Many of you, I am sure, are aware that Paul McCartney recently played a gig at the iconic Liverpool venue the Cavern. The original Cavern is seen by many as were the Beatles were born. The Fabs played nearly 300 shows there. Click here to read the write-up in the Guardian. Whilst this show in itself is historical with Macca playing to a small crowd in his home city of Liverpool, (he also played the same venue in 1999) this is not the Cavern of old.
In 1973 the original Cavern Club was subject to a compulsory purchase order by British Rail. The warehouses that sat atop the club were demolished and the rubble was used to fill the famous cellar club. But it sounds like Sir Paul played a stunning set of nearly thirty songs, including 13 Beatles tracks, 6 from the Wings catalogue and many more. Were you there? If you were I would love to interview you for this blog.
The full set list, preceded by a band jam, was;
20 Flight Rock
Magical Mystery
Jet
All My Loving
Letting Go
Come On To Me
Let Me Roll It
I Got A Feeling
My Valentine
Queenie Eye
Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five
Lady Madonna
In Spite Of All The Danger
Things We Said Today
Confidante
Love Me Do
Who Cares
Birthday
I Wanna Be Your Man
Fuh You
Get Back
Ob La Di
Band On The Run
Hi Hi Hi
I Saw Her Standing There
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Helter Skelter
All photos were sourced via Google. If they are your pictures I would be happy to credit you on the post, or remove them.
In 1996, Ringo Starr appeared in a Japanese advertisement for apple sauce, why was that? Well in Japanese “Ringo” means an apple offering or peace be with you. Is that where Mr Starkey got his infamous “peace and love, peace and love, peace and love” comment from in his speech a few years back about giving up on autographs?
Apparently the harmonica is the world’s best-selling music instrument. Who would have thought that such a small humble tool would be that successful? How many of you own a harmonica? Of those who do own one then how many of you can actually play it? While you’re thinking about that take a listen to ten of my favourite harmonica featuring tunes.
By all accounts Frank Zappa was not a great fan of rock groups, well maybe not much of a fan of anyone else’s music some would say. He was often disparaging of rock behemoths like Led Zeppelin and referred to lead singer Robert Plant as Robert Planet and Robert Plant-It. It was also Zappa he first raised the story of the mud-shark and the groupie incident, but that is another story altogether.
However maybe he did secretly like Led Zeppelin. In rehearsals for his 1988 tour he tried a few covers; “Shapes Of Things” by the Yardbirds and “Paperback Writer” by the Beatles. But most of these were never played live, particularly “Stairway To Heaven” a song which Frank claimed never to have heard from start to finish. But he recognised that a Zappa cover of the song, including sound effects, might actually blow the minds of his audience. I have listened to a few live recordings of Zappa doing “Stairway To Heaven” and it is both faithful and fanciful, a truly mental take on a true rock classic. Apparently the song took a slightly different road each night of that tour, even taking on some reggae vibes occasionally. Personally I love Zappa does Zep. What do you think? Here are a few takes from Zappa and the Led Zeppelin original.
The Voyager space probe has a golden disc which features sounds of the earth from nature, speech and music to enable an alien race somewhere else in the universe to find out a little about us if they come across the probe. There is classical music from Mozart, traditional Bulgarian music from Valya Balkanska, Blues from Blind Willie Johnson and on top of all that there is the late, great Chuck Berry with “Johnny B Goode“. Apparently Chuck was included after EMI refused permission for the Beatles “Here Comes The Sun” to be a part of Voyager. Seriously EMI why would you do that? Amazingly Voyager 1 is now more than ten billion miles from earth, I wonder what our alien friends will make of Mr Berry?
It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to attend another Northern Radar show put on by good friend, the very talented Mr Simon Pattinson. I have attended many gigs that Simon has either put on or recommended and he has not let me down so far. At four quid for four bands did he let me down for the first time tonight? Well dear reader you will have to read on to find out.
