When Lucky Strikes stroll out on stage dressed in their shirts and suits and with a fiddle player you are not quite sure what to expect. What you get is actually a pretty entertaining set from a rather quirky English folk band.
The Southend band use the fiddle as the lead instrument, which is interesting, an accordion solo fills one of the tracks and there is a song about Southend Pier. Not the sort of band RTM usually sees, but one which we are glad we were there early enough for.
For Dogs D’amour this is something of a hometown show. Tyla is a native of Wolverhampton and he has been a rather erratic fixture of the British Rock scene for getting on for 25 years. At various points in those decades the Dogs have been both hotly tipped and disbanded and are one of a slew of excellent British bands – the Wildhearts being the most obvious example – that would have achieved more if they hadn’t pressed the self destruct button just once too often.
But now they are resurrected – with the usual totally different line-up - for a small pre-Christmas jaunt, and if not quite ready to take on the world again they are at least here for a good time.
Or at least so it seems initially, with a convivial Tyla leading the crowd in a rendition of “Happy Birthday” for his sister before getting down to business. And that business initially is booming. “Supreme Creation” and “Last Bandit” are good ways to start any show after all, and when you follow up with “Heroine” you are looking at a damn fine evening.
But then the sound suddenly becomes dreadful, with a horrible screeching feedback rendering Timo Kalito’s guitar work unlistenable. The notoriously volatile front man gets agitated. “This place needs a lot of work doing to it,” he says, before cutting the song short.
“No Gypsy Blood” is dedicated to Jackie Leven, the Scottish folk singer who died recently but when the only response from the crowd is “who’s that?” Tyla sneers, “Wikipedia.”
They encore with “How Come It Never Rains” and “Satellite Kid” but the sound gremlins have returned and neither sounds too great. “Happy Christmas” says Tyla “we’ll see you again.” But when they do, I will bet you it is not at the Academy.
Not, you suspect, an evening that anyone connected with The Dogs enjoyed too much, but I hope Trisha had a good birthday anyway.
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