WaterboysFans - Review

THE WATERBOYS, HALDEN, SWEDEN
13TH JULY 2001
REVIEW BY ANDY WALKER

Band:
-----
Mike Scott
Richard Naiff
Steve Wickham
Jo Wadeson
Ray Fean

Setlist:
--------
Let It Happen
Charlatan's Lament
Strange Boat
Fisherman's Blues (band version)
We Will Not Be Lovers
All The Things She Gave Me
Dumbing Down The World
I Know She's In The Building
Is She Conscious
When Ye Go Away (Mike/Richard/Steve)
Crown (Jo & Ray return for instrumental second half)
Medicine Bow
The Return Of Pan/The Pan Within
Savage Earth Heart
-
The Whole Of The Moon

It was 18:30 on Friday afternoon. I put on my leather jacket, grabbed
some cassettes and get into the car. I had a 2 hour drive ahead of me,
as Halden is almost 100 miles from home. Fortunately the Friday rush
traffic had already subsided before I hit the road. Mile after mile
flew, window down, sunroof open, in the company of The Clash's Combat
Rock, Spear of Destiny's World Service and the first Generation X
album.

Following the signs for Halden town centre, I swung into the first car
park I could find, then scoured the map book to try and find the
street I needed. Lady luck was shining on me last night. My randomly
picked car park was about 200 yards from the top of the street I
needed. 5 minutes later and I was standing outside the Student Union
building in Halden, full of anticipation, not least as this was the
first time ever I was going to see Steve Wickham in a rock guise.

First a quiet beer in the bar, and then a reconnaissance trip up to
the second floor where the concert hall was. The doors to the hall
were open, so I looked in to see if anybody "familiar" was
around. But as the security guard was politely telling me to get lost
I heard the strains of a violin from the floor above. So they're up
there thought I, and a grin formed on my face as the security guard
closed the doors with himself on the inside. I grabbed my chance and
skipped up the flight of steps while nobody was looking. The sound of
the fiddle was glorious, the stairwell adding a reverberance to the
sound. On the next landing I found the fiddler. "Mr. Wickham!", says
I. "Have we met?", asked Wicko, shaking my hand. After reminding him
that we met at Lee-on-Solent after the Gosport show, we exchanged a
few words about amongst other things the beauty of Norway, the
identity of the drummer for the evening. Steve excused himself for not
visiting Delphi much recently, blaming lack of time - probably that
Scott bloke keeping him busy ;-) Then after wishing each other a good
gig I left the man to practice. What a totally lovely guy.

I returned to the bar, drank a coffee, wandered restlessly back and
forth. I was expecting Ragnar Andersen to ring me. He's a Waterpeople
member and cd-trader, but I'd never met him in person before. As time
crawled on towards 10 o'clock I wandered back up to the second floor
and chatted with the cloakroom and security folks. Apparently the gig
was sold out, 500 tickets. Halden is very close to the Swedish border
and a lot of tickets had gone to Swedes, travelling as far as from
Stockholm and Gothenburg. All this time the soundcheck was going on,
the band playing snippets of songs which would drown out our
conversation, especialy if anybody happened to open the door at the
same time. It sounded like they were on rocking form, although for
some reason which wasn't obvious to me, Medicine Bow got several
attempts. No surprises to hear All The Things get soundchecked, but I
was surprised to hear I Know She's In The Building. 'Are they playing
that tonight?' I thought. As far as I know it hadn't had an outing
since the '97 Still Burning tour.

The soundcheck was over, but apparently there were lights to be
adjusted. The crowd started to build up outside the closed doors, and
the tapes for Night Falls On London and Don't Bang The Drum could be
heard from inside the hall. Ragnar rang. He was still 10 minutes away
by car so I told him I'd be down on the frontstage barrier in a black
leather jacket and green jeans. Maybe we'll make contact and maybe
not. The latter seemed most likely, as the doors finally opened around
10:40 and people streamed in. I got myself a prime place and waited as
the hall filled up. On my left, a gaggle of 40-something women were
occupying most of the frontstage space. Apparently they train together
and their instructor uses Waterboys music, so here they were en
masse. They were nothing if not hugely enthusiastic, although I
couldn't help wondering which records their instructor played, and
what they thought they had let themselves in for. The lady on my
immediate left didn't seem perturbed when I said she should expect a
full on rock show, so I guess that was ok then.

One of said crowd tried to balance her pint glass on the edge of the
stage, and tipped it over, drowning a microphone and several cables in
beer. Chris the monitor guy was not impressed, as he tried to mop up
the mess. Dunno if he recognized me from Gosport - we were both half
cut then. He looked slightly bemused as I called out a hello to him.

