out. Now it seems strange to me, a fairly modern purpose built arena with a purpose built car park, you would think it would be more efficient. I cant imagine this happening in the States. I find it all a bit pathetic really. Oh yes 12 for the privilege as well.
I am so fed up of cookery shows on TV, every time I look there is yet another one showing us how to make the perfect Christmas this or the perfect Christmas that. How many times do we need to watch someone cooking a turkey?
The adverts are as bad, all the supermarkets competing for our pounds.
I have mentioned this before but people walking along in a busy high street appearing to be talking to themselves. Ok so they are obviously on a phone of some sort but unless you can see the device they just look really stupid and appear to be somewhat odd. Some of them are also very loud so it just seems as though they are shouting at random strangers. No doubt when the Google glasses hit UK we are going to see even more of this.
Being Christmas of course we now get lots of programs on the TV which are the best 100 this and the worst 100 that. Inevitably they are programs which have people I dont know talking about other people I dont know or really dont care about. Complete and utter drivel.
Music
Not really has a chance to listen to much at all for some reason. Just seem to have been busy doing other things. I downloaded a few things from Itunes to add into the Ipod playlists we use at gigs.
Need to sort out the one for New Years Eve actually as we are to provide the music for the evening as well as playing.
Oh yes- I did listen to some Hank Marvin and the shadows. Never a big fan as they were before my time really but I can see why at the time they were probably quite revolutionary and inspired quite a lot of young lads to play guitar. It is always interesting to check out the roots of music and other peoples influences. Certainly I can see where Mark Knopfler was coming from; he is the first to admit this.
Ill say one thing for Hank, the tone of his Stratocaster and what I presume is a Vox amp is actually still pretty pleasing to my ears. Multiple instrumentals can get a bit boring but I suppose they compensated for this in later years by doing instrumental versions of well known hits with reasonable success.
I think my choice of album for the week though is Black Sabbath 13
Black Sabbath review
I arrived at the Manchester arena too late for the support act, I had checked on t net and never heard of them anyway despite them claiming to be Britains best new rock band! A comment always guaranteed to alienate any musicians in the audience.
Never heard their name mentioned by anyone so suspect nothing missed there.
So 8:45pm caught a few people out, we get air raid sirens and it can only mean one thing, War pigs. A huge stage set that doubled as video screens but apart from that the stage was reasonably clear. Just Iommis eight 4*12 Laney cabs and Geezers eight 4*12 Hartke cabs either side of the raised drumkit. Tony strikes the first notes of the song and wow, this can only be Black Sabbath. Geezer is doing amazing things on his bass (oft overlooked) and then Ozzy launches into it, generals gathered in their masses to which the entire sell out crowd sing along. I think there was a huge sigh of relief that Ozzy was sounding good as numerous internet tales told otherwise but he delivered all night as only Ozzy can.
The light show was rather excellent as you would expect on a big budget tour but ultimately Sabbath delivered unlike any other band I have ever seen. They dont have to play fast, although most of their songs do have tempo changes for different sections, it is simply the overall sound that makes them different from anyone else. Ozzys voice combined with Iommis guitar just works. Geezer on bass is incredibly important in the jigsaw and although Bill Ward was not on the drums the guy who was (sorry- dont know his name) did a very good impression (both sonically and visually) to complete the experience of listening to one of the most important bands in the history of rock. With the exception of the drummer, these guys wrote these songs together so the songs were written to accommodate their individual styles and strengths, this is why when replacements are employed although being highly competent, it just doesnt sound as good.
This is what makes original or classic line ups better than the rest, its not just the playing, its the experiences that the members shared as a band whilst writing and recording the material. No one can replicate that or know what it really means.
No stage effects or distractions, just four guys cranking out a sound that has to be one of the definitions of rock.
*Note somewhere there was a keyboard player filling out the sound on some tracks but this was also true in 1977 so nothing for anyone to be concerned about. Certainly nowhere to be seen and absolutely no chance of a Rick Wakeman style keyboard solo (although actually Rick Wakeman was the session Keyboard player on the Sabbath Bloody Sabbath album) J.
As I mentioned last week with eight excellent albums ( dont count never say die) to choose from the set list was always going to be difficult to compile especially once they included the must play songs (Paranoid, Iron Man, Children of the grave etc.).
So what did we get?
Well I cant remember the exact order but
From Black Sabbath:-
Black Sabbath, N.I.B., Behind the wall of sleep
From Paranoid:-
War Pigs, Fairies wear boots, Iron man, Paranoid (encore) ,Rat Salad(drum solo)
From Master of Reality:-
Into the void, Children of the Grave
From Vol 4:-
Snowblind, Under the sun
From Technical Ecstasy:-
Dirty Women
From 13:-
Age of reason, God is dead, End of the beginning.
There was nothing from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (well apart from four bars of the title tracks intro) or Sabotage.
Thankfully nothing from Never say die either.
It was interesting to see that the new songs fitted in seamlessly alongside the classics and nice to hear Under the sun, didnt expect that one. They didnt do the end section mind you. So although I am sure some people didnt hear their favourites something had to give and I doubt anyone complained about the song choices.
How Tony Iommi gets his guitar to sound like it does I have no idea but I have never heard anyone else come close to having such an awesome powerful sound. It sounded just like it does on Vol4 and that is fine by me.
Total time for gig 1:45 which I thought was perfectly acceptable. It might have been nice to have had Bill Ward on the drums but it was not meant to be for whatever reason.
For me it was still a 10/10 gig.
So until next time
Keep rockin
Craig