Gig review: Ricky Warwick & The Fighting Hearts + VirginMarys + The Howling Tides at O2 Academy Islington, March 24 2022
THIS is the first gig review for the relaunched HOT METAL website, so I won’t be kicking off with a sardonic critique of some poor support band.
Instead, post-COVID we must reacquaint ourselves with the entire ritual of attending a concert. Like many things over the past two years, there are details of customs we used to observe that we have somehow lost in the mists of time. Drunks on late night trains? I forgot about them and yet tonight I became one.
Likewise, a tall and over-confident member of the opposite sex pushing in at the bar is rite of passage-blocking from my gig-going past that I had completely forgotten. Af first I thought this might be just a ‘a guy thing’ but I’d imagine this annoyance also happens to girls: some swarthy dude in Doc Martens and with a laminate dangling from his belt who is utterly convinced his time is more valuable than yours.
Between tonight’s second and third acts, the White Stripey VirginMarys and Northern Ireland veteran rocker Ricky Warwick and his solo band, this happens to me. A girl fronts up to the second row back from the bar after me and executes a manoeuvre that would impress judges no end were this wrestling, asking the fellows in front (still being served) to move aside so she can fill a space in front of me that was previously occupied by them.
“Ah!’ I say to myself. “I remember THIS! I remember just such insolence ruining otherwise stellar gigs over the past 35 years”.
My response is feeble. I put my arm between her and another group of imbibers, who do not get out of my way. Because I am shorter and less … striking. This is how good nights out turn bad.
The bartender is not going to even look at me, let alone ask who’s first. But she does. And to my utter astonishment, our not-so-wicked-witch tells her I was, in fact, first “even though he’s only got an arm on the bar”.
Human kindness, eh? After offering my thanks and brief pause, I also offer a critique on the previous band. “Fantastic!” Is my superlative. “The drummer’s an old buddy of mine,” she says. “He’s put on a bit of weight – and I won’t be afraid to tell him when I see him after.”
At which point we segue straight into our review. The VirginMarys are a two piece from Macclesfield made up of singer/guitarist Ally Dickaty and drummer Danny Dolan. He only looks a tiny bit tubby, to be fair. They’ve been around for more than a decade
And they’re something of a force of nature.
Sonically, the comparisons with Jack and Meg White are difficult to avoid but musically I’d approximate their sound as being something in the vicinity of the Living End. Their biggest challenge with just two instruments would seem to be maintaining light and shade throughout their set but having such a deep repertoire would counters this.
When necessary, Dickaty introduces a guttural yelp as a third instrument. Special mention to a new anthem, “NorthWest”, which claims that the wheel was invented in this industrious part of the UK. Really?
Openers The Howling Tides come across as sympathetic to the Rival Sons school of throwback blues rock and singer Rob Baynes does indeed have one of those rare wails that reviewers like to call “whiskey-soaked”.
But their canvas is broader than you might at first think, one new tune boasting dazzling key changes and breakdowns without ever becoming wankery. This is a genuine great white hope, although getting a middle aged crowd to sing along with a chorus that assures us “our days are numbered” falls flat for reasons I would have thought obvious.
As for Ricky Warwick, I always felt his talent was somewhat wild and untamed – and perhaps occasionally in need of taming. The Thin Lizzy-into-Black Star Riders period seems to have focused his creativity and he’s now enjoying his finest years as a songwriter – and specifically as a lyricist.
At first, with his band (guitarist Ben Christo the focal point) bounding on stage to the sound of Eminem, the unevenness I remember from The Almighty days was evident once more. The fifth song is Thin Lizzy’s ‘Jailbreak” and at this point the VirginMarys still have their noses in front of the headliner.
Imagine my surprise, at having only been lukewarm on The Almighty, when it was that band’s songs which anchored the show and allowed it to soar.
“Wrench”, “Jonestown Mind”, “All Sussed Out” and – finally – “Free And Easy” delighted fans of the band that made Warwick’s name and made this a set to savour, any uncertainty from the opening four numbers forgotten as easily as I forgot about girls pushing in at the bar during gigs.
Turns out you don’t need a headliner to blow your head off from the get-go. Another forgotten pre-COVID lesson.
Speaking of which, a time-honoured trope from gig-going: “I’m with the band”.
Our friend from the bar is standing near the backstage entrance when I go to the for refreshments after four songs. She didn’t get to see Danny Dolan long enough to tell him he’d got a bit chubby – just for a few minutes – and was giving up and going home.
“That last song he played was good,” she shouted over the din, in reference to Warwick, of whom she had never heard until tonight. Then she’s off. Leaving gigs early is fraught with danger. She doesn’t know what she missed.
Sticking my hand out to introduce myself to my queue-jumping queen, she tells me her name is “Mary – like the band.”
Could the band be named after her? Could she be their long-lost muse? Jesus knows….