A tap on the shoulder, and I turned around to the simple question,
"Andy?" Aha, so this was Ragnar, the guy with 3 Dylan and 4 Neil Young
gigs under his belt the last few weeks, including seeing the Waterboys
at Fleadh. Tonight he's off to see David Crosby in Copenhagen. That's
dedication. We chatted for a while, as concert time grew ever nearer.

Finally Night Falls On London comes over the PA. The band take their
places on the darkened stage, Mike shimmying along with the tape, and
we're off into Let It Happen. The sound is excellent, loud and
clear. Steve is wearing his leather strides and a blue shirt. His hair
is verging on unkempt, although not as long as Mike's and his beard is
flecked with grey. He plays an electric-blue electric mandolin which
makes me think, "honey, I shrunk my stratocaster". Mike has a black
shirt and black trousers, Jo in a black sleeveless top and tight black
trousers. To be honest, I don't recall what Rich was wearing, half
hidden from me as he was behind his keyboards and particularly the
theremin which spoiled any chance of eye contact for most of the gig.
Plenty of eye contact with Jo though, oh goddess of the bass
guitar. The sweetest smile in rock!

Enough on stage attire. The setlist above tells you what they played,
if not in exactly the right order. For the most part they were
powerful and tight. Steve was obviously the biggest change for me
since I last saw them in November. The inclusion of the band version
of Fisherman's Blues was wonderful, and as for We Will Not Be
Lovers - every gig report since Steve returned seems to have picked it
out as a highlight. I can only concur. By this time it was obvious
they were having fun on stage. When Mike started hamming it up,
playing his Paul laying flat on his back on the stage, Steve got down
on the floor to join him, fiddling his heart out.

Next up was All The Things She Gave Me. Unfortunately it gave a prime
example of how unfortunate all this personnel swapping can be. There
was a false start, as I think Mike was unhappy with the pace of the
beat Ray was laying down. Once they got started again though the song
was as good as ever, Richard giving his keyboards some serious abuse
and grinning like a loon. No change there then!

The drumming gremlins continued as Ray forgot to wait for the sample
that introduces Dumbing Down The World. Twice in fact. Again, the
performance was brilliant once the confusion was cleared up. I can't
fault Ray in the circumstances, but I can't help wishing there was a
permanent bum on the drum stool.

Apparently Norway is a sexy land, according to Mike, as he introduced
a sexy song, I Know She's In The Building. Yeehaa! 'King Pan!' I
scream into the ether, enjoying this new addition to the set. I'm
thrilled that Mike is playing the odd track from the solo
records. No reason why they shouldn't be recognised as part of the
Waterboys repertoire. Now if only they'd do a huge rocking arrangement
of Building the City of Light. Are you listening Mike?

When Ye Go Away sees Rich and Steve matching each other note for note
on the reel, winding up the tempo on the second round. These two are
having the best of fun. Then back to electric guitar for Mike and
mandolin for Steve as they go for a wonderful Crown. As the apocalypic
instrumental section kicks in, Ray and Jo rejoin the action. Next up
is Medicine Bow, and whatever seems to have been holding it back at
the soundcheck is certainly not evident now.

By this time I am regretting keeping my jacket on. It seemed like the
best way to look after my phone and wallet, but the sweat is pouring
off of me. I'm lost on planet Waterboys and its hot as hell tonight.

They play The Return of Pan, and I'm thinking, "With Wicko on board
they have to segue it into a full version of The Pan Within!" I'm not
disappointed. Several times tonight I was struck by the fact that this
band have a hell of a lot in common with the Waterboys who shone at
Milton Keynes and Glastonbury '86. The passion and the power is there,
doing full justice to old songs and new.

Savage Earth Heart ends the main set of course. Its a great version,
but a straight one. No embellishments, and no 17 minute Rockefeller
wig-out. With Ray still having his L-plates on I can't say I was
surprised. What did surprise me a little was that we only got a
single, one song encore. A rousing version of Whole Of The Moon no
less, driven along by Mike's piano, but I wanted more. Checking a
setlist after the gig showed that they had planned Don't Bang The Drum
as well for the encore. Wonder what happened to that. Still, it was
very late and it had been a long and truly fantastical set, and they
had to do they whole thing over again tonight in a tent at a festival
on the other side of the country.

So the lights went up, Ragnar introduced me to a friend of his who
apparently has the biggest Waterboys collection at least in Norway. We
chatted some, while I considered the likelihood of meeting the
band. Somehow it didn't seem likely without some incredible bluff and
bravado on my part, so I left to find the car and drove home in the
night. The 2 hour drive down was reduced by 30 mins on the way
back, this time in the company of Billy Idol's first and some live
Theatre of Hate. Home just after 3am I stumbled into bed, happy and
tired.