Ian McCulloch Sessions

Recently I’ve been listening to a lot of music by Liverpudlian singer-songwriter Ian McCulloch. For those of you unfamiliar with Ian, you might recognise him as the singer of Echo & The Bunnymen. He sports a big barnet, enjoys a drink or two, smokes 500 a day and is somewhat notorious for being a bit of a gobshite (a trait that earned him the appellation ‘Mac the Mouth’). Nonetheless, the man’s quite good at what he does.

I’ve been on my Ian McCulloch kick because I rediscovered some old session recordings in my vault – ‘Peel Session ’89’ and ‘Black Session ’92’. The ‘Peel Session‘ was recorded in 1989 and contains renditions of songs from Ian’s debut studio LP, 1989’s ‘Candleland’. The ‘Black Session‘ was recorded in – you guessed it – 1992 and features songs from Ian’s sophomoric effort ‘Mysterio’ (or “My Stereo”[sic]). As well as waffling on about them, I’ll be including download links to the aforementioned recordings at the bottom of my post! These two sessions showcase the best material across Ian’s first two solo ventures – as well as some obscurities and a reworking of the Bunnymen classic ‘The Killing Moon’. You’ll also be subjected to 15 minutes of possibly the oddest interview you’ll likely hear (I really hope your le français c’est bien).

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 Ian McCulloch – Peel Session ’89

1.	Faith & Healing
2.	The Flickering Wall
3.	Damnation
4.	Candleland

In late 1989, legendary radio broadcaster John Peel invited Ian down to the studio for his inaugural session as a solo artist to perform material from his debut LP, ‘Candleland’. This performance resulted in one of my favourite ‘Peel Session’ recordings ever (PiL‘s 1979 ‘Metal Box’ era appearance is quite good too if you fancy checking that out afterwards).

I initially encountered ‘Candleland’ on an old WEA cassette and after being rather impressed with its content, I went out and purchased an original German-pressed UK edition on vinyl – and more recently an American pressing on the SIRE label – both sealed. I thoroughly enjoyed the album, and although I haven’t yet, I’ll definitely get around to posting a review at some point. I particularly enjoyed ‘Horses Head’, the eponymously titled ‘Candleland’ (which featured Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins) and ‘The Flickering Wall’ – the latter being my personal favourite . It’s a fervent, raw, introspective first effort from McCulloch, rich with emotion and shrouded in darkness, covering topics such as unrequited love and mortality –themes reflected in the record’s aptly achromatic cover sleeve (although when asked why it was colourless compared to the vibrant colours featured on ‘Mysterio’ Ian simply replied “because they didn’t put the colour film in the camera”. In the linear notes , we discover the album is dedicated to the memory of McCulloch’s father, who had passed away the previous year (on the same day Echo & The Bunnymen disbanded – a day Ian refers to as one of the worst of his life). It quickly becomes apparent you’re listening to a man bereaving, introspecting and reminiscing upon his most precious memories. It’s a great example of the lyrical capabilities of the guy. The only blemish on this Cure-esque record is that it was considerably behind the times – with the experimentation of the 90s auspiciously looming just around the corner, the direction of the record was a little regressive – and its dubious production choices haven’t aged well – especially when considering it was already somewhat dated at the time of release. A few years earlier and it would have slotted into the zeitgeist without question. That’s where this session comes in handy, stripping the songs of the 80s overproduction and bringing in some fresh precursory 90s vibes. The biggest offender on the album is ‘Faith & Healing’, a catchy Pop song with a simple yet effective guitar riff, questionably ruined by use of drum emulator and polysynths. That’s were this session kicks off, and right off the bat – you’ll notice there’s non of the drum machine fills or synth-bass  – just raw percussion and jangle guitar, courtesy of The Prodigal Sons – a 90s guitar outfit that served as McCulloch’s house band during the late 80s and early 90s.

