BOC - UK Tour Dates Announced!

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Thu, Mar 06, 2008 at 10:36:10PM -0500, Mike Montfort typed out:
> Citizens of the UK!!!
> 8 days of BOC are coming this way in June!
> 
> 8 - Southampton, ENGLAND - The Brook
> 9 - Wolverhampton, ENGLAND - Robin 2
> 10 - Ipswich, ENGLAND - Regent Theatre
> 11 - London, ENGLAND - The Forum
> 12 - Manchester, ENGLAND - Academy
> 13 - Newcastle, ENGLAND - Academy
> 14 - Glasgow, SCOTLAND - The Ferry
> 15 - Holmfirth, ENGLAND - Picturedrome

	Which means that last night was London, and accordingly I was 
there. I hadn't had time to get a ticket, but somehow I suspected they 
wouldn't sell out. As it was, when I turned up at the Forum I found 
Andy, Litmus's ex-keyboardist, outside looking to get rid of a spare 
ticket (apparently his karma is ridiculously good for this), so I also 
avoided booking fee. However, waiting for him, Jim Hawkman and a small 
but motley crew who are apparently doing the whole tour (! I thought 
only HW fans did that :-) ) meant that I also `avoided' the support 
band, who were called I think The Oil Brown Band, and who seemed from 
their goods to be a moody young three-piece; what mood it was, however, 
I couldn't tell you. My mood, it may be worth mentioning, was not so 
great and I was desperately tired, so I was very keen to have BÖC lift 
my spirits but not necessarily equipped with the energy to help them.

	BÖC took their time about coming on, anyway, but did so to the 
banging synth stuff that always seems so out of keeping with what they 
actually sound like, but certainly works as a tension-builder. They got 
someone to do the obligatory OYFoOYK intro--Eric said he was their new 
cowbell player--and got going. I'll give the setlist first and then my 
impressions.

This Ain't the Summer of Love
OD'd on Life Itself
Burnin' For You
ME 262
Joan Crawford
Harvest Moon
Cities on Flame (with Rock'n'Roll)
Perfect Water
Buck's Boogie
Black Blade
Astronomy
Godzilla [incorporating bits of `Another One Bites the Dust', `Bohemian 
	Rhapsody' and the bass and drum solos]
(Don't Fear) The Reaper
*
See You in Black
Dominance & Submission

	It looks like a long set, and Eric had indeed promised to 
stretch things out, but actually a lot of it was kind of perfunctory: 
`ME 262', in particular, I had never thought could be played that 
short, and a lot of breaks were only eight bars, as if they were trying 
to add pace by brevity. At first pace was something of a problem; the 
whole band seemed to take time to warm up except Richie Castellano, 
who was absolutely brilliant from minute one, but couldn't make it 
happen by himself. In particular Buck, from whom I expect more really, 
was not in great voice till `Perfect Water', and his guitar was very 
lazy, wandering around the time rather than playing with it, until 
`Buck's Boogie'.

	It was only with `Buck's Boogie' that the band really seemed to 
gel and get good; my impression of the set, which may be subjective, 
was that the five numbers that song led off took as long to do as the 
eight that had preceded it. But `Black Blade' was awesome, at least 
partly because the effects made Eric's voice much stronger; though 
`Astronomy' was not the best ever, it was very good, and the `Godzilla' 
was excellent, even with the Queen interludes, soloes and general faff. 
`Reaper' could not be argued with, and the encore was *fierce*: whereas 
I didn't know `ME 262' went that short, I had no idea `See You in Black' 
could be done that *fast*, especially by the same band that had done the 
rather lacklustre first few numbers. So by the end it was excellent, but 
it didn't really start out on form.

	Eric's voice is suffering somewhat. He was noticeably avoiding 
high notes till he was well warmed up, and even later on, when he did 
give it some, he cracked a lot on quiet bits that went high. That said, 
he sings with immense style even when he's not really on top, and he was 
talking to the audience and messing with security with good humour: for 
example, he introduced `Godzilla' with "Straight out of Stonehenge! 
Little men descend from the ceiling--oh wait, wrong movie!" and led off 
`Reaper' with mock cowbell; he's not afraid to join in with the jokes, 
it was good to see. Also, he was up on the drum riser during `Cities on 
Flame' banging on a cymbal with a spare pair of sticks, which unlike 
quite a lot of his routine this night, I hadn't seen before. So even if 
he can't sing quite as he used to, I am still very much in favour of 
Eric as a performer; he was a lot of why the audience, and therefore the 
band, were having a good time.

