Hamburg Blues Band– Metropolis Munich 23rd September
Setlist: Set 1: Rockin' Chair / Make My Day / Trouble Man / Bad To The Bone / Can't Last Forever / It Ain't Right / Into The Night / Hold Back Set 2: Crazy 'Bout My Baby / Lonesome Road / Don't Wanna Sing The Blues / Fog On The Highway / Shaky Ground / Don't Wanna Love You / Hard To Get Along With / Sing The Blues For You / Easy As That / All Or Nothing // Got What I Want / Out Of Time
Right in the middle of the first week of Oktoberfest came a gig I’d been eagerly anticipating for about six months: The Hamburg Blues Band featuring Chris Farlowe and Clem Clempson.
I am a huge Chris Farlowe fan. He is one of the few singers who actually sounds better live than on any of his numerous recordings. So much of what I listen to on a regular basis features his vocals and he is the only person I can think of who has had recorded in so many different musical genres: Skiffle (The John Henry Skiffle Group); Popular Music (Handbags and Gladrags, Out of Time); Blues (Stormy Monday Blues); R ‘n’ B (Chris Farlowe and The Thunderbirds); Soul (hit covers of In the Midnight Hour, Mr Pitiful, Satisfaction, and Who Can I Turn To); Jazz Rock (Colosseum); Rock (Atomic Rooster) and (Jimmy Page’s solo recording Outrider), and that is only the ones I can think of off the top of my head. If you look up legend in the dictionary, Chris’s picture should be right there.
His path hasn’t been an easy one though and, his awesome talent notwithstanding, he has had periods of obscurity and has, unbelievably, often been without a record deal. Nevertheless, he continues to keep up a gruelling touring schedule to this day, in spite of recently celebrating his 69th birthday, touring in his own right, with the fantastic Norman Beaker Band, Colosseum, Alan Price (see the Blackpool section) and The Hamburg Blues Band.
The Hamburg Blues Band is a superb group of talented musicians fronted by one Gert Lange and, on this occasion, supplemented by Chris and Colosseum cohort, guitarist extraordinaire, Clem Clempson. For those of you who have never heard of Clem, he is mostly known for his most excellent guitar playing in Colosseum, and Humble Pie. Still none the wiser? Oh dear, we do need to work on your musical education, don’t we? ;-)
Anyhoo, to the gig. The show started off with a set from just the band and Clem, Gert taking lead vocal duties. This in itself is worth the price of admission. Rarely will you go to see a band with this much talent and experience, developed by playing live over many years, and fail to be impressed. In fact, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons with Chris’s other sometime partners in crime, The Norman Beaker Band. (I have seen Norman play live many times, as he was a friend of a friend of mine, Mick Schofield, who promoted Blues gigs in the Blackpool area in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, many showcasing Norman, both in his own right, as well as backing such legends as Jack Bruce. I have seen also seen Norman and Chris live too…)
The Hamburg Blues Band rocks like a bunch of bastards, their original material sounding very strong; certainly good enough for me to buy their latest CD, at any rate, Rockin’ Chair being a fantastic song to kick off the set with.
After a short break, they returned to the stage along with Chris to kick some serious ass. If I need to tell you how good this bit was, you wouldn’t understand. Suffice it to say that by the time they got to All or Nothing, the management of The Metropolis were ringing around for quotes to replace the roof. A couple of encores were much appreciated and finishing the evening with OOT seemed, somehow appropriate.
Being pretty fast, as they went off, I snatched Gert’s setlist and hung around for a while to get Chris, Gert and Clem to sign my CD and pilfered booty. Clem never did appear but I had a nice chat with Chris who said that Colosseum would be touring in 2010. Gert signed my [his] setlist, reprimanding me for my light-fingeredness, and I wandered off a happy bunny.
Sometimes you build a gig up so much that it can never live up to your expectations, no matter how good. Other times, some bands are just so damned good that your expectations are just blown to smithereens. Fortunately for me, the latter has been the case in recent years. Maybe it’s because the bands I am going to see are just so good and have been around a long time and they just know how to do the business. Not for me this manufactured pop pap. Give me a
few good guys, who can really play it right, any day.
Mark L. Potts
The God of Thunder
24th September 2009
I am a huge Chris Farlowe fan. He is one of the few singers who actually sounds better live than on any of his numerous recordings. So much of what I listen to on a regular basis features his vocals and he is the only person I can think of who has had recorded in so many different musical genres: Skiffle (The John Henry Skiffle Group); Popular Music (Handbags and Gladrags, Out of Time); Blues (Stormy Monday Blues); R ‘n’ B (Chris Farlowe and The Thunderbirds); Soul (hit covers of In the Midnight Hour, Mr Pitiful, Satisfaction, and Who Can I Turn To); Jazz Rock (Colosseum); Rock (Atomic Rooster) and (Jimmy Page’s solo recording Outrider), and that is only the ones I can think of off the top of my head. If you look up legend in the dictionary, Chris’s picture should be right there.
His path hasn’t been an easy one though and, his awesome talent notwithstanding, he has had periods of obscurity and has, unbelievably, often been without a record deal. Nevertheless, he continues to keep up a gruelling touring schedule to this day, in spite of recently celebrating his 69th birthday, touring in his own right, with the fantastic Norman Beaker Band, Colosseum, Alan Price (see the Blackpool section) and The Hamburg Blues Band.
The Hamburg Blues Band is a superb group of talented musicians fronted by one Gert Lange and, on this occasion, supplemented by Chris and Colosseum cohort, guitarist extraordinaire, Clem Clempson. For those of you who have never heard of Clem, he is mostly known for his most excellent guitar playing in Colosseum, and Humble Pie. Still none the wiser? Oh dear, we do need to work on your musical education, don’t we? ;-)
Anyhoo, to the gig. The show started off with a set from just the band and Clem, Gert taking lead vocal duties. This in itself is worth the price of admission. Rarely will you go to see a band with this much talent and experience, developed by playing live over many years, and fail to be impressed. In fact, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons with Chris’s other sometime partners in crime, The Norman Beaker Band. (I have seen Norman play live many times, as he was a friend of a friend of mine, Mick Schofield, who promoted Blues gigs in the Blackpool area in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, many showcasing Norman, both in his own right, as well as backing such legends as Jack Bruce. I have seen also seen Norman and Chris live too…)
The Hamburg Blues Band rocks like a bunch of bastards, their original material sounding very strong; certainly good enough for me to buy their latest CD, at any rate, Rockin’ Chair being a fantastic song to kick off the set with.
After a short break, they returned to the stage along with Chris to kick some serious ass. If I need to tell you how good this bit was, you wouldn’t understand. Suffice it to say that by the time they got to All or Nothing, the management of The Metropolis were ringing around for quotes to replace the roof. A couple of encores were much appreciated and finishing the evening with OOT seemed, somehow appropriate.
Being pretty fast, as they went off, I snatched Gert’s setlist and hung around for a while to get Chris, Gert and Clem to sign my CD and pilfered booty. Clem never did appear but I had a nice chat with Chris who said that Colosseum would be touring in 2010. Gert signed my [his] setlist, reprimanding me for my light-fingeredness, and I wandered off a happy bunny.
Sometimes you build a gig up so much that it can never live up to your expectations, no matter how good. Other times, some bands are just so damned good that your expectations are just blown to smithereens. Fortunately for me, the latter has been the case in recent years. Maybe it’s because the bands I am going to see are just so good and have been around a long time and they just know how to do the business. Not for me this manufactured pop pap. Give me a
few good guys, who can really play it right, any day.
Mark L. Potts
The God of Thunder
24th September 2009