Quireboys & Bad Touch
It is the run up to Christmas so it must be time for a party and a Quireboys acoustic party in Norwich is becoming a bit of a Christmas tradition.
Opening proceedings are local rockers BAD TOUCH. Right, let’s get the negatives outta the way. I have seen Bad Touch playing their stock in trade electric sets a few times and they haven’t done a lot for me. The songs are well crafted, the boys can clearly play and they are good at what they do but it has been just too old school for me. They sounded like they have nothing in their record collections released after 1989 and precious little after 1976. Tonight, it is different. Like the Quireboys, Bad Touch play an acoustic set. Unlike the Quireboys, this is a rarity for Bad Touch. Yes, it still owes a debt to the likes of Led Zep, Cream, Black Crowes and Whitesnake but I have to say I like it. Stevie Westwood is an engaging frontman and his vocals have a touch of Eddie Vedder about them that I hadn’t picked up on previously. Rob Glendinning lead runs sound great on acoustic six string. Daniel Seekings (rhythm guitar and vox), Michael Bailey (bass) and George Drewry (drums and vox) all tie it together with some style. The snippet of ZZ Top’s Sharp Dressed Man and the cover of Wishing Well are knowing winks to their influences. So, after this performance, I will have to reconsider my earlier assessment of Bad Touch and I am looking forward to checking out an electric set next time they play locally.
It is over thirty years since I first saw THE QUIREBOYS at the (in)famous Marquee Club. In that time, my musical tastes may have broadened and tonight is a very different line-up but, much as I love checking out shouty old punx I missed first time around and discovering new, challenging noises, there will always be a place in my heart and a place on my playlist for the old school, good time Rock ‘n’ Roll music of the Quireboys.
Introduced by the legendary Alan Clayton of Dirty Strangers, the band kick things off with a trio of songs from the A Bit of What You Fancy LP with There She Goes Again, Misled and Roses and Rings being greeted by the audience like the old friends they are. The main set takes in another dozen or so songs and the two song encore includes material from throughout the band’s history but is not unexpectedly loaded towards that classic debut.
He may sometimes get the words in the wrong order but Spike should be up there with the likes of Jagger and Daltrey and Stewart as one of the great Rock ‘n’ Roll frontmen. When guitarists Guy Griffin and Paul Guerin hit their groove with keysman Keith Weir, it is glorious. 28 years after that debut LP, Whipping Boy – originally written by Spike and his old sidekick Gut Bailey for Tina Turner! – remains one of my all-time favourite songs whilst I Don’t Love You Anymore must be rank as the consummate rock ballad.
Yeah, I can be prone to hyperbole and yeah I love the Quireboys. The full band electric shows may present more of a spectacle but, without exaggeration, even playing acoustic, they deliver one of the shows of the year. Be sure to make it down here next time they roll into the fine city.