The next track is my personal favourite ‘The Flickering Wall’, and just as on the LP, it’s my stand-out song of the 4 session tunes. During the intro, we hear the warm cathedral-esque tones of a church organ – pushed high into the mix – a feature not present on the studio version. It probably doesn’t sound like it will – but it does work really well. The choral vocal take on a different melody to that of the double-layered harmonic vocals on the studio LP, and I’m actually more acclimated to this Peel version – but both are pretty stellar. The track is elongated slightly compared to the album version due to Ian’s vocals not overlapping at the end of the chorus/ start of second verse – a feature that could have been used if they’d wanted, since the ‘Peel Sessions’ aren’t usually recorded in one take and overdubbing/post-production were available. These recordings seem to be completely live.

Following ‘The Flickering Wall‘, we’re treated to the inexplicable debut of the obscure ‘Damnation’ – a song that would eventually surface 3 years later on 1992’s ‘Mysterio’. The track is a much rockier affair and hints at the direction Ian’s follow-up LP would take. It’s plausible that the song was already on Ian’s concert setlists around that time, otherwise it does seem an unusual place to take it out for a test drive. There’s some really great lines in this song – “Snowflakes on the oven top – Drumbeats in the wild blue yonder – Didn’t hear the penny drop – Shenendoah I’m doomed to wonder” is a personal favourite.

“It’s the burial ground of the 80s” 
Ian McCulloch on ‘Candleland’

Finally, the eponymous ‘Candleland’ gets its run out. This version features a more defined bassline, and it works really well as the lone instrument at the song’s intro before the lead guitar comes in. Although it doesn’t feature Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser on this version, it does allow you to focus solely on Ian’s impassioned delivery of his emotional ode to his late father. During the bridge, the song breaks into an extended guitar-based refrain cut from the studio version (but regularly used during live performances of the song). It’s a real treat! Although I really like this extended version of ‘Candleland’, my favourite is the version recorded for the official video – which actually featured Liz Fraser (although she’s inexplicably inaudible for the most of it). I feel it’s a more emotionally evocative recording, and with its key being shifted up from C to D, Ian’s higher vocal becomes a better vehicle for delivering it. I’m not sure if this version is available on a physical format – which is a shame since the audio is quite poor – visibly converted from an old VHS tape.

The copy of the session that I’ve uploaded was converted from a cassette tape of the original radio broadcast and isn’t as pristine as other versions available. However, I find this version to have a certain charm, but perhaps that’s just me – I do like old scratchy records and warped cassette tapes.,
Regardless, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!

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Ian McCulloch – Black Session ’92

1.	Honeydrip
2.	Vibor Blue
3.	Lover Lover Lover
4.	Interview #1
5.	Goldmine
6.	Heaven’s Gate
7.	The Killing Moon
8.	Candleland
9.	Do It Clean
10.	Interview #2

The second of these sessions was recorded in 1992 and broadcast on French radio station France Inter as part of Bernard Lenoir‘s ‘Black Sessions’. The session is considerably longer than the ‘Peel Session’ – a renowned feature of the French show – often giving artists generous time-slots (The Jesus and Mary Chain performed an entire 15 song concert on the show in 1994). Most of the material recorded was from Ian’s 1992 studio LP ‘Mysterio’, but he also treats us to renditions of ‘Candleland’ and Echo & The Bunnymen  tracks ‘The Killing Moon ’ and ‘Do It Clean‘ – the latter being an extremely rare treat.. ‘Mysterio’, unlike ‘Candleland’, is a little harder to love. I have a few reservations, and remain mixed towards the LP – although I do appreciate Ian’s experimental approach. The high point of the record and most commercially viable song has to be ‘Lover Lover Lover’, a cover of a Leonard Cohen classic. Another song I quite like (albeit arguably a bit throw-away with its unimaginative petulant lyrics) is the song ‘Honeydrip’ – with it’s augmented country-esque verse chords juxtaposed against the rockier 3 chord progression of the chorus.  Coincidentally, the outro sounds similar to JAMC’s ‘Just Like Honey‘. I woke up this morning with the song in my head – which is usually a good sign. I really like the song ‘Dug For Love’ too. However, after initially hearing ‘Damnation’ when debuted on the ‘Peel Session’, I find the ‘Mysterio’ version of the song to be a little lacklustre – although is does feature an interesting guitar coda during its bridge.

The album dates rather well in comparison to ‘Candleland’, I mean, Kasabian basically released ‘Dug For Love’ as recently as 2014 in the form of ‘Clouds’ on their LP ‘48:13’.

