OK, I know, this is threatening to turn into a music blog about Gary Go rather than gigs generally but bear with me…. I went to see Gary Go at a very low profile gig at the Soul Tree in Cambridge which was acting as a warm up for the Take That support slots that kick off this month; excitingly his debut album had also just come out and was flying high in the iTunes chart. Actually, the gig was so low profile that it wasn’t in the local paper and he hadn’t even admitted to it on any of his online presences, of which there are far too many (at last count he had 3 of his own websites, a blog, a fan forum, and profiles on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Bebo, YouTube, audioboo….all being updated at different times with different things – sometimes less is more). Sorry, rant over. As I was saying, the gig was somewhat under the radar it was unsurprising that the turn out was small and although perfectly formed – possibly not the best preparation for a stadium tour…?Support was forthcoming from local boy Tom Copson, who is a one man singer/songwriter. General feeling from the crowd was that he had a Jeff Buckley sound about him, and he coped very well with the intimacy of the gig and the slightly boisterous nature of the people who were there. I was inspired to check him out on MySpace (you can do too if you click here) and it’s also worth mentioning that he has some music available for download on iTunes. We saw him after the gig and he seemed like a nice chap.
After only a short wait, Gary Go and his band came on to the small stage and opened up (appropriately) with Open Arms. Their set was plagued with technical difficulties – one of Gary’s keyboards didn’t work until three quarters of the way through the set and he also had problems with one of his microphones (unfortunately the one that was attached to the working keyboard…), while lead guitarist Andreas couldn’t get any sound out of his acoustic guitar at all and had to swap instruments half way through a song. This isn’t the best omen for their support slots for Take That and bass player Tim quipped that they wouldn’t be supporting for very long unless things improved.
Despite this, the band are a really great set of musicians and they coped with the technical problems really well. Gary was on good form and it was great to hear the different arrangements of the songs that will be blasting out from the various stadia over the next few weeks. Rockier versions of Black and White Days and Life Gets In The Way were forthcoming, although they shied away from playing the rockiest number in the GG cannon – Refuse to Lose – even though it was on set list for the encore. Actually, this was the first time I had seen Gary with a prepared encore, which excitingly included The Diary of Rodney Harvey, which I haven’t heard before and was apparently the first time it’s been performed live. With a bit of persuading from the audience, the band also pulled off an impromptu performance of Brooklyn, which Gary says he hates playing but I for one really like.
The next time I see Gary Go will be in the big top of the Take That Circus tour. Given the quality of his songs and general brilliantness of the band as a whole I suspect there won’t be any more gigs like The Soul Tree…and while I will be thrilled for MrG as it’s nothing less than he deserves, I’m sure myself and the rest of the Go Go Girls will miss them.
Gary Go kicks off Take That’s Circus tour on June 5th in Sunderland
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