Icicle Works
Take my advice people. Next time he is in the fine City, make an effort to go and see him, if you can get a ticket.
Way back in 1984 I fell in love with a band from Liverpool called the Icicle Works.
I went to see them live for the very first time at the UEA barn just as they released their self-titled debut album as they set out on their first ever tour. The gig was sold out and came with a restricted ticket allocation, while the LCR was being refurbished and they just quite simply blew me away.
They have since back then been my band and I have followed them and Ian Mcnabb’s solo careers every move since that first momentous gig. Well we all have them don’t we? You know artists and bands that we each resonate and stick with throughout their career (kids take note)?
Ever since then I have seen them and him in Norwich countless of times and travelled to many a venue outside of the County to see Ian Mcnabb since he first went solo back in 1991.
Some thirty five years on now into his professional musical career Ian Mcnabb is back in Norwich playing with his band the Icicle Works, original band members Chris Sharrock and Chris Layhe have long since departed. Tonight’s line-up includes the very charismatic ex Waterboy Richard Naiff on piano, Hammond organ and flute and they are just immense and certainly breathing some fresh energy and life into the classic Icicle Works and Mcnabb solo material during the two hours and fifty five minute set that is split into two sessions this evening.
All of the classic Icicle Works tracks are given an airing with the exception of Love Is A Wonderful Colour, I think that they just simply ran out of time at the end of the evening during the encore! But nobody is complaining after this marathon set.
As always they kick off with the amazing When It All Comes Down and it more than sets the tone for the rest of the evening as they breeze through a further twenty two songs covering each of the Icicle Works albums and much of his solo career.
Holy moly it’s all here. Hollow Horse, Evangeline, Birds Fly, Who Do You Want For Your Love, Understanding Jane, Loveless Age, You Stone My Soul, Blind and the more recent Future In Space and Clarabella, not forgetting the still amazing Up Here In The North Of England from 1987’s If You Want To Defeat Your Enemy Sing His Song, some of its lyrics still resonate in today’s current political climate.
Some five Icicle Works and seventeen solo albums into his career (yes that’s 17 kids) Mcnabb is still going strong. He is a career musician at the core of his heart that is still producing vibrantly fresh material on a regular basis unlike many artists that live off of the same overplayed material time and time again on shit eighties reunion tours or the odd random resurgent pay cheque tour!
Rather miraculously at this stage of his his career Mcnabb still remains despite the genius that he is something of a great British lyricist and musician that is very much underrated, understated, underappreciated, undervalued and under the radar much to my continued bemusement, disappointment and surprise!
However, Ian Mcnabb is still stoning my soul after all of this time so long may it continue. May his star shine forever bright because right now that is all that matters to me and the rest of tonight’s audience.
As the song says, hope springs eternal, good fortune comes to those who wait.
Form is temporary, but class is permanent.
Take my advice people. Next time he is in the fine City, make an effort to go and see him, if you can get a ticket.