I really like the ‘Black Sessions’ and I admire what host Bernard Lenoir was doing -providing a platform for alternative British music in France. They’re basically extended ‘Peel Sessions‘, often including interviews – albeit quite poor ones due to the language barrier. As I previously mentioned, I seem to recall The Jesus & Mary Chain performing an entire concert’s worth of material when they appeared on the show in 1994. I believe Ian’s appearance on the show was actually one of the (if not the) first ‘Black Sessions’ recorded – which probably excuses the unprofessional nature in which the session is conducted (Bernard Lenoir can barely speak English and his translator sounds completely incompetent). Thankfully, they learnt to handle English talent better as they gained more experience (I believe Bernard Hosted the show until as recently as 2011).

“It’s not ‘Mysterio’ it was meant to be ‘My Stereo’
but they put an I in there”
Ian McCulloch on Mysterio’s title

The session sees the debut performance of ‘Lover Lover Lover’, a song coincidentally originally recorded in Paris for ‘Mysterio’ and possibly the greatest cover of a Leonard Cohen song you’ll likely hear. I’m not an Ian superfan or anything but I honestly thought it was brilliant, and it was nice to learn that Ian was a fan way back in the 90s before Cohen was picked up by hipsters. Check out Cohen’s original here  – you’ll notice the instrumentation on the ‘Black Session’ performance is actually a cover of Leonard’s version, and not Ian’s version! Around this time, Ian performed a cover of another Leonard Cohen track – ‘Hey, that’s no way to say goodbye‘ which was included on the Cohen tribute album ‘I’m Your Fan’.

Following ‘Lover Lover Lover’ we’re treated to one of the poorest conducted interviews I’ve ever heard, and that’s the last thing you need when you have the notoriously unintelligible speaking voice of Ian McCulloch to work with. I’m a native Briton, and I can just about understand him – if anything it’s more the monosyllabic mumbling that gets you than the Scouse accent. My Canadian girlfriend can barely understand him – so I can’t begin to fathom how non-English speaking interviewers grasp what he’s saying. As you will quickly discover, everybody just talks over each other in conflicting languages during this chaotic interview, with Ian often deciding to simply talk over the hosts.

“I think Grace Jones is lovely – no seriously, I love her!”

During the interview, Ian inexplicably sings an ‘acapella‘ rendition of Molly Malone – the unofficial anthem of Dublin. He asks if anybody knows the song, and the audience affirm. The crowd are either lying or possibly mute as nobody sings along despite Ian’s best efforts. He then trolls the crowd, asking what their favourite version of ‘Molly Malone’ is, before proclaiming the non-existent Grace Jones version to be his favourite.

Ian asks what the local football team is. When he questions why Paris St Germain never win anything, an audience member replies “they’re a bunch of jerks”. “Oh, they’re a bunch of jerks are they?” Ian replies. I don’t know why, but I laughed maniacally at Ian McCulloch enunciating the word “jerk” in his thick Liverpudlian accent.

“Are they called ‘James’ because the lead singer in Simple Minds is called Jim?”

Bernard then mentions that Manchester guitar band James were playing a few days later in the local area. Going by his response, Ian doesn’t seem particularly fond of James -however, back when I was a student at the Leeds Arts University in 2013, the Bunnymen were performing across the street at the o2 Academy (previously the Town & Country Club) and James was billed as their support act!

Bizarrely, Ian arbitrarily mentions Judy Garland, and his uncanny resemblance to the ‘Wizard of Oz’ actress (who enjoyed a successful singing career herself). On a whim I Googled ‘Ian McCulloch Judy Garland’ and found an incredible image by legendary music photographer Kevin Cummins. It’s truly one for the ages – Ian McCulloch – dressed, complete with full make-up – as Dorothy. I’ll leave you to enjoy this treasure for a moment.

“Judy Garland – What a gal! Apparently I look like Judy Garland – dya think?”
Ian McCulloch on his likeness to Dorothy

A question is eventually passed to Ian – “why didn’t you include Goldmine on the album?” to which  Ian replies – “you can only fit 11 classics on an album” and “ [goldmine is] a bit too reflective, I wanted it to be a rocking album“. I do like the song though, and we’re treated to a performance of it during the session. Ultimately, it was never released, even as a B-side.

