Today's review and photos/video mashup
Today's "featured" band are The Cheating Hearts. I went to their gig at the Talbot a week last Sunday to video and photograph them on request. I had an idea what to expect as I've played with James and Maria several times at various jam nights across East Lancs though this was my first time seeing the full band lineup, including the legend that is Shug on bass (who I've also had the great pleasure to jam with once).
For a start, these are musicians of the highest order. Not for them your typical set list. We often talk of whether we compromise our own musical preferences for the sake of "entertainment value", the implication being that we play what we think the audience want of us rather than what we might otherwise prefer. Their sets comprised so many songs that I only half recognised (and in some cases not at all) that I felt quite ignorant in the presence of an audience that was absolutely lapping it up. I'm afraid I'm sometimes guilty of believing that we need to "dumb down" if we are to ensure a captive audience but here was a band that seemed to be succeeding in the holy grail of entertaining the audience as much as they were satisfying themselves creatively.
I've struggled to edit the video for this one - in particular because the average song length is about 7 minutes! Yet you don't notice it at the time - you're too busy listening to exquisite harmonies, marvelling at James' proficiency on the mandolin and guitars and beholding Shug who has to be quite the most animated bassist I've ever seen up close.
When I warned Shug that I was going to be delayed finishing his mashup on account of the fact that their set was "atypical" he responded with characteristic tongue in cheek humour thus:-
"Are you suggesting that The Cheating Hearts are prone to meandering? Sometimes the journey is the destination - taking in the sights along the way, a wrong turn here, perhaps a pause to view an item of interest there and, if I may extend the metaphor, a chance stop at a wayside inn for a couple of drinks and a bite to eat. And happen a bit of a sleep, perchance to dream. Or is it the out of tune singing ?"
In fact, the difficulty was in part caused by the fact that people danced ALL THE WAY THROUGH THE GIG and persistently right across my camera lens. I mean, what's the world coming to. I didn't know the songs and yet people were dancing? What did they know that I didn't?
I have to give special mention to the keyboards which were fantastic; solos traded all night between keys and guitars and whilst I confess to not being the greatest fan of incessant widdling I never grew tired of listening to them riffing off each other. But the real treat for me was Mike Smith on drums. Shug had said to me in one of his messages:-
"You'll like our drummer, too".
To which I had responded (in typically hostile fashion)
"I almost certainly won't like your drummer. If he or she is better than me I shall be shooting daggers at them and wishing for brittle bone disease to befall them mid set. If they're crap I will be equally scathing. So they're in a lose lose situation really"
I love watching drummers who play musically and I got that in spades. And boy does he ever know how to end songs. Bastard. I hate his guts.
Anyway, if you get chance to watch them, do. If you get chance to book them, do. They were booked to play 3 half hour spots at the Talbot and in fact delivered over 3 hours of top quality entertainment. They did 5 encores and the crowd were still howling for more when they conceded the need to exit stage left for fear of dehydration setting in.
In the meantime, here's their mashup, and photos. And to those who may be tiring of my constant posting of photos and videos I say only this….It may be your turn next, do unto others as you would like them to do unto you. Speaking of which, I have a hole in my gig diary this coming Friday if anyone can tempt me to their gig.