The first band on were Kram with a Grunge-like take on Royal Blood. The singer/ guitarist, knowingly or unknowingly, gave a nod to the late, great Kurt Cobain by taking to the stage in a dressing gown. A bit like Cobain did at the Reading Festival back in 1992 when he came on stage wearing a hospital gown. I was actually there for that too. But enough trivia and comparison, Kram are an excellent band. A versatile and skilled guitarist who possesses a great rock voice more than ably backed up by a drummer who really knows his way around a drum kit.
Next up were Lost Trends from my adopted home city of York. How the hell have I not seen these blokes before? This mob sound really well rehearsed and watching them play I felt that they really knew rock history. Chatting to them afterwards about everything from the Beatles to Bowie and the Shadows to Radiohead it is very clear that they do. Lost Trends are very difficult to slot into a specific genre. They have a bit of indie, a touch of classic rock and are most definitely a band that you can dance to. They have the potential to become one of my and I hope your favourite bands. If I had left after their set I would have gone home happy. Oh and their excellent single “DJ” has been featured on racing ads on Channel 4, check it out at the end of this post.
The penultimate band of the evening were the Naked Six. If you like classic rock with a twist of 21st Century then this is definitely a band that you must see. Riffs reminiscent of Jimmy Page and vocals could grace many classic bands. Their songs were all incredibly powerful and the playing was stupendous. Given the right breaks the Naked Six have the potential to surpass the success of two of their famous fathers. Thank you for letting your boys get into a band Biff off of Saxon and Finley Quaye. If I had left home after the Naked Six I would have gone home bloody ecstatic. A mega monster of a band and one that I will definitely pay to see again.
I didn’t envy Cry Baby having to follow three very talented and stunning bands. But they did it incredibly well and with great aplomb. The great thing about all of tonights bands is that they are all very different. Cry Baby perform classy indie rock n roll with influences from many sources; the Killers, Razorlight and the Arctic Monkeys. They have some well crafted songs and know how to put on a show. I am sure that I will see this lot again. I suggest that you, dear reader, should check out all the bands that I saw at this gig you will not be disappointed. Talking of disappointment, did Simon let me down tonight? What do you think? Of course he bloody didn’t this was yet another awesome Northern Radar show!
The usual public service announcement, all the pictures were taken using my shitty little Nokia phone and the video is courtesy of YouTube.
The other day I decided to take a quick count of all the artists in my album collection where I have at least 10 albums by a single artist. I included CDs, LPs and cassettes (although the only non compilation cassettes that I have are David Bowie bootlegs). Oh and while I’m on bootleg recordings obviously I have included them whether they are live, studio outtakes or simply unreleased stuff. I have not included digital recordings. I was surprised to find that there are 4o artists where I have at least ten releases by them. The list is below, (artist followed by the number of albums) there are no real surprises for me, are you surprised at any on this list? Have you ever done anything similar? I have also added a song from each of the top ten artists 🙂
David Bowie 141
Bob Dylan 30 Johnny Nash 26 Bruce Springsteen 26
Beatles 25
Neil Young 25
Elton John 19
Bob Marley 19
U2 19
Rod Stewart 18
Pink Floyd 17
REM 17 Elvis Costello 15
The Eels 15
Prince 15
Paul Weller 15
Ryan Adams 14 Led Zeppelin 14
Madonna 14
The Clash 13 Elvis Presley 13
Radiohead 13
Kate Bush 12
Oasis 12
Lou Reed 12
Stevie Wonder 12
Morrissey 11
Tom Waits 11
ZZ Top 11
Jeff Buckley 10
Julian Cope 10
Johnny Cash 10 Michael Jackson 10
John Lennon 10 Manic Street Preachers 10
Kylie Minogue 10 Iggy Pop 10
Rolling Stones 10
Frank Turner 10
The Who 10
Libidinous curmudgeon & faux intellectual snob. Fighting injustice and exposing media driven political hypocrisy. Evidence not ideology. Merit not money. Neither red nor blue. Blog best viewed at 125% (based on 19" monitor)
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