Ginger Wildheart  Live In The UK

Glasgow, Garage - December 20th 2010

My head feels like it has been squeezed by a vice, my stomach is on a spin cycle and my mouth tastes like the inside of a tramps pocket.
Something could be seriously wrong with me. Maybe I should call a doctor, or then again I could just get a taxi to accident and emergency, or................wait a minute. I remember now. I was at the Ginger Wildheart gig last night.
This is just a mega hangover. Its the normal day after the night before feeling when Ginger is involved. I should have known better.
From the moment I had a sip of my first pint I think the brakes were off and that was me careening downhill towards this cranium crushing nightmare. I could say never again, but there's nothing worse than lying to yourself. I guess I have no one to blame but myself.

I suppose I should start at the beginning though. Last night The Sluts of Trust were a no show for the gig. Hurrah.
While I'm sure some people were disappointed I wasn't one of them as they do nothing for me. Instead, the reformed for one night only, Baby Chaos slipped on stage with little fanfare and did what seemed like a full set. Another hurrah.
It's all thrashing guitars, frenzied drumming and Chris leading the way in fine voice.
They may all be a little older, but that's about the only difference that I can see.
Everything clicked into place and they performed like a well oiled machine while the crowd lapped it up. You could feel the love in the room.

Many years ago Metal Hammer said that they were “one of the most underrated bands on the face of the planet” and it's as true now as it was then. While some bands grow out of the music they played in their youth others, like Baby Chaos, manage to make theirs timeless. Infectious melodic rock never actually goes out of fashion and if you do it well then you will always be relevant.

For some people the highlight of their set would have been Ginger joining them, but for me it was their run through of “love your self abuse” the title track from their second, and last, album. A song that I think should have been a single, and one that may very well have provided them with the hit that would have jettisoned them into the premier league of rock bands. Another highlight was the addition of “Confessions of a teenage pervert” in the set, but both, while being singled out here, were just two songs in a show that was brimming with excellence. I hope that the band themselves now have an appreciation of how much they are missed and maybe, just maybe,
reconsider their getting back together for just one show, and instead decide to do some more gigs with the icing on the cake being a proper full on reformation that includes new material seeing the light of day.

Ginger Wildheart and Friends are the band that virtually everyone is there to see though and when they burst onto the stage the crowd roars their approval.
The sing-a-long-a-Ginger show had definitely rolled into town.
He's up there on stage beaming like the proverbial cheshire cat and basking in the adulation that is on show and there's a great connection being forged between him, his band, and the crowd. While he is undoubtedly the ringmaster the show is at times much more a communal affair and seems less like a gig and more like a full on drunken party.
Within ten minutes plastic pint glasses are flying, people are bouncing about, and a woman to my right repeatedly slurs “sing a fuckin' song” the very second the band finish one and before they can start the next. She also does it every single time that Ginger converses with the crowd.
She's enjoying herself, but it's debatable how many people in earshot of her are.
Give her ten years and she will be the drunken auntie at the family wedding hitting on the best man and probably ending the night by sitting in a pool of her own pish and sobbing about how no one likes here. Thankfully Ginger and friends are more than a match when it comes to being a distraction though, and while she is a royal pain in the arse she isn't up to ruining the night.
By the time the band are ploughing through “my baby is a headfuck” I've managed to tune her out and I think everyone in the Garage would agree with me that this was the place to be on a cold Monday night in Glasgow. It's pretty much a full on and in your face show. Even when they get a young guy to join them on stage to play along it's done at breakneck speed, and it really has to be said that he more than keeps up, and even muscles his way in to do some backing vocals to.
Ballsy move young man.

The addition to the line up is a nice touch, and one that makes the Green Day pantomime of getting kids out of the crowd to play look staged and pathetically theatrical. By the time the last strains of “caffeine bomb” are rung out I think I might of sweated all the alcohol out of my system and sung myself hoarse while doing so.
In fact “Suckerpunch” should have finished me off, but I managed to key into a second wind and keep roaring through “I wanna go where the people go” along with everyone else before Ginger finally gave us all a slight reprieve to catch our breaths while he did whatever he does backstage prior to coming back on for an encore.
It's not long however before he is back on stage and conducting the crowd through a rendition of “Geordie in Wonderland”. Wonderful stuff indeed and one of those moments where you have to tell people that they had to be there to really get it.
When the rest of the band return to join the lone Ginger we were then treated to a Ramones-esque mach speed blast of “just in lust, sonic shake, sick of drugs” and finally the show closer “29 x the pain.” It was still early, but as the venue turns into some kind of student disco/rave type thing everyone was ushered to the door as soon as the lights came up.
Not many of us really wanted the night to end though. So on leaving the venue virtually everyone relocated to the bars on the opposite side of the street.
We found ourselves in “Nice and Sleazy” and in hindsight this was the beginning of my downfall. Jaegerbombs began to appear and disappear as fast, and when they ran out of Red Bull then Bobby, of Baby Chaos, and myself started in on straight shots and I chased mine with pints of lager.
Crap was talked, drink was drunk, manly hugs were exchanged, a fella called Tam and myself were asked to leave the downstairs venue for talking too loudly while someone played a violin by candlelight, more drink was drunk, CJ of Tragic City Thieves and Billy Liar of...........well Billy Liar were threatened with ejection - not as much fun as ejaculation - for being too tall and blocking peoples view of the person playing the violin, and then even more drink was drunk.
It was no surprise when Ginger and his friends arrived and guess what?
That's right. Everyone kept drinking.

Sailors on shore leave would have had trouble keeping up. In fact by the very end of the evening I was having a bit of trouble simply keeping upright, never mind keeping up. Then yesterday became today and that's where this review started.

Mainy