There’s a lot to cover regarding the ‘Black Session’ – due to its length – so I’ll just leave it at this and allow you to discover it for yourself by clicking the download link below. Ultimately, the session showcases a generous set of songs – and it’s great hearing Ian troll an audience of Parisians – however, the quality of the performances isn’t as good as the ‘Peel Session’.

Thanks for reading!

Download the Peel Session HERE

Download the Black Session HERE

 

Public Image Ltd. @ Lee’s Palace, Toronto, Canada 🍁 [₁₉.₁₀.₂₀₁₈] ᶠʳᵉᵉ ᴰᵒʷⁿˡᵒᵃᵈ

Who? – Public Image Ltd.
Where? – Lee’s Palace, Toronto, Canada
When? – 19^th October 2018
Why? – The Public Image Is Rotten Tour Celebrating 40 Years of PiL

Musicians:

John Lydon ~ Vocals
Lu Edmonds ~ Guitar, Saz
Bruce Smith ~ Drums
Scott Firth ~ Bass, Synth

PublicImageLive.wordpress.com

 

The Public Image Is Rotten. Available to purchase HERE

 

Hello? Hello? Hello?

I’m pleased to present to you a recording of the Lee’s Palace show from PiL’s recent North American tour celebrating their 40 year anniversary. While at the gig, I met a superfluity of interesting characters, including a guy who had been recording the entire show on his digital recorder. He didn’t know how to convert the audio – so he kindly gave it to us to transfer and circulate between fans.

 

Johnny, Will you sign my record?
“…I’m signing the wall!”

 

Creating the album was a rather arduous task as it took many hours of work on the computer, for a recording that’s simply not that great regarding quality. However, the show is notorious for what happened afterwards with a small group of fans (myself included) who “interviewed” John while pissing at the rear of the venue. The incident was caught on tape, and I’m happy to include it as a bonus track. I’d like to dedicate it to local celebrity/autograph hunter Kayvon Zahedi who was rather pally with the road crew and gained access to the tour bus for us.

Although fixing the recording for your delectation was rather laborious, it was enjoyable sifting through hours of talking between the other 4 crazies (who hung around until 3:30AM hoping to catch John) to find the fragments of tape where Rambo & John are audible. Our man with the mic (who has asked to remain nameless) seemed to find John’s “bodyguard” Rambo rather fascinating – as several times he can be quoted as saying “[HE] made the show” and seems convinced Rambo was directing his full attention to him during the performance, although Rambo rebuts with “I wasn’t looking at you mate. What the fuck you talking about? I was looking at the fucking crowd mate”.
I’d often remarked that Rambo wasn’t threatening in the slightest, and I didn’t see how he could prevent anybody from stage invading. However, stood in a darkened ally at the rear of a shady venue at 3 in the morning, I found him to give off a rather ominous vibe. He was sporting his Arkansas jersey, a well known Rambo affectation worn on many occasions in recent times. Just to clarify, we think Rambo lives in Arkansas.

 

 

 

The show itself was extremely enjoyable, with many songs seemingly going on indefinitely, leading to some casualties, namely Kayvon, who had a funny turn and collapsed on the floor in front of us yet refused to vacate his spot at the front. The band were on top form, much improved from the NYC show I attended earlier that same week. John’s was confident and powerful, a stark contrast to his weak performance at Brooklyn Steel.

 During ‘The One’ our man with the mic decided to go walkabout, so apologies for the incomplete recording. We do however hear somebody declaring their youngest daughter can spell now. Congratulations to him on his success in parenting. Oh, and just to warn you – the crowd were very loud.

