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

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

I'm still bummed I missed this gig -- called away to S.American 
unexpectedly on family business.  Such, alas, is life!  In compensation, 
I did make it to the record launch party of an unknown Latin pop-rock 
dude I very vaguely know only via the internet (well, previously only 
via the internet) and an outdoor Shakira mega-concert (who I'll maintain 
is a better musician than most people probably give her credit for, and 
is considerably easier on the eyes than Lemmy, but still ain't Motorhead! ;)

Anyway ...

On 01/12/2006 11:49, Jonathan Jarrett wrote:
> 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.)

Gods only know to what use he'd eventually put that eclair ....

> Clutch [...] 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 [...]
 > 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_.

I think I would have liked it -- and I think I'm more bummed to have 
missed Clutch (only seen 'em once) than Motorhead (seen 'em a bunch of 
time, though "too much is never enough", natch!).

> 	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.

Should I feel obliged to note that the latest album is _Kiss of Death_? 
  Inferno is _so_ 2004, man! ;)

> 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

I suppose it would churlish of me to think they ought to have played 
"Beer Drinkers and Hell-raisers" at this point :)

> 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

Probably over the effigy on his grave! (I imagine a graven Lemmy-image, 
bearing the Motorhead coat-of-arms, with a beatific if warty expression, 
and its feet resting on one of those little snaggletooth "war boar" 
critters :)

Cheers,
Carl

-- 
Carl Edlund Anderson
mailto:cea at carlaz.com
http://www.carlaz.com/