OFF: Motorhead & Clutch @ Cambridge Corn Exchange, 16 November 2006

[Jonathan Jarrett]

	I've been meaning to get round to writing this, well, since the 
gig in fact, and this has both advantages and disadvantages for you the 
readers, the former being that it will be shorter and the latter being 
that this is because I can't remember the details. In summary, though, 
one of the best Motorhead gigs I've seen after a slightly ropey start.

	First support were a band called Crucified Barbara, but I had to 
Google just now to find out their name, because they never mentioned it, 
they were all but three songs done when I got in only a few minutes 
after doors time, and they hadn't been named on any of the posters. They 
were fairly nondescript chugga-whee style metal, without much by way of 
impact or song value to mark them out, but they were all female and had 
hair that blew in the stage breeze and so on, so they made a perfectly 
good support band for Motorhead, or at least, some noise and spectacle 
while we tried to get beer through the one-person-at-a-time passage 
between bar and auditorium. (Aside: the Corn Exchange is the only 
concert venue I go to which has a patisserie counter. It's probably for 
the best that Lemmy didn't see this.)

	Main support were however Clutch, and here opinions varied. I 
thought they made the best use of a set where they had a blues-friendly 
audience to stretch out a bit and not be quite so frantic and hardcore 
as I've seen them be in the past. Sherman on the other hand thought they 
were playing as if they were getting old, and Rich Lockwood (who, like 
Andy Gilham, was there to represent the BOC-L diaspora) thought they 
were completely unlistenable. This last seemed to be because they didn't 
stick to 4:4, which they never do, and I found it all highly danceable 
even though I was really tired, so I would call this a good gig, and 
Jean-Paul Gaster is still one of the few drummers whom I'd be happy to 
see play a song by himself, as he can actually hold a tune with a (tiny)
drumkit, he's that good. So yeah: I'd say you had to be there but it 
seems that even if you were it didn't help much to decide you on their 
quality. Setlist included `Burning Beard', `The Incomparable Mr 
Flannery', a pair of new songs separated by `Mice and Gods', `The Mob 
Goes Wild' (with an extra guitarist who couldn't really be heard and 
whom I couldn't identify, but who contributed to a long jam with drum 
solo), and ended with what may have been another new song or else a 
blues cover which at the last minute mutated unexpectedly into `One Eye 
Dollar' from _Jam Room_. Almost nothing from more than an album ago, 
therefore, but the new stuff sounded pretty promising.

	Motorhead weren't too long in coming on, and Lemmy as ever 
appeared to start in a foul mood. The first third of the set just didn't 
gel for me, it was careless. I wouldn't say they were making mistakes 
but they just weren't all with it in the same way. I thought this of 
them at the Wembley gig with HW too, so people who were there may know 
what I mean. First part of the setlist was:

Dr Rock
Stay Clean
Killers
Metropolis
Smiling Like a Killer

	I confess I've had to Google for the new ones' titles, not yet 
having _Inferno_. This, it has to be said, seems to be something that I 
should change as they completely stood up against the old numbers. All 
the same, it was only OK for this patch of show. Things changed with:

Sacrifice
	
	They mainly changed during the drum solo, because firstly Mikkey 
Dee may not actually be the best drummer in the world as Lemmy claims, 
but I've only seen one who could beat him in a showing-off contest, and 
that was Carl Palmer and that contains the danger that the showing-off 
might be during `Karn Evil 9', which strikes me as a price not worth 
paying... But anyway. Mikkey was fabulous, and went on for ages, and 
this gave Lemmy and Phil enough time to wander off and get most of the 
way through a cigarette each and when they came on they just seemed far 
happier with things and it made all the difference. You can tell things 
moved up a gear with how the setlist went after that:

Going to Brazil

	I may not have the order right here, but either way, before the 
next number Lemmy changed his bass for a thing I'd never seen before, 
big red beast with kind of dragon's-tails styling at the end of the 
body, ridiculous instrument. "This is ZZ-head", Lemmy announced, and it 
looked like it belonged there, but what they actually did was something 
I entirely didn't expect, a Thin Lizzy cover:

Rosalie

	I have to say, the musicality of this number stuck out like a 
thumb, not a sore one but still obvious, from the rest of the set, but 
it was still pretty good. Lemmy can't sing as well as Phil Lynott 
though. What can you do? I bet he played it better than any recent Thin 
Lizzy line-up do.

Over the Top
Just 'Cause You Got The Power

	This made my night, in so far as it hadn't already been made by 
`Going to Brazil'. It's pompous, overblown and dull, and Sherman took a 
bathroom break within seconds of it starting, but I love it, and it was 
also the first time I've ever heard Phil Campbell do something with a 
guitar live that was interesting rather than just appropriate. He was 
quite good for a while.

I Got Mine

	Entertaining that they do a Thin Lizzy cover but don't mention 
the Thin Lizzy guitarist who helped them write this one. Instead, Lemmy 
gave us a short earful for hating the album when it came out--he can 
keep grudges longer than anyone else in music can't he?--and then 
equally grudgingly accepted that most of the people in the audience 
hadn't been born at that point so it wasn't really their fault. It was a 
young audience, and it was noticeable how many of them appeared to know 
the new stuff, which makes them better fans than I in some sense. 
Anyway...

Killed by Death
In the Name of Tragedy

	Introduced by Lemmy with mock sorrow in voice and a hand pressed 
dramatically to his forehead. He was having fun by now it seemed.

Iron Fist

	Excellent.

*
	When they eventually came back on for the encore, we were in for 
a shock, because Phil and Mikkey both took the stage with acoustic 
guitars, and Lemmy sans bass stepped up to the mic and said, "This is 
Motorhead Unhinged!" And then he proceeded to sing the blues, and it was 
really surprisingly good. I probably shouldn't be surprised that Mikkey 
can keep time on a guitar, or that Phil can play quite good 
Spanish-style soloes, but all the same, let it be noted.

Whorehouse Blues

	All the same, as Arthur Brown has often observed, "there comes a 
time in life, when you have to play your hit". So a rapid reversion to 
their nineties instrumentation :-) and, finally and predictably:

Ace of Spades
Overkill

	Lemmy thanked everyone for being a great audience, which is 
quite a plaudit for Cambridge, but it had been a good experience, once 
the band cheered up so did everyone else and there was a lot of 
dancing,. Mixed-up setlist like I've never seen: I can't remember when I 
saw a band successfully haul out so many unexpected skeletons from 
closets and make them dance so well, with the possible exception I 
suppose of Hawkwind :-) So good in fact as *nearly* to be worth the 
swingeing ticket price... But Lemmy is unmistakably beginning to age at 
last, and though he's fighting it as hard as ever I suppose there will 
come a point when they finally hang up the instruments, and then I'll be 
glad I paid that money because this was one to remember. Yours,
								Jon

-- 
"When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
	    (Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
 Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk