I need to swim more because somehow I need to build up my strength
and distance for this Outlaw Half thingy next year and to stop my arms killing
me when I do a mile in open water. So perhaps Tuesdays should become swim night...
Unfortunately I struggle to swim on a day when I’ve cycled
because my calves just cramp meaning 20 lengths is about my limit and I’d like
to do about 40. So with less cycling this could well send my overall fitness
down the pan.
So I drive to work and then head to John Carroll pool afterwards with a
pull buoy under my arm (look it up). The pull buoy is supposed to go between
your thighs therefore rendering use of your legs pointless thereby increasing
your arm usage and therefore improving your arm strength. That’s the theory but
a detailed explanation of this theory was clearly contained within a chapter of
the O level Physics text book that I didn’t get to read because the reality is that
keeping it between your thighs for more than a couple of lengths is not easy at
all. So another thing to practice.
After this I have a gig.
Tonight’s
support Patrik Fitzgerald is, it is fair to say,
more of a poet than a singer and one that delivers his prose deadpan style.
This he does tonight over an electronic backing track for the first 25 minutes
of his set. It is only then that he picks up a guitar for the remainder of his
set, a 15 minute segment that includes a cover of the obscure David Bowie track
‘After All’.
There is no doubt that Fitzgerald has talent and he
is clearly held in high regard by a lot of the audience but his style of
delivery perhaps does not quite endear him to the majority, causing many to talk
over his set this evening. Subsequently the nuisances of a lot of of his songs
are lost in the general noise.
Fitzgerald hails back from the start of punk circa 1975 but
despite several attempts he failed to form a band with anyone and subsequently never
became a household name like many of his peers. Instead he became a bit of
musical loner albeit a quietly revered one.
Although he leaves the stage tonight to a roar of appreciation
perhaps he was the wrong choice as a warm-up act. The Rats are going to have to
do that job themselves.
Is she really going out with him? No not that one. I mean, is
he really going out with Eva?
And so it is with the classic ‘(I Never Loved) Eva Braun’
that The Boomtown Rats open up tonight on their first UK tour in 27 years, at
least one with Sir Bob at the helm. Looking at the size of the crowd in Rock
City tonight, a near sell out, it is a welcome one. Followed by ’Like
Clockwork’, The Rats quickly have Rock City warmed up, alive and screaming
lyrics back at them.
It’s apparently a newly refurbished Rock City as well. I can
see it’s been spruced up a touch and they've moved some stairs but I can
confirm that the floor is still pleasantly sticky.
It’s a quartet of Rats tonight, this reunion is minus
guitarist Gerry Cott and keyboardist Johnnie Fingers and we have two (talented)
imposters in their places. Helpfully, just in case you can’t remember what they
looked like back in the day, there’s a video screen replaying clips throughout
to jog your memory.
Geldof as ever is the star, pouring every ounce into his
performance while the rest of band stay extremely low key. He may well now look
creviced and lived in but he still has a good head of hair (jealous), yet at 62
he still pulls off a lively stage presence in his f**k off pretend snake skin
suit (his words). His ego too is more than intact.
‘We are the Boomtown Rats’ he tells us. Yes we know.
‘We are magnificent’, if you say so.
‘We are old’ someone shouts.
Yes, Bob agrees ‘We are old’ before hitting us with a
terrific ‘Someone's Looking At You’, the stand-out track of the night... or was
that a tremendous ‘She's So Modern’ or was that... they have picked such a good
set tonight, pulling all the tracks bar ‘Banana Republic’ from their first
three pre-1980 albums that it’s hard to choose.
Almost everything is sung straight back at Geldof but none
more so than on ‘I Don't Like Mondays’. Which I’m glad to say appeared mid-set
rather than being held back to be a predictable finale.
The entire crowd are word perfect on ‘Mondays’ and lift the
roof off Rock City but the Rats own rendition tonight is so good that you have
to eventually shut up, stand back and let the band wrestle back control, which
they do in some style. Absolutely brilliant. Following that is going to be
hard.
Having it mid-set should have perhaps stopped it totally dominating
proceeding, in theory, but it still lords it over everything else from there
until a rather brilliant finale arrives.
True, the excellent ‘Mary of the Fourth Form’ goes off at a rather
unnecessary and unsatisfying tangent lurching into the likes of the Rolling
Stones, John Lee Hooker and Golden Earing but the band are bang back on track
for ‘Looking After No. 1’ and the closing ‘Rat Trap’.
They were soon back for an encore of ‘Never Bite The Hand
That Feeds’ and an amazing ’Diamond Smiles’, which was set to send everyone
home smiling from ear to ear.
That they came back again, very quickly, and delivered one
more song that was a new track simply entitled ‘The Boomtown Rats’ was a slight
disappointment. Geldof had apparently been persuaded to write a few new tracks
to go on their latest compilation album. So I guess they ought to try and sell
a few copies of it but it actually left us with a rather downbeat ending to
what otherwise was a totally brilliant evening.
(Tuesday 29th October)
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