On their Facebook biography, it simply says: “Electric Black are a High-Voltage, Riff Driven, Hard Rock Band from Hitchin, England”. And that suits their simple, no-frills approach. However, the four piece, have just released the fantastic “Late Night Lighting” record, and you can tell they rate it too given that their whole set is from it. Album opener “Put It Down On Me” performs that duty here as well and makes good on their promise to be influenced by Rival Sons. Guitarist Johnny Bryant can certainly mix the rifts with the best of them and singer Alistair Shiach has the power in his voice to carry these songs, Particularly on the likes of “Take The Roof Off”. Wearing his dark glasses, he looks like a rock star but it turns out he merely has a bloodshot eye, and there is nothing pretentious about the band instead the likes of “Hellfire Revival” and “Sick Of Myself” (for which they filmed a video in this very room) showcase a band with ambition and dreams – and it’s all there in the drumming of Matt Butler. Along with the way we learn that Ali is a welder by day and he is looking to escape with his music. For the previous half an hour that is what Electric Black provided. Ambition and skill mixed in equal measure they are ones to watch – promising “good honest rock for good people” as they do, is no bad thing and they make good on all of that here.
And speaking of ones to watch, The Karma Effect have been making waves of their own recently. Their last single “See You Again” was playlisted on Planet Rock” a fact singer Henry Gottelier notes with pride, saying: “That doesn’t happen to bands like us.” Yet it sort of does if the band is as good as this. They arrive on stage, to the backing of Aerosmith’s “Hearts Done Time” and whilst it might have been released before they were born it suits them perfectly. Songs like “Wrong Again” and “Mercy” have that vibe, and when they slow things down for the more Blues-orientated stuff like “Doubt She’s Coming Back” they do it with a real panache. It is inescapable this band is very good indeed. Another new song “Living It Up” rather suggests the forthcoming record is going to be something special and you will be seeing them much further up bills than this in the coming years. Both “Steal Your Heart” and “Testify” – which closes the set in raucous fashion are the work of a band that is going places, that is as plain as anything anyone has ever seen. They had already drawn rave notices from their sets with These Wicked Rivers before Christmas and it is easy to see why. Get on board now before everyone else does.
It is, I found out in research before the gig, just a little under 10 years since I first saw Bad Touch. They were opening for Sweden’s Bonafide in Leamington Spa. I can remember telling everyone about this wonderful band I’d seen.
Fast forward a decade and more or less the same guys -give or take the odd addition like brand new drummer Brad Newlands – are here tonight to kick off their Bittersweet Sensation tour. I’m still going to tell you how good they are, it’s just now Bad Touch are a classic rock band themselves.
Late last year, they put out the album that gives the tour its name. Like all Bad Touch records it’s a wonderful thing. They begin here with its title track, which is everything that is good about the band. Class, skill and fun it is just as it’s been across all their records. And when you add in the lyrics that are mostly empowering it is quite a mix as in “Lift Your Head Up”.
Singer, Stevie Westwood, subscribes to the view but if you’re going to be a front man in a rock’n’roll band you may as well look the part and the groove of “Strut” suits him as does “Dressed To Kill” – which features a solo from Newlands as if to welcome him to the fold.
The set is a mixture of the old and new, with “Good On Me (Jeans Song)” and “Slip Away” sitting side by side and it is noticeable that there are no dips in quality throughout the hour in 10 minutes the band are on stage.
There are a couple of surprises however before the end, with perhaps no one expecting a cover of Alanis Morissette’s “Hand In My Pocket” but to be fair Stevie explains it is about doing whatever you like and they make it their own. Then there is a version of “Get It On” a song they usually did with Mollie Marriott, to close the set.
Westwood returns acoustic in hand (“its my Jon Bon Jovi moment” he jokes) for “Ain’t Nothin’ Wrong With That”, which always felt like a centrepiece on the record and is a real highlight here, as the band join in for a big crescendo.
However, there is only one way this was ever going to end and it’s with “99%” and given that I’ve gone on record as saying it is one of the best songs of the last decade it is in its rightful spot.
As indeed are the band themselves. They belong on stages. There was I spell back there when if you went to a gig you probably saw them opening, and even allowing for pandemics and such it comes as a shock that it’s five years since I last saw them do this. That is too long and to watch them doing what they’re doing tonight is almost like welcoming back old friends. Straight back into the groove and like you’ve never been apart.
