Fangbase - Reviews

Woughton Centre, Milton Keynes

Saturday 3rd May 2003

This seemed a really strange choice of venue - a leisure centre in a drab area somewhere among what seemed about 500 roundabouts - the auditorium looked suspiciously like a sports hall. Actually it turned out great, excellent sound and a blisteringly sharp performance by the band. Sold out too!

I've said it before but I'll say it again, the standard of performance just gets better. The songs this time round sounded sharper than ever and all note perfect and for this tour there were a few different ones thrown in for good measure.

With minimum fuss the band were on and Disco Man kicked things off instead of being in its usual place of a few songs in. Dave's voice was in great shape- that boy sure can sing - but I thought he was a bit more subdued than usual between songs. Black t shirt, black jeans, black "Hurley" belt and black gloves suit he cut his usual fine figure on stage.

Once again the actual running order has been forgotten by me, but the other songs (in no particular order) were I Just Can't Be Happy Today, Democracy, Amen, Song.com, She, Would You Be So Hot, an electrifying Ignite, Street of Dreams (which I thought sits much better mid set rather than as the opener), History of the World Part One, 13th Floor Vendetta, See Her Tonite, Born To Kill and ending with Neat, Neat, Neat. The encore numbers were New Rose, Eloise and Smash It Up.

Not a dud among 'em and I'd be hard pressed to pick the best one but the highlights were:

*Ignite

*Amen and Song.com - the Grave Disorder songs sound fine live

*HOTW- never one of my fave songs on record, but it honestly sounded superb here with vocals shared twixt Dave, Captain and Monty

*Born To Kill (I think I mentioned this in a Message Board thread a while back as being worthy of including in the set and so it proved)

*Neat, Neat, Neat complete with a chunk of another song in the middle (Break on Thru by The Doors?- I really don't know but I've nicked that from someone else's review of somewhere else) and kicked off with a casual double flick of the mic from Dave

*New Rose after a quick huddle involving Captain, Pinch and DV round the drum kit, Dave nonchalantly turned round to enquire "Is she really going out with him?". I know there's a school of thought.that says drop it from the set, but I for one would rather have it in than out (wouldn't we all Madam). The crowd loved it too.

As Captain said after his customary "your old mates The Damned" speech, "Mr Vanian they don't come much better than that". Too bloody true.

Regards

Froggy