Chatting over a beer about live music with a work colleague the other week the question came up: “So, which is the best live band you’ve ever seen then?”
He offered Jean Michelle Jarre at London’s dock lands in 1988. Well, that isn’t what I mean by live music. Spend a few hundred thousand quid on a laser show and even the Eurovision song contest entry from Bratislava would be pretty impressive. Great entertainment it may well have been, but surely that isn’t a live band. I don’t know anyone who got to see the Cream, Led Zeppelin or Police re-unions. Or the Spice Girls for that matter… But I mean any group that you’ve followed for ten or maybe forty years is going to tug at the nostalgia strings a bit and get you coming over all unnecessary. For me that doesn’t count either…I’m talking about four guys (or three or five…) and an audience that maybe doesn’t know them too well, or possibly not at all. No fancy lasers or gimmicks, just a band on stage standing or falling by the strength of their performance….
So, when it’s my turn, I answer “Well, possibly Slade” Nods of approval (!) “Or... Jameson Raid”! Which produced the reaction… WHO?
(Note to self: I really must drink with more musically sophisticated people…)
Slade (with Jim & Nod) were amazing, but with 4000 gigs, numerous hits & 25 years behind them when I saw them last, maybe that’s as expected. Jameson Raid had 3 years, were little known outside The Midlands and had no record deal, so even if they came second it would be fair praise.
Something about Jameson Raid’s music is a bit freaky. In the days before the Internet and the web (er... before the home computer in fact!) life was very different. When I moved away from the Midlands I lost track of the band, there was no Googling for their MySpace in those days…but, here’s the weird bit, the songs seem to burrow into the psyche like some sort of subliminal virus. There was a gap of 28 years between me hearing ‘Seven Days Of Splendour’ and rediscovering it on this Interwebby thingy. But when I did, I remembered it creepily well and all the memories of the gig came flooding back. It was a real hairs standing up on the back of the neck stuff. No, it isn’t just me being a weirdo, several of the fans who’ve contacted me have said the same thing; the group made such a big impact when you saw them live that it is is never forgotten.
I’ve seen very many other bands, some really great ones, but no one else ever walked out onto a stage and knocked me off my feet quite like they did, which is why for me, all things considered, they are the best live band I have ever seen... Probably.
