Gig review: Gun at 100 Club, London

Live review: Gun at 100 Club London, May 5 2023

By STEVE MASCORD

WHENEVER we go to a truly great gig, we don’t want to go straight home do we?

You want to go for a drink or seven and rake over the coals of a flaming hot evening with a companion. But eventually, conversation switches to something else and by the time your head eventually hits the pillow you remember this life-affirming gig in the same way you recall what you had for lunch.

That’s how I consumed the stunning performance from Scottish band Gun a few days back. I wish I had gone straight home to preserve the memory of it.

For the entire show I was standing (‘stood’ if you’re a Brit) on the corner of the stage nearest guitarist Jools Gizzi and I either had a shit-eating grin or I was on the verge of tears it was so good.

To place this in context, I got the first Gun album Taking On The World as one of my first music journalism freebies in 1989. Not a standard rock fan story, I guess. I’d listen to the title track and dream of the big world outside suburban Wollongong. 

The only time I’ve ever bungee jumped, I was wearing a promotional t-shirt emblazoned with the band’s logo.

So I’m pre-disposed to enjoy myself tonight at the 100 Club, a venue that’s been open since 1942 and trading under that name since 1964 (not all the cool venues are destined to be shuttered, friends). Sure, it’s a weird-shaped room, the dunnies have seen better days (to coin a Gun song title) and if it’s too full, you can’t see the stage.

But what makes tonight live up to, and then exceed, my already lofty expectations?

The setlist is pretty close to perfect, opening with newer songs like “Back Street Brothers” and “Coming Home” and slowly building to what I think is their finest, “Money To Burn” and onwards to the hits.

Is there anything you’d rather be singing with a beer in hand on a Friday night than “In the end all we are/Is just a soul on the open road”?

Gallus from 1992 is a masterpiece of melodic hard rock (in a 1992 sense, not a Frontiers Records way – soaring hooks, inventive riffs, thoughtful lyrics) and it’s great to hear “Long Road” included. Goosebumps. 

Secondly, singer (formerly bassist) Dante Gizzi announced a former member had been found to be completely cancer-free after having part of his stomach removed. I’ve done a bit or research here (it was difficult to hear Dante speak between songs) and I think I know who it is. But it’s not something you want to get wrong, is it? So I’ll leave the name out for now.

That’s an emotional sugar hit for everyone.

And thirdly, soul singers The Sisterhood, who perform on the current album Calton Songs, showed up and performed not just the tracks they enhance on that record but others they had never previously collaborated upon.

The result was perhaps the best live version of “Steel Your Fire” ever heard.

Perhaps if I had not got Gun’s first album for free, I’d not have been here tonight. On the other hand, if I did my job and spread the word more effectively, we’d be in a bigger venue (perhaps opening for the Stones should have done that for them anyway).

Either way, I owe the universe a favour for giving me a night such as tonight. Freedom lives.