 

 

Tracklist

 

1.	Deeper Water
2.	Memories
3.	The Body
4.	Disappointed	[Incomplete]
5.	Banter #1	.
6.	Warrior
7.	Banter #2
8.	The One	[Incomplete]
9.­	Corporate	[Incomplete]
10.	Death Disco
11.	Cruel
12.	Not Satisfied
13.	Flowers of Romance
14.	This Is Not A love Song
15.	Rise
16.	Encore
17.	Public Image
18.	Open Up
19.	Shoom
	Bonus
21.	Talking To Rambo While John “Signs The Wall”
22.	Getting On Tour Bus

Setlist

 

After the show, guitarist Lu Edmonds casually walked by the exterior of the venue and nobody approached him except for myself. I asked for a photo, got some stuff signed and thanked him for the music. I’ve posted photos below of what I managed to get him to sign. After he signed them he went into the sushi restaurant next door. You’d never guess he’d just played a rockin’ show at Lee’s Palace. Humble! It’s probably worth mentioning that Lu’s signature is a crude drawing of his face, making use of the letters ‘L’ and ‘U’.

 

Metal Box Signed By Johnny On The Night

 

US PROMO Copy Of ‘The Body’ Signed By Guitarist Lu Edmonds & Johnny Rotten On The Night

Download [HERE]

Hosted by

Password: Cruel

 

If you wish to discover more about John Lydon & PiL, I recommend the autobiographical ‘Anger Is An Energy (My Life Uncensored)’ published in 2014.

 

Jah Wobble @Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto 2018 🍁

Where? – The Horseshoe Tavern – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
When?  – 24th of October 2018
Why? –  Part of two North American one-off shows

Attendance: 100+

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Line-Up
Jah Wobble – Bass, Percussion, Vocals

The Invaders of the Heart:
Martin Chung – Guitar
George King – Keyboards
Marc Layton-Bennett – Drums

 

During my recent trip to Canada I was lucky enough to see both Public Image Ltd. AND The Invaders of the Heart perform live. Earlier in the week we attended the PiL show at Lee’s Palace, Toronto (click HERE to read our review) and now it was time to see one of the original founding members of PiL –  bassist and notorious “geezer” Jah Wobble. He was in Toronto to satiate the fans’ desire for him to play in Canada (he’d not done so for donkey’s years apparently) and to promote new album Dream World.

 

Earlier that day Wobble had rather ominously pleaded to his social media followers  for a “line” of an Ovation Magnum bass guitar for the show. We were a little worried at this point and were left wondering – What’s happened to his bass? Has anybody come forward to save the day? Will the show be cancelled? We decided to calm our nerves by breaking into the bag of cannabis kindly donated to us by PiL’s road crew earlier in the week. A few hours passed and doors would now be open.  After a few drinks at home we made the 5 minute walk across Queen and Spadina from our flat to the venue, tightly clutching our copy of Metal Box and a tote bag of Wobble records – as we knew there was a likely chance of meeting him given the small size of the venue. When we arrived at the venue, the floor was still empty so we secured a spot at the front of the stage underneath Wobble’s cocktail drums. The first thing we noticed was the instruments – tuned and ready for the band – but no Ovation Magnum in sight – just a bog-standard Fender P-Bass.

Wobble’s Ovation Magnum Bass @TheGuitarRepairWorshop, Manchester. Wobble has remained faithful to his trusty Ovation since the 80s

The View From… Outside the venue

We’re knocking back some local pale ale while we wait for Wobble and the Invaders to come on. While we’re waiting I’ll introduce you to the band. Most readers of this blog will of course know Jah Wobble – seminal dub bassist, world music composer and an original member and founder of PiL. Although his time in PiL was actually very brief, the 2 studio albums he featured on are considered the pinnacle of their entire discography. Since leaving PiL in 1980, he has released many studio albums and collaborated with a plethora of musicians from pop-stars such as Sinead O’Connor, rock icons such as U2’s The Edge, respected producers such as Brian Eno & Bill Laswell and an endless list of world artists injecting eclecticism and ethnic variety across a vast back-catalogue of indefatigable work. Then there’s the new-look Invaders who featured most recently on albums such as ‘The Usual Suspects‘ and ‘Everything is No Thing‘ (click for reviews). On guitar is youthful-looking virtuoso Martin Chung (click here – he’s on WordPress!). On keyboards is pianist and composer George King (click here to visit his site!). Last but not least – in charge of beats – Marc Layton-Bennett (click here for more information!).

Our shot of the stage from the soundboard (Also in shot is local celebrity Kayvon Zahedi, former star of MTV’s KayvonTV.)

