Welcome to the ramblings of a man who really should have grown out of listening to "that sort of music" a long, long time ago...A place to share thoughts and photographs on music and related paraphernalia.
Showing posts with label Weeping Willows. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Weeping Willows. Show all posts
Fay Hallam and bassist Andy Lewis at the 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
What a great feelgood Friday night down at the legendary 100 Club with a superb line-up...The Fay Hallam Band featuring a very special guest appearance from Swedish Soul star and frontman of Weeping Willows, Magnus Carlson along with support from our good friends French Boutik and then there was DJ Dave Edwards from the Sidewinder club night too. French Boutik played a superb set, bravely introducing a few brand new numbers which went down really well. After all the band have a knack of writing instantly memorable and catchy songs, so even though they might start out as unfamiliar, by the last chord the melodies are already stuck in your head for good.
French Boutik at the 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
French Boutik at the 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
Tonight we were treated to the full line-up of the band with vocalist Gabriela, guitarist Serge, drummer Zelda and bassist Jean-Marc augmented by Olivier Popincourt on keyboards and Graham Lentz on percussion and acoustic guitar. They started off with their recently recorded version of The Jam's "The Place I Love" as a happy 60th birthday tribute to Paul Weller and ended up with a well deserved encore and a Punky run through of a cover of "Beta Gamma" by Henri Salvador. Highlights for me included a storming "Je Regarde Les Tigres" and "Mieux Comme Ca" with Serge on lead vocals and new song "Loin de Moi" which sounded like it could become a future crowd favourite. The band are on fire at the moment and I'd recommend catching them play live whenever you get the chance.
French Boutik at the 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
Fay Hallam and her excellent seven piece band kicked off their set with a great version of the "Dave Allen at Large" theme tune which had many of us old nostalgics looking round for a cigarette and glass of whisky and checking that they still had their fingers intact! We were then treated to an uplifting and uptempo set that touched on most aspects of her career stretching right back to a couple of Makin' Time numbers including the classic "Feels Like It's Love". We were brought right up to date with some really promising new tracks "Magic Potion" and "Lie Detector" which featured Fay's son Josh taking on lead vocals and he did a great job, such a talented family!
Fay Hallam Band at the 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
Fay Hallam & Magnus Carlson - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
I particularly enjoyed "Do You Know How To Love Me?" taken from the latest album "House of Now" which was produced by Andy Lewis who I'm pleased to see is adding his considerable bass playing talents to the line-up tonight. Two tracks from the excellent "Lost In Sound" album with The Bongolian, "Dancing" and a fantastic "Freefall" in particular highlight how good a drummer Kieran McAleer is and they get a warm reaction from the appreciative crowd. There's a couple of cover versions included, a faithful run through of The Flirtations classic "Nothing But a Heartache" and a perfect take on Dusty Springfield's version of "Spooky". Magnus Carlson is invited on stage to join the band for a great run through of Nolan Porter's "If I Could Only Be Sure" on which the excellent guitarist Jim Bishop tackles that great melancholy riff perfectly.
Fay Hallam Band at the 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
Fay Hallam & Magnus Carlson - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
There is a sparkling chemistry between Magnus and Fay, they look like they are having as much fun as we are and their voices work perfectly together. I understand that Fay will join the line-up of his band on an upcoming tour of Sweden to promote his new LP "A Nordic Soul" on Cosmos Music. In fact the main reason that Magnus is here tonight is because he just released a stunning new single "Now That It's Over" featuring Fay on vocals and organ. It's a stomping slice of classic Soul and it was definitely one of the highlights of the night, almost lifting the roof off of the 100 Club. Magnus says his goodbyes and the band are called back for an encore and end with a great version of "Greenhouse" from The Prime Movers early 90's album "Earth Church" which was a nice surprise. Great night out, great music and great people - you just can't beat it.
Magnus Carlson at the 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
Fay Hallam Band at the 100 Club - Photo copyright Retro Man Blog
French Boutik are currently finishing off work on a new LP so please check out their Facebook page here for more details. You can pledge your support at their IndieGoGo campaign here. For more news and information on The Fay Hallam Band please check out their web-site here. Information on Magnus Carlson and his upcoming album "A Nordic Soul" along with his collaboration with Fay can be found at his web-site here or over at the Cosmos Music site here. There are more photos from the night at our Retro Man Facebook page here and videos of both bands over at our YouTube channel here. Here's a sample of what you will find...
Two
years ago Ebbot Lundberg, of the now sadly defunct The Soundtrack of Our Lives, and Magnus Carlson from Weeping Willows and The Moon Ray Quintet, were asked if they would like to do a performance of The Velvet Underground's third
album for an HBTQ Festival event at Haga Church in Gothenburg. It worked out so well that they both wanted to do it again and they got their opportunity at this year's Kulturfestival in Stockholm. This time Ebbot and Magnus wanted to widen the set-list to include songs from the iconic debut album "The Velvet Underground & Nico", so all they needed was a "Nico", and who better than Nina Persson from The Cardigans. They gathered an impressive cast of experienced musicans around them including, on guitars and keyboards, Gunnar Frick, who has toured with Weeping Willows and also played with Ray Davies among
many others, bassist Sara Edvardson Ehrnborg, drummer Johan Håkansson, who is currently playing with Mattias Hellberg's excellent band The Fur Heads and on guitar, Tommy Sahlin, who plays at the beautiful Slussens Pensionat on Orust, with Robert "Biggles" Sohlberg's band.
