It turned out that these five, somewhat unusual gentlemen were The Courtesy Group. I'd heard of this Birmingham based band before but I'd never experienced them. I waited and hoped that what I'd just heard was just a little bit of what was to come and not just musicians messing about.
As they took the stage, with singer Al Hutchins wearing a WWI army helmet and guitarist Fyfe Hutchins scratching around on the floor with pedals, switches, and all sorts of other things I realised that the sound check was quite typical of their material.
As the support band tonight they didn't get as much stage time as I'd have liked - I wanted more of this unique, somewhat unnerving stuff that they were belting out. The tight, accurate and tricky drumming of Martin Woodhall combined with the precise, thumping bass of Dave Cochrane and the second guitar of Jim Smith drove this sound machine along. Fyfe performed mystical feats of musical innovation on his guitars. Often bent double over his instrument or kneeling on the floor creating wondrous sounds with drum stick, violin bow and other bits and pieces flying across the strings - then percussion, then keyboards and some fairly strange bodily manoeuvres. Great to watch, brilliant to hear - just a great experience.
Oh yes, and then there's Al, an extrovert, poetic loony who danced his way across the stage, the arena, on chairs, tables, everywhere. Sporting a collection of strange headgear, besuited with oversize tie-knot and freaky, brightly coloured shirt, he joked between songs, sprinkled what appeared to be soap flakes around and kept pulling all sorts of odd things from his pockets - extrovert - oh yes!. Never still, almost hyper-active and never quite on the same planet as most of us - what a performer!! A vocal style, that when put in context of the music, reminded me very much of John Lydon. Manic, but very watchable, very listenable.
As I write this I can't take their CD's off the sound system. I keep hearing things that don't come your way very often these days. Almost experimental, radical, and to quote from one of their CD covers, "We survive against fashion, mediocrity, systematic dullness and impossible odds". Quite right, sums them up completely - can't add to that!! To prove the point, songs performed tonight were, 'This Trick Or Treat Show's No Show', 'Grand Mother, This Mill's No Good It's Broken', 'Big Skulkbones Of Lambchop Hate And All The Trimmings While You Wait', 'They Say The Messenger Is Always Shot Not Seeing He Has Eyes To Read', 'In The Authorised Manner', 'Roll Out The Man' and '(Some Of Them Ran Malice) Like A Late Night Film Show'.
Their music had touches of a modern day Captain Beefheart and a dash of early Pink Floyd with the wailing guitar and freaky keys, lyrics that Syd Barrett would've been proud of and a show that anyone would be proud of. These guys are fine musicians; you can't do this sort of stuff without having a high standard of musical competence and technical ability.
They certainly did it for me - I enjoyed this because it was different, it was off-the wall, it was quality, it was pure entertainment, it was 'a circus' on Marr's.
I'm only sorry that I didn't take my camera tonight. Oh well, I certainly will next time! Believe me, I can't wait to see them again - my kind of stuff, this!
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