The Loveless have been described as Britain’s best garage rock band and comprise Marc Almond, long-term sideman/guitarist Neal X (Neal Whitmore) once of Sigue Sigue Sputnik, Iggy Pop’s s touring rhythm section, Mat Hector, and Ben Ellis, plus keyboard maestro James Beaumont. I was recollecting on the way to the gig when I last saw Marc Almond and realised it was July 1981 as part of Soft Cell at the Holy City Zoo, a club underneath the railway arches that lead to Snow Hill station in the city centre. A matter of weeks before `Tainted Love` was released and accelerated them to immortality. Neal X was with Sigue in March 2001 at The Old Railway in Curzon Street, which is now swallowed up by the Hs2 project, during the period when the band had reformed.
The quintet arrive in Birmingham on the penultimate date of a five date soirée around the UK ending at the 100 club in London this Friday.
There`s little fuss as the band arrive on stage and share a mixture of numbers from their forthcoming album ‘Meet The Loveless’ due out in the new year, some new tunes, along with other covers from the seventies and eighties and a couple of their own former band hits.
First up is a self-written track, the blistering `Wild In The Streets` followed by the suggestive `Putty In Your Hands` a track that has been covered by both The Shirelles and The Yardbirds. `You’re Gonna Miss Me` is a psychedelic come garage rock cover of the sadly missed 13th Floor Elevators, while retro `Shape Of Things To Come` is similarly hallucinogenic. `Nothing At All` is another band original before the fellas share a Kinks b side with `I’m Not Like Everybody Else` which Mr Almond really revels in and makes his own, throwing shapes this way and that.
Local band The Sorrow from Coventry are covered as they are on the new release with the edgy `Take A Heart` before heading into another psychedelic tinged composition with `The Dream In My Mind` before another cut from the new album with the suggestive `Hot Hard And Ready`. Marc Almond`s voice comes to the fore with `Sticks and Stones` and the stunning ballad `Hurt Me` his tribute to Johnny Thunders.
We enjoy a triple Alice Cooper segment with 1971`s `Is It My Body`, `Under My Wheels`, and 1973`s `Elected` before Neal X steps forward and shares Sigue Sigue Sputnik`s 1986 hit `Love Missile F1-11` which for me sounded fairly futuristic back in the day and really holds up.
The final part of tonight`s show tipped it`s hat to the seventies with oddly a cover of Deep Purple`s `Black Night` which was really interesting, Glam rocks trailblazers T Rex and Sweet with `20th Century Boy` and `Ballroom Blitz` respectively before closing the show with a final cut from the forthcoming release with the funky `I’ll Be Gone`.
The band discuss the merits of walking off stage only to return for an encore but decide to remain where they are and send this packed crowd off with a rendition of Soft Cell`s at the time controversial number `Sex Dwarf`.
A covers band? or Vintage rock and r&b, who knows and let`s be honest neither me nor the other three hundred souls in this sold out venue really cared. We just wallowed in ninety minutes of pure unadulterated entertainment before we headed out into the wet, wild, dank, and dark December night in our nation`s second city with a smile on our faces and a satisfied glow inside.
The new album ‘Meet The Loveless’ due in January sounds a cracker from what was shared tonight, and we can only hope it`ll entice the band to head out once again to flesh out those tunes in a live situation, and hopefully, once again in Brum.
PHOTO KEITH PEARCE
