I, and I’m sure many others, remember the lunacy and fine music
perpetrated by Boxer’s Ollie Halsall and Mike Patto in their former
exploits with Patto. This tradition is upheld with bassist Keith Ellis
and drummer Tony Newman offering significant abilities in both
directions.
The band’s stage threads went quite a long way in fulfilling the
lunacy quotient. Patto sported a black satin Jumpsuit and boxer boots; a
slightly plump Halsall appeared in basic black with the exception of a
gold brocaded jacket. Ellis furthered the boxer Image in a fighter’s
satin robe worn mini-kimono style over Jeans, and Newman was content to
be the caveman of the group in leopard-skin leotard.
All this was so well and good, as was the music up to a point.
The first three numbers went well enough – ‘Shooting Star’ and
‘Loony Ali’ from the band’s album ‘Below The Belt’ followed by
a pleasantly intricate funk up of the Beatles’ ‘Hey Bulldog’ on
which Patto played keyboards which emphasised the hole there had been in
the sound with just the two guitars which was at times aggravated by
Halsall’s tendency to play against and around the beat.
The instrumental sound was very good throughout but vocal clarity was
sadly lacking on the more rumbustulous songs.
Things started to go wrong on ‘More Than Meets The Eye’ a song
from the album that on record features one of Halsall’s most startling
solos, unfortunately he cocked it up quite badly live, similarly on ‘California
Calling’ and the band’s excellent single ‘All The Time in The
World’ where Halsall had some lesser troubles with a clavinet.
After ‘Save Me’ and a Stamp Avery composition ‘Town Drunk’
the excesses started.
After a bunch of lengthy and at time tedious solos in ‘The Teacher’
during which Newman’s drum dias was raised some five-plus feet to
reveal a banner featuring the nude from the band’s album cover, we
were treated to multicoloured police-style beacons flashing from
virtually every piece of sound equipment and along with a painful
degeneration of sound quality two smoke-spewing silver ‘serpents’
were unleashed bracketing the stage.
The overall effect of these gimmicks was to cheapen and detract from
the quality of the performance rather than enhance it.
I didn’t stay for the encore and as I was leaving I wondered
whether it had been a big parody of regular rock concerts by Virgin
Records.
An encounter with S. Pokesperson from said company later assured me
it was in fact attributable to the band’s management.
Anyway my disappointment had been made up for somewhat in advance by
the support act – Brand X, a band centred around Genesis drummer Phil
Collins featuring percussionist Preston Heyman, Percy Jones on bass
guitar, John Goodsall on guitar and Rob Lumley playing keyboards
They play very high standard jazz/rock comparable to Soft Machine and
even Weather Report. I recommend them very highly indeed and apparently
they have an album in the can just waiting for a release deal.
If the new four-piece Genesis doesn’t work out it would make very
good sense for Mr. Collins to keep this little combo together. – Dave
Fudger.
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