Shed Seven
Right, cards on the table time. I am passionate and can be very opinionated when it comes to music. I am, however, willing to admit it when I am wrong. With a few exceptions – like Blur and Pulp – I wrote off almost all of the Britpop bands as dull, uninspired, cartoonish, overly laddish rehashes of the 60s Beatles-Stones-Kinks triumvirate. With hindsight, I reserved most of my venom for the likes of Shed Seven and Cast. I just didn’t get them.
So why I am here? Well, my other half is a big fan of both bands and, given the stuff I drag her along to, it is only fair that she drags me along to this. Hells, I even volunteer to drive so she can hit the cider. I may not have been kicking and screaming on the way to the UEA tonight but I was smiling with gritted teeth…
You know what? For all my misgivings, this was thoroughly entertaining.
First up are Cast. Featuring three quarters of the classic line-up - John Power (vox/guitar), Liam "Skin" Tyson (guitar) and Keith O'Neill (drums) – along with Jay Lewis on bass, the band’s music has the late 60s and early 70s vibe that I anticipated but there is a funk and groove that is as pleasantly surprising as it is unexpected.
Starting with two songs from 2017 album Kicking Up Dust doesn’t exactly get the – admittedly partisan – crowd on side but is a move that should be applauded for bravery. Opening brace aside, the set is weighted towards the hit singles from the band’s heyday including Sandstorm, Finetime, Live The Dream, Walkaway, Flying, Guiding Star and Free Me. A few miscues and gaps between songs that suggest a rusty, slightly under-rehearsed band aside, this was much better than I was expecting.
As with Cast, Shed Seven’s set is heavy on the singles. By my reckoning, twelve of the seventeen songs hit the charts between 1994 and 2001, there are four songs from new album Instant Pleasuresand a single-that-never-was.
As I have said already, I am not a fan of the Sheds’ recorded work and it is the new songs – opener Room In My House, the Nolan Sisters referencing indie-disco of People Will Talk, Better Days and the first encore It's Not Easy - that impress me the most. That said, the whole set is thoroughly enjoyable and a hell of a lot better than I was expecting, with Speakeasy, Dolphin, Disco Down, Devil In Your Shoes – complete with some amazing drumming from Alan Leach – and Bully Boy being most enjoyable. Of course, She Left Me On Friday (with the outro from The Stone Roses’ I Am The Resurrectionthrown in), Going For Gold and final number of the night Chasing Rainbows that elicit the strongest responses from the faithful.
Despite a throat infection having resulted in the cancellation of some shows, Rick Witter’s vocals are both stronger and more characterful than I expected from his recorded work. He is also an amusing, engaging frontman with something of the snake-hipped Jagger about him. Paul Banks lays down some fine guitar with some particularly tasty wah-wah assisted soloing. Bassist Tom Gladwin and guitarist/keysman Joe Johnson go about their business with panache whilst the brass section may just be the unacknowledged heroes of the night.
Of tonight’s two bands, it is Cast’s songs that I enjoy the most but it is Shed Seven that deliver the better performance. So, yeah, after all that, I misjudged ’em before. This is not the first time that I have thoroughly enjoyed a live from a band or artist whose studio work hasn’t done it for me and it probably won’t be the last. No, I won’t be rushing out and investing in either band’s back catalogue but I must admit that – live, at least – they are both pretty bloody good and I won’t be metaphorically kicking and screaming when the long-suffering other half wants to go and see either of them again.
