Never The Bride: St Georges

Monday 11th January 2010

This is a Crackerjack review of Never the Bride. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.

Crackerjack rating: 8 / 10.

Power rockers Never The Bride had taken a massive gamble with this gig. Mindful of this venue’s famous acoustics, they had decided to do a completely unplugged performance.

It was anyone’s guess how their songs would sound without their meaty arrangements and with Catherine Feeney playing the venue’s grand piano, the guitarist and bassist playing acoustic instruments and drummer Richie Newman swapping his sticks for brushes. 

It was also going to be interesting to see how their audience would react in such elegant surroundings.

The massive cheer that greeted the band showed that their fans were not going to be over-awed by the surroundings and opening number, the big ballad Language Of Love, quickly dispelled any concerns that their music might sound thin without it usual power and wattage.

Bristol-born singer Nikki Lamborn was given an early chance to show why her gutsy voice is so often compared to that of Janis Joplin on an a capella version of Mercedes Benz.

And even Dusty Springfield would have approved of her version of Take Another Piece Of My Heart.

The mood softened for How Do You Sleep and the very moving Mind The Child, while The Miracle Of Life really rocked and had the audience enthusiastically singing along.

But the big number of the first half was of course their original version of The Living Tree, the song that gave Dame Shirley Bassey a welcomed return to the pop charts.

Beth Rowley had failed to turn up for her advertised guest spot but Never The Bride returned in the second half with Bristol guitar legend Steve Payne as special guest.

His slide playing gave Lullaby a haunting Ry Cooder-like quality, he gave their new song Don’t Trudge Mud At The House Of Love a really stonking dirty blues feel, and his playing on House Of The Rising Sun was stunning.

You had to wonder if Dame Shirley had missed a trick by not covering their song Tiger Bay instead of the Manics’ Girl From Tiger Bay.

And the slow, emotion-loaded If I Close My Eyes had the audience on their feet in appreciation.

Call It Love rocked so much this suddenly started to feel more like a typical Never The Bride gig, and closing song Welcome To My World had the audience on their feet and dancing in the aisles.

Despite the gig having already gone over curfew, the crowd reaction was so energetic that there might have been a riot if the band had not come back and done one more song, the brand new How Many Days.

Yes this gig was a gamble and it could have been disastrous but thanks to superb musicianship and Lamborn’s incredible voice and great stage presence it turned out to be a triumph.

And we can experience it all over again in a few months time as it was all being recorded for their next album.

Keith Clark

This is a Crackerjack review of Never the Bride. Do you agree? Rate and review this event.