This is where it starts to get a bit hazy. We feel like he came on around 9:15 but we can’t be exact. The band walks on stage and there’s a big cheer when Wobble appears sporting a smart brown suit-jacket and trilby combo. He manages to keep the crowd engaged as he talks for around 5 minutes. He shames drummer Marc for almost failing to travel with the band after forgetting to sort his ETA out – something I can very much relate to as I myself only found out what an ETA was a few days before I came over to Toronto from Leeds. Wobble officiates the gig by performing a handshake with guitarist Martin Chung in the style of a business agreement! Wobble then talks the audience through the taster menu – “We’re going to start with a track from PiL’s Metal Box album – but we’re gonna do it in a ‘drum & bass’ style to make it more ‘contemporary’. Then we’re going to go into middle of the road (but done in an extremely classy way) cocktail jazz of John Barry – Classic! Then we’ll go into a sort of electric Miles period and then we’ll go into dub… [audience cheers] – and that’s just for starters – that’s the taster menu!”. After talking for so long and building it up, the crowd are taken by surprise when Wobble suddenly starts playing Socialist out of nowhere – a somewhat hilarious anti-climax and most likely intended as such. As soon as he plays the first note, the audio on our phone is destroyed and we stop recording. This is probably the loudest bass I have ever heard in my life.

Wobble likes to start each show like a business transaction as seen below in the publicity handshake between himself and Chungy.

 

We’re right next to Wobble’s amp and instantly people start to move away from the area to avoid their eardrums blowing out. Suddenly my partner dives into her bag to retrieve some noise-cancelling earplugs. Unfortunately there’s only two,  leaving me precariously at risk of permanent fat-bass induced hearing loss. The band steadily make their way through three or four tracks – including John Barry’s theme from Midnight Cowboy and Roy Budd’s theme from Get Carter. We can’t be more than 15 minutes in and Wobble is seemingly overheating under the lights as he strips down to a wife-beater for the rest of the show. We believe Wobble’s bass actually got pushed down by the sound guy at some point during these first songs. He introduces the next song – “this is the Liquidizer[sic]” – it’s a cover of the Harry J All Stars 1969 hit The Liquidator (also previously released by former PiL band-mate Keith Levene on his 1989 LP ‘Violent Opposition‘).  George – “Gorgeous” George King on keyboards does a great job on this one. Halfway through the song and it’s easy to forget who you’re there to see as guitarist Martin Chung momentarily steals the show and the hearts of the guitarists in the crowd such as myself. His virtuoso solo was technically brilliant and deviated from the song so much that eventually when they returned to the Liquidator riff it felt more like a reprise as we’d forgotten we were still listening to The Liquidator. The vibrations from the bass actually caused one of the monitors to slowly shift and fall off the stage halfway into the song – that’s how loud it was!

It was around this time in the evening that the band performed a track from 1991’s ‘Rising Above Bedlam’ – Everyman’s an Island – and marked round 1 for Wobble’s new sparring partner – A pair of cowbells! His “cowbell solo” seemed to go on indefinitely, and he needed a little breather between the next song.

 

Below is a clip of Jah Wobble performing a cowbell solo during Everyman’s An Island

 

We’re really not sure of the ordering of the set, but we believe 90s Invaders hit ‘Visions of You’ came next. We really weren’t sure how it was going to sound but Sinead’s parts were covered by some playback (possibly the re-recorded vocals by Holly Macve from the recent Usual Suspects album) – and it sounded great!  For the record, we believe this to be Wobble’s finest bassline, ever EVER!  Click here to watch an unbelievable performance featuring Sinead, live on The Word back in 1991. Straight after Visions of You came another 90s Invaders hit –  ‘Becoming More Like God‘ from 1994’s ‘Take Me To God‘ album. This is another one of my favourites, and as confusing as the line “impossibly funicular” is – the melody of it is gorgeous! At this point I’d like to praise the drumming of Marc Layton-Bennett, who is actually obscured completely from our view the entire show because of Wobble’s positioning on stage – but this only heightens our senses to his sharp beat! I think I’m right in saying they played fan favourite ‘How Much Are They?’ during this section of set – an early Wobble song featured on the collaborative album ‘Full Circle‘ featuring Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit of krautrock band Can. Suddenly, another perilously positioned monitor falls from the stage as a result of the bass vibrations – we’re starting to worry about the roof blowing off!

