THE RUMJACKS, THE MISTAKES & MICK O’TOOLE
Glorious celticskafolkpunkrock on a balmy night in Norwich. Gotta be better than a Tory hustings, right?
Back in Ye Olden Tymes just before the Plague, I was in a pub in Stoke-On-Trent. There were a coupla interesting looking fellas at the bar. Got chatting and it turned out it was two of The Rumjacks who were playing the Underground that night. Prior plans got in the way of seeing them that night but I promised that I’d see ’em next time they came to Norwich. So, two and a half years on it is down to the Waterfront.
First up is six piece MICK O’TOOLE. A band rather than a solo act, the six piece feature drums, mandolin, banjo, 2 guitars and bass. Fast and energetic as they are, this is more the folk end of folk punk, reminding me of The Roughneck Riot, Bootscraper and Ferocious Dog. The sound for Mick O’Toole is not great sound and being stuck in the queue for the bar from before they take to the stage until the end of the penultimate song doesn’t make for a great experience but neither issue is the band’s fault. They have some more-than-decent songs, put on a show and I hope to see them again.
THE MISTAKES take things to the punk/metal side of folk-punk. They come on like classic Alarm jamming with Motörhead, with a dose of high energy ska and some Poison Idea-style 80s hardcore/thrash guitar thrown into the mix. Lewis’s performance was something to behold and catapulted his straight into my five favourite current drummers. Great stuff.
Both Mick O’Toole and The Mistakes garner a great response from the (sometimes less than enthusiastic) Norwich crowd but the punters ramp it up a gear for THE RUMJACKS. There’s skanking and dancing from the moment the band take the stage. The band feeds off that energy and delivers a fiery set of Celtic-influenced ska-folk-punk. Adam Kenny breaks a mandolin string before the set is properly underway but it doesn’t derail his performance. Newish boy Mike Rivkees is a riveting frontman. Stage left, Johnny McKelvey bullies his bass into submission. Drummer Pietro Della Sala powers things from the back. For me, Gabriel Whitbourne is the star of the show. There’s nothing flashy, nothing unnecessary but by hell his guitar work is damned fine and the solos perfectly suit the songs.
There were some controversies around ex-vocalist Frankie McLaughlin’s violent tendencies. This may not be the best place to discuss that past and no doubt the band would rather look to the future than the past. I feel though that I have to, at least, acknowledge the situation. Whatever, I don’t know the facts, can’t say whether the band dealt with things in the right way or the wrong and I also don’t know how I would have dealt with things if it had been a friend or colleague of mine. All I can say is that this line-up of this band deliver an absolute cracker of a show that is worth an hour and a quarter of anyone’s time. Go see ‘em next time they hit the UK.
