I bought tickets for the first day of this "two day festival" on Clapham Common just after I broke my shoulder at the start of the year as a thank you to Jo for looking after me when I wasn't capable of looking after myself. I never imagined that it wouldn't have healed in time, however. Oh well, it's close enough that I only needed one extra set of pills to get through without too much pain. So let's ROCK!!
Although it was raining, we arrived early enough to see everyone on the main stage and it was nice to see the normal ticket touts lining the streets of Clapham. We ran into Angry Flier guy while trying to find our way in and it was nice that before the normal rant he asked why he hadn't seen me for the last 6 months!
Just after we made our way in, HEAVEN'S BASEMENT opened the Festival's main stage with a good set of very bass-heavy rock. They were good fun and the singer did his best to get us going. They reminded me a bit of Zico Chain; a good opener but without out any songs that stuck in our heads at all. The highlight was Fire Fire, complete with the angriest vocals they mustered all set. When the singer told us they had been touring their only album for 2 years now I wondered why as in the old days bands would have played just as many shows and recorded another album or two in that time frame.
Second on and in the middle of a downpour were the young Missouri three-piece RADKEY (all brothers) who played a great set of quite spikey soul/punk, roughly equal parts MC5, Social Distortion with a bit of Death and some garage punk for good measure. They had bags of energy and although pretty much no-one including this reviewer knew who they were, they went for it and certainly won me over.
They sound like they'd be perfect in a sweaty rock club and had songs about teachers having sex with the pupils and murder. All the while, the bass player ran around the stage and fell over on the wet surface a few times, bless him. They were very cool and well worth catching live and you can also try to track down the band's latest release on cassette, 9 Lives at the 100 Club.
It was then time for the RICHIE SAMBORA comedy hour. Sorry, but I couldn't take him seriously and neither did anyone else. He rather sensibly opened with Lay Your Hands On Me which had everyone smiling and singing along. He also has a very hot-looking rhythm guitarist in Orianthi Pangaris, who has played with (among others) Santana and Michael Jackson, but it quickly became apparent as he started playing his solo stuff that not only was her guitar higher in the mix but every time she was allowed a solo she blew Richie offa the stage. The first time was on Every Road Leads Home To You when he tried to milk it for everything he could but it pretty much fell flat.
The monumental fauxness of Stranger In this Town (OK on the album) also fell horribly flat. It's the title track of his LP, but suffering it while actully standing in the rain it just sounded absurdly overblown and in need of a quick death. Instead it went on and on. Richie then made a classic mistake, playing one of his new solo songs and asking the crowd to sing along on the chorus. After two rounds of silence, Richie's next comment was "Guess not!" Just about everyone I could see at this point was pissing themselves laughing.
His set was heading downhill fast and the only thing that could save him much more humiliation other than his own acknowledging of the fact we didn't look like we were having fun was closing his set with another Bon Jovi song. In this case, it was Wanted Dead Or Alive but it also highlighted why he was only ever the backing vocalist. Still, finally he had everyone singing along without being asked and he did make us smile even if he should have been on first as the worst act of the day.
Next up were THUNDER who are for me are a perfect festival band. Every time I catch them in such circumstances, they always put in one of the performances of the day and this was no exception. They played a tight as all hell greatest hits set that most of the crowd sang along with whether they were asked to or not!!
From the opening Dirty Love they had the crowd with them. Danny Bowes knows how to work a festival crowd and Luke Morley's guitar slinging was tight and economical. River Of Pain had just enough angst in it as they tried to not fall over using the runway. Higher Ground sounded just perfect while the sun tried to put in a rare appearance.
While Danny rabble-roused us, they went into Low Life In High Places. They were the first band to get everyone's attention and damn that Flying V sounded good and meaty. Backstreet Symphony just ramped things up a little bit more and they were revelling in it. The Devil Made Me Do It was as sleazy as they got but it packed a punch and got a great reaction.
Love Walked In was a sentimental as they got and also had the biggest amount of sing-along bits where everyone sang along before saying "adios." They said they were off to watch the footie in a pub and I'm quite sure it was more than likely as they left us with a storming version of I Love You More Than Rock & Roll: as perfect a closing song for a festival set as any with some great soloing and plenty of singing along. They left to the first huge applause of the day and rightly so.
