Live Review & Picture Credit: Adrian Hextall \ MindHex Media
If you’ve already seen the review of the support acts from this show, you’ll have seen our opening paragraphs below. If not, read on dear friends…
Having spent some two weeks on the road with a new look Ginger Wildheart Band, Ginger, Toshi, Conny and Denzel have played some intimate venues, many of which have sold out, all of which have been, to quote the late Robin Williams, “hot, damn hot!! Real hot! Hottest thing is my shorts. I could cook things in it. A little crotch pot cooking.”
As you picture a little ‘crotch pot cooking’ we are reminded of what happened in Cambridge. It was a gig so hot that half of the band members and crew fell ill through dehydration and the following show, a second night at the Portland Arms had to be cancelled. To that point, the tour had consisted of Massive Wagons, Ryan Hamilton & the Traitors and The Ginger Wildheart Band, or “The Ginger Wildhearts” if you were to believe the leaflets printed up by the pub.
The Ginger Wildheart Band
A cut down four piece Ginger Wildheart Band that, in various guises, has seen almost double that number touring before now. This version of the band though is rather special. Reuniting Ginger with his former Silver Ginger 5 band mate, Conny Bloom on guitar, the band is finished with Toshi on bass and Denzel on drums.
Tight would describe them perfectly and for those of us hoping for a pile of SG5 songs in the set, we weren’t disappointed. The opening 3 tracks, ‘Take It All, Why Don’tcha’, ‘Anyway But Maybe’ and ‘Sonic Shake’ all hail from that glorious album with the latter track causing one member of the audience to bounce around the floor as if possessed by the devil. You know who you are sir!
With so much music from one the largest and varied catalogues a fan could wish for, guessing a set list is never easy but invariably it’s a doozy and this was no different with tracks from the G.A.S.S campaign / Year of the Fanclub album included alongside tracks from Ginger’s debut solo album, ‘Valor Del Corazon’, ‘Mother City’ reminding us just what drew him to New York.
You may think it difficult to smile and sing along to a song about suicide but we do just that with ‘Do You?’ which has one of the most infectious choruses. It’s soon followed by ‘Only A Problem’ another one from the archives and a great song to hear live.
What is nice to see is a band not plagued by the heat. The venues on the tour may well have taken their toll but the Bowl is nothing if not a breath of air-conditioned fresh air. Spacious, with a great sized stage that stands high enough for everyone at the back to see without the need to stand on a chair to see over the tall people at the front. The cooler atmosphere naturally leads to a more relaxed bands and whilst the other venues have had all the sweaty energy of a backstreet brawl, the Bowl offers a gig as it should be. Good sound, great lighting, a great bill and songs to die for.
Another SG5 song, ‘I Wanna Be New’ finds its way into the set before Wildhearts favourites ‘Mazel Tov Cocktail’ and ‘Top of the World’ lead us into rarely heard ‘Ostracide’ from Month 6 of the G.A.S.S. releases.
If you didn’t see this, you missed out. If you did then you know why this was such a hot [sic] ticket.
More of the same please.
Our review of Hey!Hello and Ryan Hamilton and the Traitors can be found HERE:
About Author
