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First Gig of the Year for us was Gentlemens Dub Club, one of the bands we have been waiting to see since before ‘the world stopped’ in 2020. We were finally able to make the short trip to the Marble Factory in Bristol to catch them.
The gig was part of a double-header tour with The Skints, in which they took it in turns to headline. On the night they had support from Cardiff singer Aleighcia Scott, who also shares an evening slot on BBC Radio Wales with DJ Huw Stevens. Her set was very tight, and I look forward to hearing her debut album due out later this year..
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We all have albums in our collection that are ages-old, but we still play regularly. Sometimes we may wonder whatever happened to that artist from all those years back; we may even regret never getting to see them live when they were ‘in their pomp’. One such artist, for me, was Toyah.
She appeared towards the end of the short 1970s punk revolution when, ironically, it was her live album Toyah! Toyah! Toyah! that forced its way onto my record deck during 1980. Regular readers will know that I specifically exclude live albums from my annual selection process, so it never featured in my roundup. But when she released her next studio album, Anthem, six months later it was an instant purchase. It made my top three in 1981, and has been a regular play over the intervening forty years. But I never got to a gig – until this weekend.
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I love small venues, and one of my favourites locally is the Old Theatre Royal in Bath – very atmospheric with wonderful acoustics. I always try to get along to a couple of gigs during their annual fringe@theOTR fortnight during the City’s Fringe Festival, because they often unearth bands you don’t normally see. This year they managed to get Curtis Eller’s American Circus all the way from North Carolina as part of their European Tour promoting the new album A Poison Melody
My selection for Album of the Year 2018 was not, perhaps, chosen from the greatest year for new music in recent times. In fact I seemed to spend the first half of the year catching-up on some 2017 albums that, somehow, passed me by. Maybe this was due to our trip to the other side of the world to see our Grandkids in Australia, and their Mum & Dad of course, which spanned November last year into February this year, meaning that I missed my usual year-end trawl of the CD racks here.
Never mind, I thought, I’ll be in Australia’s largest City, so I can do it there – somehow forgetting previous experiences. Sydney is an anachronism. It is really modern and vibrant on the surface, and very easy to get around either by Ferry or Bus. The bus drivers often have their own beatbox playing as they travel along, the only problem being their selections seem to be totally stuck in the ‘seventies and ‘eighties. The record shops are similar – rack after rack stuffed with multiple copies of classic albums, but far less that’s current. Not that it’s a bad era to hear, you just yearn for an up to date surprise from time to time. Continue Reading