It Bites, O2 ABC2 Glasgow 5 March 2010
It Bites at Manchester Academy 6 March 2010 (until someone posts a Glasgow video)
The John Beck Grand Entrance
I don’t know if John Beck consider himself to be the ‘leader’ of It Bites. His grand entrance after the three other members of the band on to the stage of O2 ABC2 in Glasgow on Friday night would certainly suggest it.
Especially when he did it twice!
After the into sequence broke down and had to be restarted he walked off stage again to make the second big entrance, by which time the moment was gone. Truly bizarre. !
He continued some more bizarre behaviour by going to John Mitchell during the show to whisper is his ear to announce that they were running out of time. C’mon John you have mic in front of you – just talk to the audience, we are happy to listen , I mean we all wanted to attend the gig!
The Show
Anyway apart from that the show as once again an awesome show of playing and performance by the leading ‘prog’ band in the UK (if not the word in my opinion).
Opening with 1 or 2 favourites Bullet in the Barrel, All in Red some of the highlights for me were Underneath your pillow, Old Man and the Angel (full version) Oh My god, Fahrenheit (first time live) and, at last Glasgow gets to hear Once Around the World, since we missed out on that tour last Autumn.
The remainder of the set did consist largely of tracks from The Tall Ships which is fine as it is an all round excellent album
It Bites is always a great gig with a powerful display of great singalong songs, superlative playing and enough great ‘prog element time signature oddities to keep the proggers happy. A great balance between melodic songs, innovative arrangements and interesting forms.
The players
Lee Pomeroy is a player who clearly enjoys his time on stage. In addition to being an excellent bass player he bounds around the stage enjoying the gig which always provides a good feel good factor for the audience. Bob does his job at the kit mainly poker faced and concentrating hard on his drumming and backing vocals
John Mitchell has certainly settled in and is well accepted as part of the band and seems very comfortable in the band , even announcing that he was changing the words in Underneath your Pillow (Frankie don’t mind…)
It is always a hard gig when you follow such an iconic front man in a band. Witness, the following (any others which I have not mentioned?)
- Alan Reed following Euan Lowson in Pallas,
- Benoit David following Jon Anderson in Yes
- Phil Collins following Peter Gabriel in Genesis
- Andy Sears following Geoff Mann in Twelfth Night
- Paul Rogers following Freddie Mercury with Queen
The Venue (and the bloody curfew)
In the It BItes forum the band are getting a little stick for paying a really short set. This, of course, may not always be the fault of the band due mainly to being a curfew set by the venue.
Given that this happened last year too you would think that the band (or at very least the promoter) would have spotted this failure and either ditch the support (maybe the band need the money from the tour ‘ buy-on’) or get a better venue, or start earlier.
There are a lot of options for venues in Glasgow than having to put up with a shitty 10 pm curfew.
I think Oran Mor would be a great gig for It Bites. Right size, better layout, good sound and good locations for pre/post beer. The Classic Grand would also be an option for a crowd of this size.
Still, all in all a brilliant gig for the leading lights of British Progpop. Lets get the new album out and play Oran Mor next year!