GIG NUMBER EIGHTY-SEVEN
Who
As expected most of the crowd were geriatric, although there were a handful of younger people like me present. Whereas Jerry Lee Lewis had successfully attracted a younger generation of fans, this appeared to be a purely nostalgia show, showing that most acts from the 60s are long-forgotten by all but those who were there, now wanting a night out to while away their retirement. The doors were curtained off during the performance and clearly we were being discouraged from popping out. There was a bar to the right and also a refreshments stand to the other side. The seats towards the back were raised and we were right in the middle of these. They were rather rickety and uncomfortable so I'm not sure how the older people coped with them! I also couldn't get my head around how small this place was: a few hundred seated at most! The show started promptly for Dave Berry and I knew this wouldn't be in the upper echelon of my gigging experiences when NOBODY clapped the band onstage. I don't think I'd ever know such indifference, and with such a shit crowd the artists were facing an uphill struggle: This was the worst crowd I'd experienced since at The Supernaturals! It was a strange start, as the band were playing and then Dave Berry suddenly started sliding onto the stage. It seemed some attempt at a dramatic entrance but with so little reaction it took a while to realise we were supposed to even be looking at him.
Dave Berry is a Gandalf look-alike with a handful of minor hits: Baby It's You, Memphis Tennessee and The Crying Game. I believe he opened with Memphis Tennessee and saved the entirely pleasant Crying Game for the closer. After forty years in the business he was quite professional calling us a "too polite" rather than "fucking shit" crowd and surprisingly still had kept the features of his younger self. His banter was typical ageist material, asking if we were being quiet because we were amazed at how young he looked (he did indeed look quite healthy for his age). The most interesting thing was his dancing, as he just seemed to slip and slide around the stage with no sense of rhythm and infinite randomness: It just came across as rather freaky and weird!! His band featured a very young guy on second guitar who seemed to have too much talent to remain stuck on the nostalgia circuit for the rest of his life. He also introduced one of the guys as having played with him for twenty years, boasted of having played with Jimmy Page and joked about not being much of a songwriter due to having quite enough trouble managing to even sing the songs! The height of rebellion on show was pretending to steal one of the random pink person-shaped cut-outs on stage, then putting it back carefully to ensure no damage was done! At the end of the set he forced us to stand (it was quite funny watching the handful of people refusing to stand AND looking miserable) and clap a bit to finally prove to him that we hadn't all expired due to old age. It was a reasonable show, and by the standards of a supporting artist he wasn't that bad.
During the interval we checked out the venue a bit and stretched our legs. I had a cheap version of a magnum and we passed a random sellotape/paper sculpture upstairs. Dave Berry was signing stuff in the lobby (for a fee of course!) and generally there was a nice atmosphere. Due to their being no smoking except for in the bar it was nice to be out and not having to worry about stinking out my clothes. Most enticing future gig being advertised on the walls was Kevin Bloody Wilson, although I'd hardly go by myself just to see him play Alice, Who The Fuck Is Alice, no matter how amusing a song that may be. After it was announced we all had five minutes to get back into our seats, we returned into the main room to watch Mike Pender's Searchers. This was a much better set, but he hardly helped matters by opening with anonymous b-sides and by looking just like Gary Glitter! Unlike the official band, he dressed casually and not in funeral attire, but like the official band he promised to play "all the hits". It wasn't very encouraging to hear him talking about playing the hits as if it was a bold and daring idea, and suggesting he normally just does them briefly in a medley. I'm very pleased I didn't see him do that, and if you're on the nostalgia circuit you can't expect to get away with such self-indulgence.
He had problems with his guitar, and joked that after 40 years he still couldn't do it right. However, he finally stirred the crowd into some vague action, and they were now clapping a bit, singing along when instructed and laughing more heartily at his jokes. Love Potion No. 9 picked the pace up, and he told us about it being a hit in the U.S. His banter was quite effective, including the customary piss-take of Cannock, which he claimed to have looked around in five minutes, which sounds about right. He also showed us his setlist, which was printed in super-large type to accommodate his eyesight, and played us some stuff from the album The Searchers made in the 1980s which they'd hoped would get them back into the charts. He never mentioned leaving the group though, so presumably that is still a touchy subject for him. Getting onto the hits, he played Sugar And Spice, which The Searchers hadn't bothered with when I saw them, plus particularly nice versions of Sweets From My Sweet and Don't Throw Your Love Away. He even had a reasonable lightshow and asked us what hits we wanted, before telling us pointedly that they were all in the set anyway! I felt quite worried about being singled out from the crowd, as I was wearing one of my louder shirts, but fortunately I was left alone.
He played a very nice version of What Have You Done To The Rain and also an Irish folk song, which I thought was shit but went down a storm with most of the crowd, even though no-one would admit to coming from Ireland. He saved most of the hits for towards the end. His voice was quite strong, but sadly the guitar problems let down When You Walk In The Room, which The Searchers had performed 100 times better. I can't remember most of his chit-chat, although he did often use the phrase "in this business" which started to grate a little, and he also joked about a party who'd came here by limo, saying he thought it was Dave Berry. Upon introducing the band he told us one of them had been with him since he'd gone solo 20 years ago and showed off that the other guitarist used to tour with Herman's Hermit's. He was encouraged to burst into an excellent snippet of I'm Into Something Good, and then the show moved on. There was an outburst as the drummer wasn't mentioned though, and it turned out to be a cheeky deliberate snub. It was in fact Mike's son on drums, and it was his birthday today. Anyway, I seem to be reviewing the middle of the show now, but as I've mentioned everything of note I will finish this off. I think he ended with a hit and we made our way back to the car park. It was a moderately interesting night out, albeit not up to my usual standards. Both acts were reasonable, so it was mainly the poor crowd who let the atmosphere down!
Mark: 6.5/10
Mike Pender's Searchers
Dave Berry
Where
Cannock Prince Of Wales Centre
When
28th September 2006
Price
£15.00 (FREE for me!)
Who with
Dad
Position
Seated, towards the back
Comments
Perhaps a lowering of standards, but my Dad persuaded me to go and, as I had nothing better planned and it was free for me, I decided I'd got nothing to lose. This was my third "nostalgia" show following on from the Solid Silver 60s Tour in 2005 and Jerry Lee Lewis the previous month. It was at a much lower level to those shows though: Mike Pender's Searchers are not the official article despite featuring an original member and Dave Berry is hardly a big name in my world. This would explain why this show was at the relatively small Prince Of Wales theatre in Cannock, where I'd never been before for a gig. I heard some tunes before attending, and I also have had the experience of seeing The "proper" Searchers before so knew quite a bit about them. It was a normal workday so I went home, got changed, then we ventured out by car. Cannock is quite close so it wasn't much of a journey, and we drove up the unusual double car park where you have to drive up one multi storey and cross over into a second one with a very low roof where you are allowed to stop. The Prince Of Wales Centre has a very small stage, and the entrance is a little tower (stairway) leading up into the building. In fact I have been here a few times before in my youth, including a viewing of Button Moon live, which I still have a vague recollection of: Tonight had a lot to live up to! Cannock was completely deserted and although they've made some efforts to modernise it is still a very small, unfashionable town.
