Normally by this time in August I've seen at least 50 bands live, this year as we get back to normal, this show features live bands no 37 to 40 so far this August. This is often time for me to give someone a hard time, but this was such a top-notch night out there is no chance of that happening. The Dublin Castle was busy with a good mix of about 60% gigaholics and 40% tourists and wanna be gigaholics most of whom were far younger than the length of time The Dirty Strangers have been around for.
First on were Electrics thankfully as a five piece as they really need Natalie's (I think Alan introduced her as Natalie) sax playing as Nightfall Down opened thing with screaming guitars and a good snarl as that Broken Hearted Lover gets short shrift as the Sax bends the heart strings and the bass was super controlled as the two guitarists flew around her. Alan Blizzard introduced a new Love Song that seemed nice and blurred around the edges as some of the audience were already dancing and fooling around we got to Remember what happened as Alan sang about a Victim one was almost created with some pant pulling shenanigans in the audience.
Dead Boy is a good dark tale set against razor sharp guitars and the sax hinting at the darkness within the tale. They also sung of anonymous streets and someone they knew as they left us in no doubt that London was My City this was the tightest I've heard Electrics play and this was a great taut set.
After the break it was time for Juvenile Wrecks who we missed seeing playing one of the after show gigs at Rebellion this year, as they had come all the way from Los Angeles I'm glad we caught them at this stormer, right from the start bass maestro Nigel Mogg pulled every pose he could out of the Jim Lea school of bass playing from the opening One Shot they never stood still once. They Glammed it up and told us all about the Ballad Junky as they claimed they could Change Your Mind once you've already walked out the door they are hopeless romantics it seems.
I think How Far will you Go was the first song where the vocalists' switched places and I preferred the other vocalist as lead, Still You'd Better Think Twice had loads of bonhomie and super sharp guitar parts. The new song that was introduced as being about Alice Cooper was pretty cool, while they told us what happens to them Late At Night it sounded like a riot, they then gave us a raw and raucous take on the Rebellion classic Staring At The Rude Boys this was far punkier than the Ruts DC played it last Sunday night and they then glammed up Oh You Silly Thing while playing it quicker than The Professionals did at Rebellion.
After a short break it was time for a packed Dublin Castle to welcome the stripped back four-piece line up of The Dirty Strangers featuring Lol Fox on drums, John Rollason on Guitar, Cliff Wright on Bass and of course the one and only Dirty Al on vocals and guitar.
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Seeing as we had sauna conditions in the middle of summer they opened with Bathing Belles and right from the start a small mosh pit began as Here She Comes worked it's frantic magic with John Rollason doing his best to play a couple of guitar parts at once.
Liberty Smile was played at an almost reckless pace that got the mosh pit going further as ? Blew the Whistle On Me left us in no doubt that grasses weren't welcome, but just about everyone could agree to answer yes when Alan asked R U Satisfied, of course we were, the band sounded so tight and spot on as Lol's drums led us into Talk To Me they were rarely pausing for breath.
Al made us scratch our heads at the cheek of playing Cold Night on one of the hottest nights of the year, still as soon as they played Baby everyone was smiling and dancing along before Al confessed that he now lived South Of The River the heathen, although he did point out to the non-regulars in the house how this was not a cool thing in London terms.
I wish I could read my notes for Diamonds as I'm sure they say something pertinent either way this slowed things down as we all wiped a tear away. The first of the new songs Pirates was up next and it sounds like a classic Dirty Strangers song with John and Cliff helping out on the backing vocals. I think about half the audience did the movements for Hands Up that went down very well indeed.
The second new song Hunters Moon was next and this sounded tighter than when they played it at The Troubadour last month, Al had is cheekiest grin on show for She's A Real Botticelli that he introduced as being written with Keith Richards, I'm not sure all the tourists believed him, but of course they should have, Al then foxed half the band by playing Bad Girls that wasn't on the setlist before they revved up the old Gold Cortina for a good run along the west way.
They were already saying they were just going to keep on playing rather than go off for an encore before they did what the setlist has as House Farty and this was a good and smelly version as that party got out of hand and they closed the night with some Good Good Lovin’ that was a perfect closer to leave everyone smiling and happy at the end of a great night's music.
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