Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Tonight Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are back in Nottingham to mark the 20th anniversary of their third studio album ‘Howl’ but first, from Texas, we have Night Beats who sadly do little for me. 

I find them quite repetitive and tedious playing some form of Country and Western garage music. The crowd reaction isn’t helped by them not being very talkative. In fact, no one speak to us at all until half an hour in when the lead singer announces a song he wrote with BRMC’s Robert Been. 

Been comes on stage to play piano on it, at first standing up and then occasionally kneeling. After that he picks up the bass guitar and stays until the end of their set as they play another three songs. He even contributes on vocals and suddenly their set gets a lot better. 

So, to BRMC who tonight become the latest one of my favourite bands to play one of my least favourite albums in full and in this case not in order but I clearly shouldn’t be selfish. Everyone else, including the band, clearly rate the record as one of their best. 

We kick off with ‘Devil’s Waitin’ played in the dark by someone dressed as a monk, with the hood over their head. It’s all very atmospheric. This is Peter Hayes while presumably Robert Been is still getting his breath back from his sojourn with Night Beats. 

Then they’re both on stage for ‘Shuffle Your Feet’ with Leah Shapiro joining them on drums before Been takes the lead on ‘Howl’. As usual, from there onwards, they share the spotlight on guitars and vocals. 

The show features, as you would expect, almost every track from ‘Howl’ along with many other non-Howl crowd favourites such as the likes of ‘Red Eyes and Tears’, ‘Beat the Devil's Tattoo’, 'Spread Your Love', 'Whatever Happened to My Rock 'n' Roll' and 'Berlin'. All more my sort of thing.

They also slot in an impromptu performance of ‘Windows’ from the ‘Baby 81’ album which they admit they haven’t played in a long while but then run out of time and have to truncate the rest of the Howl section. 

 They finish with ‘Shadow’s Keeper’ and head back into the shadows.