The crowd suddenly become very excited as Wobble introduces ‘Poptones’ – The much loved Metal Box cornerstone and as Jah Wobble himself once said “The jewel in PiL’s crown”. This was one of the first songs I learnt to play on bass and I studied a lot of clips of Wobble playing it, most notably when PiL played on the Old Grey Whistle Test back in ’80 (watch it here)

 

PiL’s 1979 3xLP Metal Box is a career-defining work and universally acclaimed avant-garde masterpiece

 

It’s during this song that I closely observe both Wobble and Chungy. Wobble still plays Poptones as he did back in 1980 and the descending octave (that apparently took Wobble months to work out back when he was still a novice) is simple but so effective! Chungy looks to be playing everything right but isn’t very audible during this song due to distortion so I’ll have to check out ‘Usual Suspects’ again to hear how he’s approaching this one! The original guitarist Keith Levene was known (from my observation at least) for playing his notes against open B and Es which is what gave his playing that orchestral/shrapnel sound.

The highlight of the set for me was when the band played satirical album closer ‘Fodderstompf’ from PiL’s ‘First Issue‘ LP. As soon as George King started tinkering on the piano I instantly recognized it to be the strange chain like sound at the start of Fodderstompf. Wobble sounds exactly as he did back in 1978 as he petulantly screams “We only wanted to be looooooooooooooooved”. The crowd find it hilarious and it turns into a contest of who can scream it the most annoyingly! Anyway, speaking of chains, somewhere around this point in the set the band covered Fleetwood Mac’s song ‘The Chain‘, a song associated with racing cars over here in the UK due to a long-standing ad campaign that finds the song to be thematically appropriate for Formula 1 montages. This is the only song of the night I’d rather forget. They actually made a really good job of it but I’ve just never been very fond of this song OR Fleetwood Mac.

The final song before the encore is Public Image’s first ever single – the eponymous ‘Public Image‘. We’re kinda mixed on this one. Yes, it’s one of Wobble’s most recognised basslines but we fail to see how Wobble can relate to the lyrics – lyrics written by John Lydon about his days in the Sex Pistols and the media attention he received. Perhaps this is a song best left as an instrumental piece in Wobble’s set, as I believe Martin Chung can do a good enough job with Keith Levene’s guitar line to keep the song afloat.

The band exit the stage to cheers and applause. The clapping continues for a few minutes and the band return on stage for one final song – Invaders of the Heart’s ‘So Many Years’ from the 1989 LP ‘Without Judgement‘. The audience applauds one last time and the band take a bow while Wobble thanks everybody for coming!

SETLIST

 

1.	Socialist (From PiL’s Metal Box album)
2.	Midnight Cowboy Theme
3.	Seven
4.	Get Carter
5.	Liquidator
6.	Everyman’s an Island
7.	Visions of You
8.	Becoming More Like God
9.	How Much Are They?
10.	Poptones (From PiL’s Metal Box album)
11.	Fodderstompf (From PiL’s First Issue album)
12.	The Chain
13.	Public Image (From PiL’s Metal Box album)
	[Encore]
14.	So Many Years
	*We’re not sure how accurate this setlist is as we can’t remember and Jah Wobble doesn’t use setlists. We’re positive these are all the songs, but we can’t remember the order. If you were there and would like to contribute to this setlist please comment below. Thankyou.

 

Jah Wobble’s drumsticks that he used during the show (See video)

 

Our Metal Box ~ Signed by both Johnny Rotten & Jah Wobble

 

In summary, we thoroughly enjoyed the evening. The band were fantastic, the venue was great, the ale was nice and we came home with a bag full of goodies – but of course, the highlight was getting to meet Mr Wobble in person!

For those of you who haven’t heard it yet, check out his latest album Dream World (which features the same Invaders of the Heart that performed on the night). You can purchase the album following the link below. Thanks for reading!

 

Jah Wobble’s latest album Dream World is out now (2018) – Buy it here