The music clatters along with a familiar rambunctious swagger, the heavier Jackals’ songs like Glory Days and A Storm Is Coming delivered with conspicuous attack. Playing a career-spanning mix of Libertines, Dirty Pretty Things and Jackals tunes, Carl’s the epitome of cool throughout.Īt one point he even gets a punter in the front row to hold his guitar while he takes off his leather jacket.
#Glen matlock age series
Match fit and brimming with confidence after a series of tour dates, Barat and his band tore into the set like a pack of rabid dogs. “To Camden we will crawl” The Libertines sang on Fame and Fortune and Sunday’s Dingwalls show certainly felt like a homecoming for Carl Barat. Given the ecstatic reception they got for The Girl From Mars, we might yet see the revenge of nerds enter the next generation. I’d honestly forgotten how good they were, but I was in a minority of one, as The Electric Ballroom bounced and sang along to such guaranteed crowd-pleasers as Oh Yeah, Annabel and their salute to chop-socky, Fu Manchu.Įndearingly geeky with their love of martial arts, cartoons, sci-fi and video games, Ash are like The Big Bang Theoryof rock. The hits fly by at quantum speed, Wheeler and bassist Mark Hamilton nonchalantly blending subtle skill with brazen showmanship. Strapping on his trademark Flying V, he bashes out a couple of deafening, distorted power chords and it’s clear from the outset – Ash are here to rock. Then again, given he was just a teenager when Ash first hit the airwaves in 1996, it’s perhaps not quite so surprising. Please don’t do that again – it’s incredibly disrespectful.Īsh’s Tim Wheeler seems remarkably youthful for someone who’s been doing this music biz thing for the best part of a quarter century. The only downer was the guy who spent virtually the whole gig filming on his mobile – his selfie stick shoved about two inches from poor Glen’s grizzled fizzog. Keep On Pushing– the lead track from latest album Good To Go – gets the joint jumping as we build to the inevitable big finish, Pretty Vacant, Glen’s single greatest gift to the Pistols.Ī fine set, which had the added appeal of feeling like a secret show. There are some well chosen covers, such as Scott Walker‘s Montague Terrace In Blueand Richard Hell‘s Blank Generation – which Glen introduces as “the most punk song ever written”. Improvising wildly, the stick thin guitarist adds gloss to Glen’s down and dirty rock ‘n’ roll rhythms. Yet here they were playing their hearts out on a tiny stage to an indecently small audience, whose average age must have been pushing 60.īut with age comes wisdom and judging by the stupefied grins on the many of the faces around me, it was clear that those who’d managed to drag themselves away from the Champions League Final, couldn’t quite believe their luck.Īlways an engaging character, Glen’s on fine form and it’s wonderful to be to see Slick up close and personal. Earl Slick was the man who stood to the left of David Bowie as they toured the world’s megadomes. Glen Matlock was the bassist in The Sex Pistols– you might have heard of them. Glen and Earl – Picture by Svenja Block (– do not reproduce without permission Tragically I left before the stagediving, but there were a couple of bona fide rock icons I wanted to catch on The Fest stage at Stables Market. Overjoyed to be back in North London, he was clearly among friends, with the audience eagerly helping him out with the lyrics for songs old and new. Watching him hold a rapt audience in the palm of his hand – armed with just a microphone and an acoustic guitar was something to behold. It’s not easy to find new paths on a road well travelled by the likes of Billy Bragg and The Levellers, but with seven albums under his belt Frank’s certainly making a decent stab at it.Īnd there’s no doubting his power as a performer. The bearded bard of Meonstoke is something of a phenomenon, shifting units aplenty with his affirmative take on punk folk. With time perilously short on the Saturday (don’t ask!), I headed down to a packed Electric Ballroom to catch a bit of the night’s headline act Frank Turner.