It was the first time for me to see Ebbot perform live since The Soundtrack of Our Lives emotional farewell shows at The Södra Teatern in Stockholm back in December last year, and it was great to see him perform again. The band took the stage and Ebbot and Magnus appeared and shared vocals on a sublime "Candy Says", which was followed by the rest of the first side of the third eponymous album in running order. So we got a thumping run through of "What Goes On", "Some Kinda Love", a beautiful rendition of "Pale Blue Eyes" and then "Jesus". Then we were treated to "I Found a Reason" from "Loaded" and back to the third album for "I'm Set Free". Ebbot and Magnus compliment each other extremely well, their voices blend perfectly. Magnus has a smooth soulful croon which is wonderfully suited to Ebbot's slightly rawer more "Rock" baritone. But, still no Nina, and some of the crowd around me are getting a bit restless. Considering Nina's name is very prominent on the advertising, I'm beginning to wonder myself. There's a buzz as songs from the debut album "The Velvet Underground & Nico" start to appear with a gorgeous "Sunday Morning", which is followed by a powerful "I'm Waiting For The Man" with Ebbot on lead vocals.
Ebbot Lundberg - Photo by Steve Worrall
Then it's "Femme Fatale" with Nina finally making an appearance, to a huge round of applause. I know Nico didn't actually sing on many songs, but I do think they could have planned the set or song arrangements to get Nina more involved from the start. For example, "Candy Says" and "Sunday Morning" would have suited Nina's lead vocals perfectly. "Venus In Furs" is next, with Gunnar switching to bass and Sara impressively taking on the John Cale viola part . "All Tomorrow's Parties", "There She Goes Again", "I'll Be Your Mirror" are all brilliantly performed, and Nina's smile lights up the stage. Then it's over to Ebbot to close the set with the slowly unravelling classic "Heroin". The encore is a bright and breezy "Who Loves The Sun" from "Loaded", which is followed by "Temptation Inside Your Heart", originally recorded with John Cale in 1968 but left unreleased until the "VU" rarities compilation came out in 1985. It's not a widely known song, but actually turns out to be one of my highlights of the night. They don't go down the easy option crowd-pleasing route for the encore, so there's no "White Light/White Heat" (in fact they skip the second album completely) and there's no "Sweet Jane" or "Rock 'n' Roll", which some in the crowd were shouting for. Instead they close the show with a slightly downbeat but nevertheless emotional and impressive,"Ocean". It's over, and the band are called out to take a bow and lap up the generous applause. It was an excellent show, considering it must be very difficult to please everyone, as there are so many aspects to The Velvet Underground's sound, I think they got the balance just right. So, I'm intrigued to find out what the next project Ebbot, Magnus and Nina have in store...
Magnus, Nina & Ebbot - Photo by Steve Worrall
David Liljemark, the renown comic book illustrator, film director and Wonder Boys main man, not to mention big Velvet Underground fan, gave me his perspective on the gig: "The "Ebbot Underground" gig with Magnus C & Nina P
was most pleasant, but a bit too much focus on the third album and
ballads, still no "Afterhours"...WTF?!...or "I'm Sticking With You" for that
matter, a couple of songs should've been replaced by "I Heard Her Call My Name"
and/or "White Light/White Heat" (or "Guess I'm Falling In Love"). I have never
liked the song "Jesus" (with the exception of Smog's extremely good
cover!) but here it got a heavier arrangement than the original, but
"Hey Mr Rain" would've been a more urgent choice. The show closer "Ocean"
was fantastic, and very much in The Soundtrack of Our Lives style, but no one can top Lou's singing on "I'm Waiting For The Man" and "Some Kinda Love", but the evening's definite
highlight was "Temptation Inside Your Heart"!"
Top to Bottom - Ebbot, Nina & Magnus by Daniel Eriksson
Here's a video from the gig, for more videos then please visit the Retro Man Blog YouTube channel.
We have set up a Soundtrack of Our Lives Facebook Group
which encompasses all of the bands many off-shoots, collaborations,
solo works, current projects and new bands - from Nymphet Noodlers and
Union Carbide Productions to Free Fall, Tonbruket and beyond...please
feel free to join the Group and contribute here...!
Ebbot & Nina - Photograph by Steve Worrall
Many thanks to Daniel Eriksson and Hans Selander for their excellent
photographs, all are copyright 2013 as credited. You can check out more
of Daniel's photos here...Also big thanks to David Liljemark. For more photographs please head on over to the Retro Man Blog Facebook page and "Like" for access to the exclusive Photo Album.
Johan, Magnus, Gunnar, Nina, Tommy, Sara & Ebbot - Photo by Hans Selander
