The Slackers / King Prawn. Live @ Rock City, Notts. 23/2/00.
The Slackers are currently one of the USA's top ska bands, up there
with Hepcat and Stubborn Allstars. In the UK they have an edge over the
All Stars and Hepcat, due to there hard work, two albums already out on
Hellcat and two more too come, plus visiting the UK 2 years running. We
must be blessed!
OK so Hepcat and the Stubborn crew may not be as UK friendly as the
Slackers. Although The slackers have yet to visit the North of England
or Scotland or Wales, but their making in roads.
For the sake of non Londoners and Midlanders the Full slackers UK tour can't come soon enough, as this show matched last years visit to the Charlotte. The Slackers were class.
Although not as good bill as the Leicester gig and the slackers down to 7 men, no Glen Pine the show was still fine, there was only around 100 to 150 people upstairs at Rock City. A disappointing turnout, in fact only 26 tickets were sold prior to the day of the gig.
That didn't matter to King Prawn, the top London Ska/punk band and by the time the got towards the end of their set there were a few people skanking down at the front. The five piece mixed pure punk with Asian Man style punk/ska, with the trumpet player playing on just
the ska tinted tracks. Not only was the music pretty tight, the stage
presence wasn't bad either, the bass player was either standing on the
bar or glaring menacingly at the audience, I s'pose it made up for his
late arrival that delayed the bands appearance.
Also as a few people commented that the London band had a good range
of t-shirts, 7"ers and CD's available.
King Prawn had previously supported Less than Jake and are integrating
this tour with other live gigs around the country to widen their appeal
and fan base. Tonight they did a good job, and the audience were pretty
appreciative.
Onto the Slackers, the NYC band basically did a similar set to the Leicester gig. Only replacing a couple of tracks from their Moon ska debut with two new songs. One was a very party Latin track, which sounded good, the other was of similar sounding to stuff of the Question LP. Both gave a good indication that the slackers songwriting skills will be put to good effect on the new studio release.
After "knowing" the opener, the Slackers slide straight into rocksteady action, "married Girl" was excellent and more people got down to the front for the action, "Manuel" is a great uptempo song, and really got every-one moving. (I preferred it at Leicester, where they opened with it) the horn section's really cool on this track.
Lead singer Marq Lyn is a brilliant leadman, a real show man who gets
the crowd cheering and shouting, the blokes wish they were him and the
girls wish they were in bed with him, he's that smooth!
"Cooking for Tommy" was up next, the bands instrumental tribute to
Tommy McCook and Roland Alfonso.
"Keep him away" is a really good track, one of the bonus' of the night,
it really shone, cos its in the middle of 19 excellent tracks on the last
album, it really really gets the attention it deserves.
"The mummy" not really one of my faves but it went down fairly well
here.
Next up was the first of two new tracks, and was followed by "Redlight", this is possibly the best slackers track, although not sounding as good as the studio version, is was still excellent, it was one of the songs I hoped they would play, as last time they didn't. (See review issue 4) The song was given an extended break and Disco Dave was a given extra time for a sax solo.
Like "Keep him away", "No more Crying" is one of my first five choice
of tracks when I play "the Question" but its is actually a really
cool song. (It proves how many gems there are on the last slackers release
- the next one, really has something to live upto.)
"Face in the crowd" was v.good and "Tin Tin Deo" gave Marq Lyn the
chance to do a little extra dub style vocals over the slow rocksrteady
number.
"Run away" was one of only two tracks from the "Better late than never" album and went down well, showing that even though the albums about out of print there's UK fans who dig it.
The 2nd new song followed, as mentioned earlier, it was a really party track, that got a good round of applause and cheering.
As ever, probably the most popular Slackers track "Watch this" was excellent and after this track more and more people got skanking down the front.
Marq's showmanship was shown again prior to the track as he took up
the role of a loud gospel preacher, as the rest of the band got down on
their knees to pray and put a hand in the air to salute their leader.
"Put your hands in the air", "Repeat after me" shouted Lyn, "I have
done no wrong", "I am proud of who I am". Lyn then got everyone to join
in a preceded with the chant of "ROCK - STEADY", with Marq leading with
"ROCK" and the crowd returning the chant with "STEADY", the band then got
to there feet and went into "Watch this", giving Dave Hillyard another
chance for an extended solo spot.
The band left the stage for only a few moments returning for three outstanding
treats.
"Have the time" was another brilliant number and by now every-one was
sweating just as much as they were skanking.
This was followed by "Must be Good" one of the best tracks on the "Redlight"
album.
The Slackers finished their set in typical style, with "pedophilia"
which gave each member a chance to show of their talents and towards the
end saw Jeremy Mushlin and Dave Hillyard leave the stage head back to the
dressing room. Then while Luis Zuluaga was showing off his stuff behind
the kit, the brass duo appeared from the entrance and did their climax
in the middle of audience. For Slackers fans who witnessed the band before
it was expected, but for first timers it was a real surprise, that ended
a top set of authentic ska.
All in all there were two really good sets, showing the best in UK and
US ska and I look forward to hearing more of King Prawn and hope the slackers
live album will be as good as the live performances I've seen.