To hear songs from Liquid Skin and Bring It On again on this 25th Anniversary tour took me right back to my twenties - post-Britpop, impending Millennium bug doom and very few responsibilities to think about. Fast forward to now and a lot has changed - not to say Gomez (Ben & Ian at least) haven’t but they brought a welcome familiar sound, throwing back to some of the best music of the end of the last century (last century! Jeez, that sounds ancient).
There was a big crowd in early doors already when Gig-Antics Stu and me arrived before the support, Buddy came on (aka The Lincoln Lunatic according to Ben O). Half an hour of Buddy’s bluesy tunes - mostly just him, his guitar and raw sometimes almost Springsteen-esque singing (occasionally without mic, right to the front of the stage that given the sizeable crowd made it more difficult to hear him at times), he was a great warm up and a sign of things to come as he re-appeared mid-set to join the Gomez boys for a cameo (more on that shortly).
The mood was upbeat as Ben and Ian started brightly (but darkly) introducing themselves “Hello! We’re Ben and Ian and we’re the last surviving members of Gomez!” and got straight down to business with a bunch of Liquid Skin classics; Revolutionary Kind, Rhythm & Blues Alibi and Hangover. The cheers for each and every song blew the roof off. The generally (but not entirely) older crowd in for this celebration of albums pretty much sang along to every line of every song.
Knowing it was just going to be the duo performing, Stu and me both thought it might have been a stripped back acoustic type of evening but that couldn’t have been further from what we were treated to over the next 90 minutes – Revolutionary Kind was an absolute wall of sound, all electric, turned up to 11, and at one point felt like the venue was shaking from what was being played.
Dave the sound guy got a bit of light-hearted stick from Ian & Ben as he fine-tuned their levels after a couple of songs (it sounded fine from where we were) and once they kicked on, they took us on a bit of a musical adventure with some interesting (and excellent!) versions of familiar tunes. "Here’s our power ballad " (We Haven’t Turned Around); Embarrassment of the first & second version of their debut single 78 Stone Wobble, brought Buddy back on stage with an iPad to help generate a new second verse in the style of the crowds choosing (Prince!). I didn’t manage to catch all the lyrics, but I did get snippets; make love…push and shove…whispers…open up, amongst Ben’s attempts not to crack up while singing this and while they apologized to the great man for their Paisley Park sacrilege I think they did something good with that and I hope they saved the lyrics for a future release. To round off their unexpected and unusual additions to the set, there was a more than decent cover of How Long in there too (“yacht-rock time, folks”).
I thought their combinations of familiar and updated versions of classics was matched by the their contrasting and complementary styles – swapping singing duties throughout the set mixing Ben’s unique gravelly vocals and Ian’s lighter harmonies, as well as their different guitar-playing work really well to create a bigger sound than you’d expect from just two musicians on stage with minimum kit.
As if that wasn’t enough to entertain, bringing Buddy back out again to join for a few songs added another dimension to their set and a new energy to the show – I don’t think he stayed still for more than half a second, prowling around, thrashing out guitar licks left right & centre and bouncing about in between adding backing vocals. They interluded the celebration of the two albums material with lockdown-created songs (Ben & Ian with Buddy and others under the guise of The Handbags?) which I think are available to buy on cd - well worth hunting down if the recorded versions anything like how they played on the night.
Buddy led the others into a bit of an unusual, speed-reggae intro for Get Myself Arrested and the passion they put into playing Get Miles for their closing song was the best end of set I’ve heard in a long time. A quick off-stage then back on for a two-song encore, rounding off with Make No Sound and a fantastic souped-up singalong version of Whippin' Piccadilly.
Hearing classic songs like, Cowboy Song, Tijuana Lady, Get Myself Arrested, Get Miles, Whippin’ Piccadilly and others played live again after a couple of decades didn’t quite turn my skin liquid, but did give me serious goosebumps. They still have few dates on this tour to go and then some more later in the year in the UK (I’m tempted to add Dunfermline or Aberdeen to my already packed gigging calendar), North America and Australia.
So if you haven’t seen them yet do check them out and get along for an evening you won’t forget in a hurry. Magnificent stuff.
Comments