The gig at the Lowry Centre in Manchester was pretty much slap in the middle of the guys Anniversary Tour coming as it did on the 1st November. It was however far more significant then simply as a marker point for those of us following the guys around on tour as the Lowry was the chosen venue for the recording of the guys newest Live DVD which hopefully will be released in 2007. The new DVD was to include the whole of the guys first album ‘Go West’ as well as all the new material they have written for their new Album and have been treating us to throughout the Tour, given this mix of the newest and oldest of the guys tracks it promised to be quite an evening!
Normally as anyone who as ever booked to see Go West will testify it takes a Herculean effort to get a front row seat: the guys have a large number of very devoted fans who will happily invest in Mortgage sized phone bills to get the seats closest to the guys. The Lowry has a front row of just 7 seats so initially I was as chuffed as anyone to get hold of one: this was of course before it was announced that the Lowry was to be the DVD recording and not just a normal gig…from that moment on I think its fair to say that anytime you announced you were sat at the front most Westies looked at you with a mixture of pity and relief that they hadn’t found themselves there! So with feelings of increasing panic at just how large a prawn I would look on film I found myself at the venue on D, or even DVD Day.
I was lucky enough to be able to watch Pete and Rick Soundcheck that afternoon: it’s always for me a pleasure to see the guys prepare for a show and to see them that afternoon was pretty amazing. The guys are meticulous professionals and everything was checked and double checked as they ensured that nothing would spoil the evening. How they concentrated and sounded as good as they did with cameramen at times right up close and in their faces was a miracle to me…its fair to say they have far stronger nerves then I could imagine having and when they finished I walked off to meet everyone else feeling very confident about how the guys were going to perform that night.
The lead up to the gig was rather strange to say the least! The guys are usually at the centre of much pre-gig chatting but the prospect of being caught on camera slightly slanted the conversation and much of the chatter was about how to avoid looking really daft: the people in the front row looked increasingly nervous and those further back increasingly smug! It was a relief when at 7.30 we took our spots ready for the guys to come on stage. John Glover their manager came out and gave a quick speech on the ‘Dos and Donts’ of the evening and said anyone who didn’t want to be filmed could get a refund….its the only time Ive ever had to surpress the impulse to run from a gig as by then the 6 (at least) cameras capturing the evening were in place and I was petrified! I told myself that once the guys were on stage the trick was simply to focus on them and forget the cameras and it was great when the lights dimmed and after an eternity Pete and Rick came on stage.
Any worries I had that a seating gig would not have the atmosphere of a standing gig were soon removed. Rick came out from stage left and hit the front like a one man hurricane: arms aloft he bellowed at the crowd and got everyone on their feet: Rick yelled the question were we up for it and the crowd responded as people left their seats and ran down to join the little front row. As soon as you have some equally insane company somehow it feels easier to let yourself get into the gig..so by the time the guys were half way into their first song ‘Let Love Come’ I was ensconsed in front of Ricks mike and was singing happily!. Let Love Come being first on the set list showed us that the guys had decided to stick to the format of the other gigs on the Tour and deliver a set-list that combined and mixed-in their newest and oldest material. It was a great decision as it allowed firstly both the Band and fans the comfort of feeling like we knew how the evening would pan-out and also it avoided the situation I had had nightmares about where the guys could have played one new track after the other and some of the crowd might have lost interest as they couldn’t sing along. Besides that the guys new and old material merge beautifully and playing them side by side allowed the crowd to really get a sense of the continuity as well as the innovation in the guys music over their 21 year career.
Let Love Come was followed by classic second song in a Go West set: Faithful. It also afforded the first chance for us in the crowd to get a good look at the guys as they stood and had a quick chat with the crowd inbetween tracks. Pete was in black shoes, light blue jeans, a pristine fitted white shirt and grey jacket while Rick was in Timberlands, blue jeans, Diesel t-shirt and the Khaki jacket that he has looked so cool in during this Tour. Faithful got the crowd snapping their fingers in time with Pete and singing loudly; much to the obvious delight of both the guys who seemed to really appreciate that even a few minutes in a great atmosphere was building in the auditorium. After the applause has died down Rick thanked the crowd for their support and with a twinkle in his eye said he hoped we were all enjoying being on film. Were it not for the thought that it would have been possibly recorded that reminder of the cameras all round the venue would have resulted in a loud slapping noise as I hid my head in my hands…..the thought of looking possibly even dafter then I already thought I did stopped me and I just tried to look enthusiastic rather then manic! Rick then introduced the guys last single ‘All Day All Night’ and the show rolled on.
