www.mehdibenkler.ch

Thanks to mins from official forum we are able to listen to the Glasgow show, here what he said about it:

	Hey there! I don't have the time to cut it but you can listen to it already. Unfortunately: - you can here some Internet Explorer clicks in between. I hate the IE, was it only using because I thought it would be more stable - the first four songs are missing - Half State is missing (of all things Half State!!) - there is some noise on the record - the volume is not very high Anyway, still better than nothing. Let's hope that b-grrrlie has a better record!! Part One Part Two Set list: 666 Conducer (missing) Mama Taught Me Better (missing) Red Eyes And Tears (missing) Shade Of Blue (missing) Beat The Devil's Tattoo Ain't No Easy Way Berlin Martyr Annabel Lee Whatever Happened To My Rock 'N' Roll? [Punk Song] Dirty Old Town Mercy Devil's Waitin' The Toll Rifles Half-State (missing) Conscience Killer Six Barrel Shotgun Spread Your Love In Like The Rose Shadow's Keeper Open Invitation

Due to the weather conditions in Scotland affecting all road transport, BRMC have been forced to postpone tomorrow’s show at Birmingham Academy to the following night – Wedsnesday 8th December.
The band would like to apologise to ticket holders for the inconvenience.

by Vicky Halliday
photos by Kyle Bunkin

We missed Duke Spirit. I was distraught, Kyle went to the bar (it’s how we cope with situations that makes us unique) The one song I managed to catch sounded heavenly. Bugger to the lure of mulled wine, which I blame solely for the delay in our arrival



Soooo, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. My first impression was that the crowd was made up of disparate sectors of the Portsmouth musical contingent. The atmosphere was odd and the crowd restless in places – this may be partly down to the plummeting temperatures. The fact that half the crowd were socially networking, whilst the band performed, is never a good sign. Soooo, what went wrong?

1 There were technical difficulties. The sound cut out completely at one point.
2 The venue was half full but the audience was chatty, meaning that during the more acoustic tracks the music was totally drowned out.
3 Southsea was experiencing sporadic power cuts, so some of the gig was in pitch darkness.
4 The set was extremely disjointed. Band members wandered off, leaving Peter, his acoustic guitar and a harmonica. Which was immediately followed by one of the more hard-hitting, crowd pleasers. This allowed no build up or come down or natural flow between songs. In fact, it made for a rather confusing show.



But, when they’re great, they’re truly great. Despite the almost complete lack of banter or interaction, the more punch-packing tracks (“Spread you Love”, “Whatever Happened to my Rock n’ Roll”) were fantastic. I will say, I prefer the garage end of their repertoire. The slide-guitar and harmonica side of their set just doesn’t do it for me so much.



With more than a nod to Southern rock, it’s like The Jesus and Mary Chain are performing for The Dukes of Hazzard at a hoedown. All in all, it was an odd night – with half of me thinking it was fantastic and the other half totally bewildered.

 

By

Ross Allen

It was a cold, snowy December night, a far cry from the balmy April date the postponed Black Rebel Motorcycle Club show should have been. Still, the anticipation and excitement had had another seven months to fester and grow. The journey to Rock City in Nottingham was trouble free despite the mountains of snow that had fallen over the previous few days. Once inside we noticed that the crowd was a little sparse, perhaps everyone was at home to avoid the weather or they were simply being safe and taking their time to get there? Those that had made it seemed to cover the entire spectrum of ages from the young through to the more mature, reinforcing the appeal of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

The support band The Duke Spirit took to the stage and crowd immediately doubled; perhaps everyone was huddled around the bars taking advantage of a warming alcoholic beverage! The Duke Spirit were a new band to us, we’d seen the name around but have never heard them. The alternative rock/soul quintet from London set about warming up the crowd with a sound that was reminiscent of late 80s, early 90s guitar bands My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. Playing a mixture of tracks spanning their back catalogue, they managed to thaw out the crowd and get them moving. The Duke Spirit themselves seemed to warm up after a few tracks, with lead singer Liela Moss, in particular, producing an energetic display.

The stage now cleared, the BRMC drum kit revealed, the house lights dropped and the roar from the, now capacity, crowd nearly took the roof off Rock City! With no introductions and dimmed stage lights BRMC announced themselves by launching straight into the classic ‘666 Conducer’. The crowd lapped it up for the first couple of minutes until those technical gremlins raised their head… Peter Hayes amp gave up the ghost… However, in the ensuing silence Robert Been picked up his acoustic guitar and treated the crowd to an impromptu rendition of ‘Sympathetic Noose’. The technical issues now resolved the set continued with ‘Stop’.

The set continued with ‘Weapon of Choice’ and ‘Bad Blood’ before the title track from the latest album ‘Beat The Devil’s Tattoo’ sent the crowd crazy. ‘Half-State’, ‘Red Eyes And Tear’ and ‘Mama Taught Me Better’ followed soon after, with ‘Whatever Happened to My Rock ‘N Roll [Punk Song]’ taking things up a notch or two and the crowd responding in kind with the first of the crowd surfers going over the barrier.

Things took a quieter turn then as the set drifted into acoustic territory, beginning with the cover of The Pogues classic, ‘Dirty Old Town, followed by ‘Complicated Situation’ and ‘The Toll’. The acoustic set now over it was back to the dirty rock with ‘Awake’ and ‘Long Way Down’ reanimating the crowd. ‘Ain’t No Easy Way’ and ‘Berlin’ quickly followed, as did the crowd surfers. The main set was rounded off with the future classic ‘Conscience Killer’ and the old classic ‘Six Barrel Shotgun’.

After a short break and a lot of B.R.M.C. chants; Robert Been, Peter Hayes and Leah Shapiro returned to the stage for the encore. The first track, ‘Spread Your Love’, set the crowd off again as more brave souls risked the wrath of the security guards by flying over the barrier on a sea of hands. Unfortunately, the gremlins in Hayes’ amp returned but thankfully it was a very short lived outage and they resumed the song where they’d left it moments before. The mammoth two hour show ended with ‘Shadow’s Keeper’ and despite the brief technical problems and the tricky weather conditions outside the show was a huge success, leaving the crowd well and truly satisfied with what they had witnessed.

From Facebook:

Sorry again to everyone that cant make it tonight. We have been able to pull together a live audio stream starting LIVE right now with an opening DJ set from Dan Mancini. Duke Spirit will not make it tonight due to weather.

 

We will be performing an in-store at 3 pm on Tuesday, December 14th, at the newly opened CD/Vinyl/DVD store ‘Head’ in Victoria Square Shopping Centre, Belfast City Centre. There will be a signing session following the performance. Space is limited, so make sure you get there early!