At the start of “Glorybound”, Tuk Smith and the Restless Hearts strike their best rock-star poses.
It looks completely natural, too. There are no traces of irony and absolutely no embarrassment. This is simply what rock ’n’ roll bands are supposed to do.
The first time I saw Smith, back when he was fronting Biters, I became convinced that the man had been born to save rock ’n’ roll. I am still convinced now.
Admittedly, that sounds like a bit of a stretch when he is playing to perhaps 150 people in Wolverhampton rather than headlining the arena – or even the stadium – where he belongs. Nobody ever said the man couldn’t dream, though, and nobody told him he wasn’t already a star.
“Let’s have a rock ’n’ roll show,” he says.
That is exactly what follows, with the gig beginning with “Little Renegade”.
“I ain’t looking for trouble,” he sings on “Lookin’ For Love, Ready For War”, over a riff AC/DC would have been proud of. Yet there is always the sense that if trouble was available, Smith would probably know where to find it. He has that dangerous, street-corner swagger about him.
“Sadie Mae” slows things down, but even the ballads carry the loose-limbed feel of the Rolling Stones and a glorious 1960s shimmer. “Same Old You” opens another page of the Great American Songbook, Smith sounding like someone who understands that the best rock ’n’ roll songs should feel as though they have always existed.
Then there is the title track from “Ballad Of A Misspent Youth”. Everything about it works, from the bass-led opening to the way it gradually builds. New drummer Ricky Ferrilli brings plenty of power, while guitarist Tobin Dale and bassist Matthew “Ponyboy” Curtis give the songs exactly the mixture of muscle and melody they require.
The thing about Smith is that he never attempts to hide his influences. He wears them like tattoos.
“This is one I wrote, but I ripped Thin Lizzy off,” he jokes before “Girls On The East Side Of Town”.
Good. Why pretend otherwise? Rock ’n’ roll has always been about taking what came before, giving it a fresh coat of paint and carrying it somewhere new. Smith understands the lineage, but he possesses enough personality to ensure that everything still sounds unmistakably like him.
“Ain’t For The Faint” has enough swagger to close a show in an arena. “Troubled Paradise” sits just on the right side of sleazy, includes a perfectly placed snippet of “All The Young Dudes” and finishes with an actual snippet of Queen.
The audience clearly knows this material and, more importantly, cares about it. That becomes obvious when Smith introduces “Gypsy Rose”, explaining that he has never played a Biters song during one of these shows. What begins as a nod to his former band becomes unexpectedly emotional.
It is also a glam-rock stomp worthy of T. Rex, and a reminder of how much history, frustration and sheer bloody-minded determination sits behind these songs.
“Runnin’ With The Wild Ones” keeps the momentum going. Then, before leaving the stage, Smith tells the crowd that when the band returns, everyone is going to make believe they are playing a massive arena.
Why not? They already sound like they are.
“I love the fake encore,” he says. “It makes the hours in a van worthwhile.”
Technical difficulties briefly delay that encore before the band launches into The Replacements’ “Bastards Of Young”. Jesse Malin once turned the song into a slow, bruised ballad; Smith takes the opposite approach, playing it as a full-blooded rocker with the melodic rush of Cheap Trick.
That comparison is especially appropriate given the Cheap Trick-inspired merchandise on sale. Again, he is not concealing anything. These are his heroes, this is his world and he is proud to belong to it.
The magnificent “Take The Long Way” brings the evening to a close. Unbiased opinion has never been much fun, so let us simply say it: this might be the best rock song released in the last five years. Supremely tuneful and beautifully constructed, it contains everything Smith does so well.
He is a wonderful guitar player, a wonderful songwriter and a genuine rock star.
Why he isn’t one of the biggest in the world is anybody’s guess. But whether he is playing to 150 people at KK’s Steel Mill or imagining himself in a packed stadium, Tuk Smith performs as though rock ’n’ roll still matters more than anything else.
Maybe that is how you save it.