Pete had been relatively quiet up to this point in the show: mostly it seemed because Rick was totally on fire and I doubt a Cabinet Minister could have got word in before him!. Pete now took a turn in chatting and explained to the crowd that the guys were playing material from their first album ‘Go West’ that until very recently they had never played live before, he said he hoped we would enjoy the tracks and maybe feel able to join in and with that the guys launched into the fabulous ‘Haunted’. Before this Tour Id never heard Haunted live and I’ve found since I have that when I listen to the Go West CD I find myself thinking that the guys sound even better now then they did 21 years ago. Pete’s voice has even more depth and emotion then when the guys first recorded in 1985 and Haunted was perfect. It was followed by the first of the new tracks of the evening ‘Never Enough’ which Pete once called ‘a story of an obsessive personality’ with its Lyrics that talk of never being satisfied and always wanting more: its became a favourite with a lot of fans on this Tour and got a huge reception from the Manchester crowd.
Missing Persons and I Wanna Hear It From You gave the crowd a chance to sing along badly and Pete took the opportunity to lose the jacket as the heat from the lights started to heat up the stage. The crowd were still on their feet and thanks to Pete and Rick they stayed there all night even when the guys played new material which was really cool. It has to be said however that you would need to be dead from the neck down not to have to stand for ‘Lolita’. Pete told the crowd that he and Rick were determined when writing this new album not to limit themselves to any particular style of music: Lolita was born out of Pete’s love of reggae and it is pure class! The guys look like that have a total party every time they perform it and Pete’s voice is perfectly suited to the genre; it was at it has been every other night a roaring success and certainly a vindication of the guys decision to engage in whatever style they desired in this album.
Innocence, Goodbye Girl and That’s What Love Can Do followed in energetic succession before the guys went into the break with one of my faves from the new album ‘Man on Fire’ the song has actually changed over the course of the Tour and for me it just gets better every time I hear it; its upbeat, catchy and passionate and just demands to be sang along to at the top of your voice! Ive got to say I love it and it ensured as the guys went of for a well deserved break that the cameras caught some seriously impressed audience members cheering them as they left.
The guys came out after the interval having changed in Pete’s case into a black striped shirt and Rick into t-shirt and grey jacket. They had lost none of their energy in the break and Don’t Look Down and Eye to Eye made sure the crowd were back on their feet in seconds. Faded was the first new track of the second half: it is hugely popular with fans who have heard it and I love it. It is classic Go West with wonderful intelligent lyrics telling a tale of a Lost Love. Pete really belted the Lyrics out and stood centre-stage with his arms outstretched singing of how his former love now looked through him…suffice to say I can guarantee all eyes were fixed on him throughout his performance it was just spot on. The guys were really relaxed given the presence of the cameras and that was proved as Pete delivered ‘Glow’ complete with a variety of scream-inducing moves and then as Rick grinned happily introduced ‘a cover we’ve enjoyed playing around with’ that Rick interjected was ‘rather loud’. The cover of course is Vertigo and words cannot express how happy I was that their wonderful cover had kept its place in the show. Pete and Rick deliver the best Rock and Roll performance you can imagine when they perform Vertigo; its loud, fun, hugely impressive and every time Pete came forward and stood with one foot up on a monitor the lady behind me almost burst my eardrums screaming in delight! By the end of that track the crowd as well as the guys needed a minute to regain their composure and even those of us at the front got so caught up that we totally forgot about the cameras…a miracle given how paranoid we all were at the break!.
Stars Don’t Shine was followed by the ever gorgeous The Sun and The Moon: complete with very loud audience participation for what remains one of the guys best loved tracks.
The gig then cranked up to a high octane conclusion with SOS, Call Me and finally We Close Our Eyes. Pete gave a huge high octane performance and Rick led the crowd with the clapping and singing while of course delivering his own vocals. I looked round at the end and couldn’t see a single person in their seats as the whole crowd stood to applaud the guys, they went offstage and of course the crowd went bonkers until they returned for a quite inevitable encore. The guys bowed graciously as they returned and applauded the crowd for their enthusiasm before Rick encouraged anyone who hadn’t joined in up until then to ‘get their moneys worth’ and sing along with Tracks of My Tears. Pete turned the microphone to us in the crowd as we sang along, I don’t believe him for a moment as he responded to our howling along with the cry ‘Youre sounding really sweet!’ Im sure I sounded like a cat on a fence but by this point I didn’t much care anymore..the crowd then got what they were shouting for as the guys finished off the set with of course King Of Wishful Thinking.
A DVD really couldn’t be complete without this track and it was as fun as ever. The guys got a massive ovation that went on and on until my hands hurt from clapping them…they deserved it totally and as they took a bow you just knew it was the end of a very special evening that would make one hell of a DVD. After John Glover filled in some time on stage with talk of dodgy dancing (me it seems!) and even dodgier Spots (not me!) the guys re-recorded three tracks including Lolita and Only Love: the crowd loved the free extra songs but you had to think that the guys must have been knackered beyond words after all that effort. They finished again and to their eternal credit after such an exhausting night went outside for a huge meet and greet with what seemed like practically the whole audience waiting to meet them. It summed them up: top class performers and genuinely lovely blokes and if half of their quality comes across in the DVD then they will certainly acquire more fans from it.
