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| Concert Review |  |
by Oliver Hunter |
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| (As posted to the Big Country Mailing List):
[Pre-concert activities deleted for brevity’s sake—check out Oliver’s site below for the full review] We tried to wander in as before but the guy that seemed to be in charge wanted to speak to Ian Grant before he would let us in. After a few minutes the band and Ian arrived and I managed to ask him about the sound check. He said it would be fine and that he would let us know when we could come in. After only a few more minutes we were allowed in and sat or stood at the back of the hall while everything was checked. Mark's drums were particularly loud and made various internal organs vibrate... When all the individual mikes and instruments had been tested the band played a couple of the new songs, I think “Presidents” was one. After the sound check I asked Ian if we could see the band and he went off to ask them. It was about 6.30 pm by now and when he came back he said that the guys wanted to get changed and freshen up but if we waited behind after the gig he would arrange for us all to meet up. We said that we would be great and went off to find some dinner which for me and a few others consisted of MacDonalds although Margaret opted for a pizza. Markus managed to get a couple of burgers and some fries free due to a misunderstanding! After dinner we wandered back over to Forum 28 for the main event, leaving Andy Bairley to catch up in a bit. A few more people had arrived including Joe and Shari and the Phil & Gary from Northern Ireland. The merchandise guy had set up shop and it seemed that Joe had bought up most of the merchandise! ;-) I bought a T-shirt with the RN/rarities cover on the front and a large 'Pelt' stick of rock. I dumped all my stuff back in the car along with Kevin, Margaret and Joe's stuff. The doors opened and we went in and secured places along the front of the stage. Joe noticed my camera and was surprised that I had been able to bring it in. He had left his back at his hotel as he thought it would have been confiscated. I offered to take him back to get it and so a few minutes later Joe & Shari were enjoying the novelty of a right-hand drive car and the fun of roundabouts! :-) Having dropped off some of the 'horde' of T-shirts and getting the camera we returned to Forum 28 in time to catch the second song from Pelt who had come on early. Pelt were as good, if not better, than when I saw them at The Great Big Noise last summer. They played a 7-song set as follows: "High", "Feel", "I Wish I Was", "Hold Me Down", "Toffee Apples", "Another Day", and "Elmira". They were followed by Jason Isaacs who played an 8-song set including "Man In The Moon", "Sigh", "Who Says I Can" and "She's The One". Jason and his band were quite good and I would definitely watch them again. After a surprisingly short wait Big Country were announced and ran onto the stage. They played: "We're Not In Kansas", "You Dreamer", "President", "Broken Heart (13 Valleys)", "Sleep Till Dawn", "Wonderland", "Loserville", "I'm Not Ashamed", "Living By Memory", "I Get Hurt", "Ships", "Look Away", "Restless Natives", "Lost Patrol" -* encore 1 *- "Alone", "Chance" -* encore 2 *- Mark's drum solo, "Fields of Fire" Stuart used ebow during "Broken Heart (13 Valleys)" and the intro to "Chance: and the whole gig was really energetic with the usual bouncing in the centre section. During an early new song Stuart had something wrong with a guitar and had to stop playing after a few bars saying it's not right. Bruce said "Remember, if it's not right, it's shite!" and Stuart told Tony to tell a joke. He approached the mike and said "Funny football ground this!" There was the usual contingent of drunk Scotsmen shouting out crap and song titles to Stuart and the boys. Stuart and Bruce had the usual witty put downs for these occasions and one time when someone shouted out a song title he responded with "...is just one of the songs we play!". Pretty soon another song title was shouted out and he said to Bruce "this guy's got a ****in' list of all our songs down there". The guy shut up for a bit... The band left the stage before the end of "Lost Patrol" leaving the crowd singing the "ay-e-ie-ay-e-ie-ay-oh, 1-2, 1-2-3-4" as is traditional at these occasions. They came back on and finished the song before doing "Alone" and "Chance" during which (I think it was) Stuart did the usual hand shaking with the crowd routine and then the band went off leaving us singing "Oh, lord, I never felt so low, 2-3-4!" etc. This went on for a few minutes before Mark came back on. He asked if we wanted to hear him make some noise before entertaining us to a couple of drum solos making use of some intricate technical patterns which was really fascinating to watch and a treat not just for the drummers in the audience... The rest of the band came back on and they played the traditional "Fields of Fire" (scratch) but without any dancing girls. According to Stuart's set list they were meant to play a new song called "Grace" after "Lost Patrol"; I don't have this written down but it's possible that they did play it, is anyone else's memory better than mine? After "Fields of Fire" that was really the end and we all waited patiently in the foyer and I went and got the bits out of the car. The bar was shut and the drinks machine was empty so we were all pretty thirsty. After 10-15 minutes Ian Grant came over and said we could all go backstage so we all trooped in. The band were scattered about backstage chatting and so people moved over to the person they wanted to talk to first. I went and talked to Pelt first and got my "Fuzzy" CD signed and took some pictures of them. They are really friendly and the drummer, Ben, is on the internet and should be visiting the various sites soon. I guess we had about 3/4 hour to an hour chatting with the band and getting autographs/taking photos before they started packing up and moving out, Mark driving them back up to Scotland. I felt really pleased that those who had travelled a long way and/or hadn't seen the band before got to have such an experience. Markus, Margaret, Kevin, Pam, Claire and the guy whose name escapes me from Malta all piled in the back of my car and we drove back to Markus & Margaret's hotels. After dropping them off I took Kev, Pam & Claire back to their house and we said our goodbyes. I took the guy from Malta back down the A590 to Ulverston where he was staying before continuing on back to St. Helens where I arrived ears still ringing just after 2.15am due to very quiet roads, lack of Police and a slightly heavy accelerator foot.... :-) All in all a really great day, both for the Big Country elements and meeting people from the list. I would like to say "hi!" to everyone that I met during the day, but especially to Kevin & Pam, Markus & Martin, Margaret, Heather & Adam, Tony & Gill, Colin & his wife, Joe & Shari (New York), Darren (Oz), and Hylton Gray (Johannesburg). Also, major thanks to Kevin for organising the meeting-up and meals and for keeping us all in touch with the developments before and after the postponement. I'm sure I've missed some bits out above so if anyone wants to correct or add anything to the above please let me know and I'll make amends before posting the finished review to "I hope you like it!". |