Next on in what was basically the dinner slot was JOE BONAMASSA who came on as we were finishing eating and I have to say we stayed further back for his set than anyone else's as there was nothing to entice us. He was a real downer after Thunder with his overlong blues rock workouts. The opening Oh Beautiful worked fine as background music like a cross between Chris Rea and Gary Moore.
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No matter how top-line the session men he has in the band, Story Of A Quarryman was still bland and pedestrian beyond belief. It almost sounded like they wanted to be playing something off Stray's Mudanzas Extravaganza. Yes Joe, you are extravagantly talented but this was torpid and overblown. Song Of Yesterday saw them sounding more like Snowy White's Blues Agency on valium with hints of JJ Cale. Yeah, that bad.
Slow Train was about as boring a version of that old classic as I can remember hearing with a couple of far longer than they needed to be solos and no matter how hard Carmen Rojas' bass playing underpinned it all, it never really got going. Love Ain't A Love Song didn't lift the pace much and sounded like it was pitched like much of this set at a solid Top Gear dad rock audience.
Things then took a turn for the monumentally worse with Joe's signature cover of Tim Curry's execrable Sloe Gin. In this bands less than dependable hands, it is a 9 or 10 minute slab of histrionic over-indulgence of the sort that Mark Knopfler would be proud of. It was extremely uninspiring and never even threatened to set the place alight. They closed with a long tedious version of The Ballad Of John Henry that was Gary Moore to the max and totally devoid of any subtlety. It was a blessed relief when it ended.
Finally after a bit of a wait it was time for AEROSMITH to show why they are still around after 40 odd years by playing a full on Greatest Hits set with big light show and full use of the runway as Messrs Tyler and Perry where opened the show singing Mama Kin with the entire place accordingly going nuts. They had huge screens onstage to make sure everyone could see too. Yes all the signature moves were intact for Eat The Rich: a song that has an element of parody about it considering how rich they are but damn it sounded great if a little quieter than you might want them to.
Love In An Elevator went down a storm and no matter how tacky the pin-up on Joe Perry's Guitar looked, this song played to everyone's expectations of them. Oh Yeah was blasted through with more energy than you might expect and I think it featured the first Tyler Crotch shot on the big screens which got a cheer every time it, er, showed up.
Living On the Edge had a slow opening and then the full on ballad treatment. The only mis-step of the set came when Steve Tyler ran to the side of the stage to let Richie Sambora join him on backing vocals and it just showed again how bad Richie's singing voice is. Last Child went by with a whirl or three before Rag Doll sounded every bit as good as it ever has. A great version.
It was then time for Joe Perry's solo spot as he sang Freedom Fighter: a song whose lyrics were put up on the screens so we knew he meant them. For someone as right wing as he is known for being it was pretty left wing peacenik stuff and all the better for it. Steven Tyler came running back on for Same Old Song And Dance that - like most of the set - had everyone singing along unprompted.
Rats in The Cellar was introduced as being Aerosmith blues but wasn't as bluesy as anything on Honking On Bobo. It was still mighty fine, however, and they pulled out another huge ballad in I Don't Want To Miss A Thing. I don't think any of us wanted to miss a note of this set. They managed to make a huge field seem intimate.
No More No More was as far from the truth as we could get as everyone wanted loads more from them and then they went into a perfectly good version of The Beatles' Come together that also had a huge singalong. Then, to get things building to a climax, we got a rousing version of Dude Looks Like A Lady that had a couple of great crotch shots on the big screens as they twirled and danced all over the place, before closing the set with Walk This Way sans the rap elements but played with loads of brio and a great song to close a show.
Before the encore started the roadies carried a grand piano to the end of the runway and then Steven Tyler came out and played the intro to Dream On by himself before the rest of the band slowly joined in and by the end of the song he was standing on top of the piano singing and dancing.
Then, while they thanked us, the roadies carried the piano back off before they closed the show with Sweet Emotion: a nice soft landing and as we all cheered at the end they closed the show with some bows and band introductions at the end of the runway. A cool conclusion to a great set and a very good enjoyable day's music.
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