Music > Live Reviews
The Icicle Works
Norwich Arts Centre
19/11/17
Sometimes, unexpectedly, a gig comes along that is just so much better than expected. I am not that into the recorded works of Ian McNabb and The Icicle Works. Don't get me wrong, I like it well enough and I can see why he inspires so much devotion but I am not a fanatic. So, why am I here? Because my other half is a huge fan and it makes a change for her to drag me along to a gig rather than the other way around….
For those that don’t know, the original version of The Icicle Works was current between 1980 and 1989. With the exception of top 20 hit Love Is A Wonderful Colour, none of their singles got any higher than 52 in the UK charts, and their four LPs achieved what is probably best described as cult success. The Icicle Works Mk 2 released a further album in 1990 and then the name was retired for a decade and a half. The current version features none of the original members bar McNabb, who is wise enough and honest enough to admit, in a recent interview in Uncut, that “the audience is an awful lot bigger for an Icicle Works show than it is for an Ian McNabb show”. He went on to say that he neither wanted nor was able to bring the original line up back together. Given that, no one here was expecting the original line-up but, speaking to a few other punters before the show and between sets, they were expecting something special. And boy oh boy did they get that. And then some.
Any thoughts of the authenticity of tonight’s version of The Icicle Works are soon blown away once the band takes to the stage. McNabb, dressed in Flying Burrito Brothers t-shirt and distressed hat, looks both younger and shaggier than last time I saw him - solo, acoustic, at the Waterfront in the early noughties - and somehow like a cross between Neil Young and Dave Grohl.
On the subject of Neil Young (and knowing that McNabb has worked with Crazy Horse), when the band get jamming, this is probably the closest I will ever get to the full Crazy Horse experience. Drummer Matthew Priest, also of Dodgy, is hard hitting but plays with a nuanced subtlety that recalls Ralph Molina. Former Black bassist - and long term McNabb arranger - Roy Corkhill takes the Billy Talbot role with aplomb. McNabb himself fills the roles of both Neil Young and Poncho Sampedro with panache. Away from the Crazy Horse references, former Waterboy Dr Richard Naiff’s playing brings to mind the keyboard wizardry of the likes of Ray Manzarek of The Doors, Jon Lord’s playing in the early days of Deep Purple or Booker T Jones. By the gods, this reminds me of just how sublime a great band can be when they let rip.
It is not all jamming though. Underneath it, McNabb writes with a true pop sensibility. The music ranges from 80s alternative pop, country-inflected Americana, 60s Merseybeat pop and more. Over two sets, an encore and over two and a half hours, the band played 24 songs from both the back catalogue of Icicle Works and McNabb’s solo work. Picking highlights is nigh on impossible but I’ll go for opening statement of intent When It All Comes Down, Seven Horses, first set closer Up Here In The North, second set closer Clarabella and closer Hollow Horse.
Without being hyperbolic or getting carried away, there were no songs at all tonight that I didn’t enjoy. Maybe the stage craft isn’t the most energetic or showy - hells, I am coming into this after seeing the theatricality of The Tubes last night and pretty much no one short of Lady GaGa or Alice Cooper will match that! - but the songs don’t need high kicks or costume changes or duck walking. Anyway, McNabb, Corkhill and Priest engage in some entertaining and amusing banter - both with each other and the audience - between songs. Even the Alan Partridge ahah’s were well received by the audience,
The band have given it their all tonight and seem to have thoroughly enjoyed themselves. NAC’s Will tells me that they have been amongst the loveliest bands he had worked with. Some of the audience have given as much as the band and the foyer is full of smiles as the punters leave.
All in all, this is a contender for gig of the year. After my Tubes review, I said I was worried I was going soft and giving too many good reviews. I stand by what I said then: it is not that I am going soft, it is that I have been lucky enough to see some truly brilliant shows this year. This was one of them. Mr McNabb and co, please come back soon.