	Buck! Hardly took a lead till the `Boogie' and then was 
brilliant just as we expect. He seemed to be having equipment problems, 
as did Eric indeed; several of their vocals began without live mics as 
if the soundman had forgotten they needed to be on now, which really 
shouldn't happen. The Swiss-cheese Steinberger seemed less afflicted 
than the other headless with which he began the set, but whatever was 
wrong with that one was fixed by `Reaper'. He used to do `Reaper' with a 
capo, but no sign of it last night; is the blue guitar tuned 
differently? Anyway, once he was going he was all you could expect, 
clever, musical and very hard to follow; I just wish he'd started 
sooner.

	Richie Castellano is one bloody excellent musician. Not only did 
the leads that he took, notably in `OD'd' and `Harvest Moon', excel 
pretty much any guitarist not in the upper top leagues (such as for 
example Buck :-) ), his piano parts in `Joan Crawford' added frills to 
Allen's original ones, the honky-tonk line he added to `ME 262' really 
livened it up and generally, I was really quite impressed. Am I right in 
thinking that he joined originally on bass? Bloody polymath :-) Also, 
his singing helped a lot; in particular, given the amount of messing 
round he was doing during `Godzilla' with falsetto descant parts (!), I 
think he has to be blamed that for the first time in years, they were 
doing it with the original `Woo-ooh-ooh' backing in the chorus. I 
enjoyed that :-)

	Danny, I only really started noticing in `Astronomy', but he was 
visible rather than audible beforehand, wandering round the stage and 
playing face-to-face with people a lot (Buck spent a lot of the early 
part of the gig turned away from everyone, and Danny kept hunting him 
out). During the break in `Black Blade' he and Eric were almost dancing 
round each other in what looked for all the world like some mock-
aggressive pastiche of the twist competition in _Pulp Fiction_ with 
guitars. His eventual bass solo was excellent too, he could have carried 
a song by himself at that standard no trouble. All the same, I do worry 
that he doesn't really punch his weight in the energy when the full band 
is playing. It's as if the slightly spongy heaviness he likes his bass 
to have is soaked up by the guitars. Oh well.

	The drummer, Jules Rondino? if I have the name right, is a 
problem. He seems to have a metal background, and is probably fine 
playing speedy but essentially unvarying rhythms; he is also very fond 
of his double kick-pedal. Play musically and subtly, however, he didn't 
really, and his fills were unimaginative and obviously placed. It 
wouldn't shame a pub band, but for a band like BÖC that's had one 
incredible drummer and a range of really good ones, it's not enough; the 
early songs didn't really stand up to a kick-hihat-snare 4:4 bom-bom-tap 
bom-bom-tap bom-bom-tap approach. He also warmed up, and in `Cities on 
Flame' particularly he seemed OK, but really, he's not the standard of 
drummer they need. A proper rock drummer doesn't *speed up by mistake 
during the breaks*, at least not one whose gigs are costing twenty-two 
quid to get into. That was a shame, and didn't help with the 
danceability of the set (though I did go kind of mad during `Buck's 
Boogie', because it does what it claims).

	So yes. A tired-seeming BÖC started a set looking as if they 
needed both rest and practice, and finished it being the fire-spitting 
engine of rock'n'roll destruction we know and love, making the 
transition between the two with some goodwill, a great deal of 
showmanship from Eric and an eventual agreement to play enough in time 
from Buck, which rather helped Jules I suspect. Not the worst set of 
theirs I've seen, I could have used it being better, but by the end I 
was having a lot of fun. Good to have finally seen them again. (All the 
same I do hope Allen gets better or comes back or both soon.)

	Yours all,
		   Jon

ObCD: The Bonzo Dog Band - _Gorilla_
-- 
"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