With Just A Hint Of Mayhem

Music reviews, gig reviews, fun trivia and extra added random stuff!

Bowie By Candlelight – Ripon Cathedral – Friday 17th January 2025 January 19, 2025

Filed under: Review — justwilliam1959 @ 9:07 pm
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When I saw this show advertised some while ago I had know idea what it would be like. But as a lifelong Bowie fan I was intrigued. Bowie’s music in a cathedral? I’ll have some of that please! This is one of a series of concerts promoted by Concerts By Candlelight across the UK’s cathedrals and similar venues. This show was presented at the magnificent Ripon Cathedral in Yorkshire. Mostly it is with some great tribute acts, including this one. The music for this show was provided by David Live, arguably the best Bowie tribute act on the circuit. I would put them at the top, closely followed by Absolute Bowie and the Bowie Contingent. Charlie Fowler is a great front man and while he has a slight resemblance to Bowie, his mannerisms, movement and voice are close to spot on. His between song conversational banter sounds like Bowie too. The band, who I believe have played together for more than ten years are supremely talented. Spencer James on keys plays with the style of Mike Garson when he needs to. The rest of the band are brothers JM Sutcliffe (guitar), JP Sutcliffe (Drums) and Raphael Sutcliffe (bass). They were all on top form, but for me Raphael shone just a little more brightly, especially when his rumbling 5 string bass guitar kicked in

The evening was split into two halves. The first set saw what might have been a show from the 1976 Thin White Duke Isolar 1 tour. Charlie wore the monochrome combo from that tour and he was on splendid form. After a brief rest where those of us in need to empty bladders had to leave the building to use a toilet (who knew Ripon Cathedral has no toilets) the band came back to another rapturous reception. This time Charlie was decked out in the striking blue suit like that worn on the ‘Reality’ tour in 2003/ 2004. The band coped with problems smoothly and easily with Charlie breaking his guitar strap and a backing track failure. There were so many highlights from the performance. The best for me were probably “Changes”, “Starman”, “Oh You Pretty Things”, “Fame”, “Space Oddity”, “All The Young Dudes”, “Ashes To Ashes”, “Little Wonder”, “Absolute Beginners” and a towering take on “Stay” from the ‘Station To Station album. the latter opened the whole show in spectacular style. But just pipping all of those were a gorgeous and emotional version of “Wild Is The Wind” and a powerful show closer with a magnificent “Heroes”. We all sang along and so many of the crowd danced throughout the whole show. Even if you don’t like tribute bands, I am not a huge fan of them, but when they are as good as David Live they deserve to be seen!

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“Dread blew off and made I laugh” – Advent day 10 December 10, 2013

Filed under: Christmas,Trivia — justwilliam1959 @ 6:04 am
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6511486615_a4228ff0d8_zIt’s December 10th, therefore it’s day 10 of the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem advent blog posts for 2013. It is also only just over two weeks to the arrival of the fat bearded bloke in the red suit who will fly in on a sleigh laden with millions of presents and pulled by at least one large inebriated (well he has got a red nose) venison steak called Rudolph. So you have by now figured out that todays songs have the number 10 in their titles.

1293019_111015151402_double_exposure_ten_percent_fFirst song of the day today is a 70s disco smasheroo released by Double Exposure on the Salsoul label in 1976. It is called “Ten Percent” and was according to some music historians the first ever commercially available 12″ single. Personally I had always heard that it was either “You + Me = Love” by Undisputed Truth or “Black Is Black” from La Belle Époque. In those heady days of 1976 I was a fledgling mobile DJ in partnership with my good friend Glen Voisey. I actually had the 12″ vinyl singles for all three of those songs at the time! “Ten Percent” made it to number 54 on the US Billboard charts. The band began recording the album that would include “Ten Percent” 38 years ago tomorrow. The album, which was recorded at the famous Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia was also called ‘Ten Percent’. In the 60s the band were called United Image and recorded some songs for the Stax label. The band included James Williams, Joseph Harris, Charles Whittington and Leonard ‘Butch’ Davis who had sung together since High School.

21185124The second song for today is in my opinion a great deal of  double entendre riddled and innuendo driven slice of humourous smut, and I love it. It is part of a series of pop reggae tunes from Englishman Judge Dread a former DJ, Debt Collector (for Trojan Records no less),  Bouncer and bodyguard. Ladies and gentlemen and those of you who aren’t quite sure, I bring you “Big Ten”. This song reached number 14 in the UK charts in 1975, which is bloody good considering it was not allowed to be played on the radio. It was the last of six UK top 20 hits that the Judge had between 1972 and 1975. Judge Dread was actually Alexander Minto Hughes and he sadly died in 1998 aged just 52. When I was just a lad two regular Christmas presents that I was allowed to choose from my parents was one vinyl album and one vinyl single. being young and somewhat strapped for cash I always chose a double album as the album present; “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” (Elton John), “Quadrophenia” (the Who) and “David Live” (David Bowie) were three of those choices. So I would like to publicly apologise to my Mum for being such a conniving little urchin. But more importantly I should apologise for choosing Judge Dread’s “Big Eight” as my single in at Christmas 1973. I was rather amused that my Mum had to go into the record shop and buy it without having any idea that it contained a whole selection of lewd and crude nursery rhymes. Sorry Mum!