They should have filmed it. But who could have known? No-one, that’s who.
So it’s another Saturday night at Esquires. If you’ve got the money, you can go upstairs and watch 3 bands on a proper stage playing through a decent PA at close to deafening volumes. But maybe you’re not in the mood for that. Maybe you’d prefer a more intimate, in your face, down and dirty bar room band experience. Or maybe you don’t have the money, but you fancy catching some live music. Or maybe you’re just warming up for the club night that starts at 11. So you end up in Danny’s Bar, watching a band set up in the corner, under the wallscreen showing Kerrang! TV. This is Saturday night at Esquires. Same as it ever was, and same as it is in small venues in small towns all over the country.
Tonight though, what you see is Capo Jr.
They’re a 5 piece, in the classic rock Drum/Bass/guitar/guitar/vox formation, and straight away you notice that at least two band members didn’t get the memo about long hair no longer being cool. Even more worrying, you quickly realise that the two time warpers are the lead guitarist and singer. And there’s what looks a lot like a real Les Paul guitar on stage too. And a laser pointing at the amp. Oh dear. And just as you start sharpening your poisoned pen and anticipating with more glee than is really warranted writing a nice juicy demolition on the subject of ‘delusions of rock grandeur and musical adequacy’, they actually start playing. Within 20 seconds, you realise they’re very tight. Within 30 seconds you realise you had them pegged all wrong. By the end of the first song, you’re actually buzzing, because you’re getting what you always hope for but so rarely find in these circumstances: a show.
Their first number is punky, upbeat, with a driving rhythm and lively chorus. If I tell you the ingredients, it might sound naff or cheesy; the lead singer leaps around like a muppet on speed (and with the flying far-too-long hair looks like cousin IT from the Addams family for most of the show), the two six stringers trade cheeky, classic licks during the chorus with such ease and confidence you realise there’s actually TWO lead guitarists here, and the rhythm section just pounds along like a runaway train; so far, so horribly hack; but the whole is quite glorious, and when the song ends, the applause is both sustained and surprised. The singer smiles, mumbles something and they’re off again,. This time a bouncy, sub-Hendrix riff that appears to be, perhaps unsurprisingly, on the subject of getting laid. Sure, it’s been done, but seeing and hearing these guys reminds you WHY it’s been done; because, done right, it’s simply a joy to behold.
5 songs in they pull out a semi acoustic number for a change of pace – it’s not my cup of tea, personally, and the lyrics I can make out (most of ‘em actually, the balance being uncommonly good for Dannys) I either didn’t understand or don’t want to, but the riff is pure gold, and they’re confident enough just to play the damn thing and let it breathe. They follow it with a blues number that was magnificent and which they claim to have written themselves (and I don’t believe ‘em) before kicking off a cover that I know they’ll never pull off. You don’t cover Led Zeppelin, and you definitely don’t do it when your lead singer has a low tenor voice. YOU DO NOT DO IT. Except of course, they do. Brilliantly, spectacularly. Then, after the guitar solo, just to prove how much they can do it, they drop straight – dead straight – into a superb funk jam, before closing out with a chorus flourish. When they’re done with that one, everyone is making some noise.
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Things slow down for a little while after that. There’s some By-The-Way-era Chillis-esque number called Be Lucky that has way too many words and a chorus that takes your head clean off, some progged out thing about heartbreak with an unexpected killer build section that lifts it waaaaay over average and into special-in-a-good-way, and another blues number that I bet they nicked from Tom Waits somewhere but sounds great anyway. Oh, then they take the piss out of stadium rock with a stadium rock song, which sounds like the Darkness laughing at themselves (and don’t you wish they would?).
After a raucous, so-much-too-fast-it’s-actually-really-great punked up rendition of The Kinks All Day And All Of The Night they close out with 3 fast numbers, For Your Own Good, something else I didn’t catch the name of and Greenham (which, like the acoustic number has some seriously eccentric lyrics, but grooves like The Black Crows on single malt – yeah, THAT good). And they even beg an encore from Danny, who by the look of things would have been happy to let them play all night, and play something that sounds like a song that Guns N Roses should have put on ‘Appetite…’ but didn’t.
And that’s it. 1 hour and 10 minutes later, they’re packing up, laughing amongst themselves, chatting to the small group of people they brought with them, looking like they’ve just run 10 miles each and loved every minute. Which I imagine is pretty much how they felt.
Look, it’s Saturday night at Dannys. Nothing to get excited about. Long way to go, unpredictable business, blah blah blah. But these guys are good. They’ve got that thing, that edge that you want a rock band to have. They ain’t world beaters. Yet. But the potential is definitely there, and I know they’re gonna keep pushing for it.
I also know they’ll be back.
I can’t wait.
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