“Hello, I’m Jeff Lynne. Or maybe Dave Lee Travis,” says the man in the black and white checked suit. “Anyway, here’s a song about fascism.”
Let’s be honest, this is the third time I’ve seen Willie Dowling and the Invisible Band this year and the second in a matter of weeks. So I know what’s coming and I know it’s going to be fantastic. Even if—as he’d probably acknowledge himself—he is something of an acquired taste.
“Long Drop Down” is that song about fascism—important especially given the rise of the populist right throughout the world, and if that sounds a bit weighty for what is a rock ‘n’ roll review, then it also sums Dowling up. The music is happy. The lyrics are anything but.
“The Cure” takes in mental illness, “Sadie Goldman” sees life from the perspective of a lonely divorcee, and “The Gravy Train” excoriates the political class from all sides, but it’s all done so jauntily.
He’s just released “The Simpleton” album, and “I Killed My Imaginary Friend” from it recalls Sparks more each time I hear it, before “Fuck You, Goodbye” cheerily rails against Trump (for now, but the targets will move).
Self-deprecation is a Dowling trait, and although he introduces “Vera Daydream” as “the only good thing I wrote for the band I had in the 1980s,” I can confirm The Grip were way better than that.
Nonetheless, it wouldn’t be Willie Dowling if he took it all that seriously, would it? But here, with his mate Andy on bass as ever, he showcases yet again that no one does it quite like him.
Not for nothing, you suspect, does Cats in Space’s show end with “I Fell Out of Love With Rock ‘n’ Roll,” as we’ve all done it. Kind of, anyway. Nu metal, grunge, and pop punk meant 1997–2002 or so for me was somewhat desolate.
I’ve always wondered if that’s how the band started. Was there no one playing the music they wanted to hear, so Greg Hands and Stevi Bacon decided to do something about it?
The new album being called “The Time Machine” is not without irony because the best thing about Cats in Space is that watching them is like a window to a world where bombast is king, and the harmonies are stacked high.
They might start with “Too Many Gods,” the first track on their debut album, but the Cats are keen to give the new record its full nine lives. Well, they might, too. It’s superb, as the Who-flavoured title track rather neatly underlines.
I’ve seen the band in arenas, and the bass line of “Clown in Your Nightmare” belongs there. It’s being played by Ricky Howard tonight (son of guitarist Dean) as usual; four-stringer Jeff Brown has some family issues (we wish him well), but the sentiment is the same: big, brash, and proud.
They all are, in their different ways—and it is striking how much colour is in a CIS set. “Broken Hearted” gives Hands and the older Howard the chance to stretch themselves, but that’s before “Immortal” injects some real energy into things.
The acoustic guitar is out for “Bootleg Bandeleros,” and it confirms two things: first, Cats In Space are just fans like everyone here, but also that they would turn themselves into a prog band given even the sniff of a chance.
“Occam’s Razor (Not The End Of The World)” is not just the best thing on “…..Machine,” but perhaps the best thing they’ve ever done. They follow it up with the incredible disco of “Thunder In The Night”—so out there that Night Flight Orchestra are blushing in the corner—and that is all you need to know.
Well, that and the fact that the Cats are a phenomenal band. One that echoes Mott The Hoople on “The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party,” and if Brown’s presence on “The Greatest Story Never Told” is missed, then Damien Edwards’s background vocals on stage mean he pulls it off with aplomb.
The encore sees them perform “Hologram Man.” The song calls for authenticity in music, and given that’s all Cats In Space deal in, they know what they’re talking about.
And they’re music lifers. When they finish with “….Rock n’ Roll,” there are pictures of them on the big screen, and they mean it. They’ve always meant it.
More than that, though, although they’ve always been great, Cats In Space—both on record and on stage—are getting better.
