It’s a freezing Friday night more suited to bobble hats than bucket hats as Camden’s Electric Ballroom gradually fills in anticipation for the arrival of Black Grape.
Led by Paul “Kermit” Leveridge and one Shaun William Ryder, Black Grape are in town to showcase new album Orange Head out in January.
Support is provided by a close contemporary, Inspiral Carpets’ singer Tom Hingley.
Hingley, operating without the benefit of the rest of the Inspirals, essentially fronts his own tribute act The Kar-pets.
Surrounded by younger musicians, Hingley belts out the hits with considerable aplomb, twisting his melon into thousand yard death stares, slapping his thigh like a Panto prince and gleefully wrapping the microphone wire around his noggin.
Opening with Joe and constantly imploring the audience to come a little closer, Hingley succeeds in dragging many a cynical punter from the bar to the dancefloor.
Songs like Move, She Comes In The Fall and This Is How It Feels are welcome reminders of just how many good tunes the underrated Inspirals knocked out.
There’s even time for a funky, improvised cover of Tainted Love, before Hingley clambers off stage to join the audience in a closing singalong of Saturn 5.
One of the more pleasing surprises of the ‘90s was that, after The Happy Mondays‘ implosion, Shaun confounded expectations by hooking up with Ruthless Rap Assassin Paul to produce a stupendous platinum album.
It’s Great When You’re Straight… Yeah! was as good as anything he’d done with the Mondays and the follow up Stupid Stupid Stupid – ran it a close second.
Songs from that glorious debut form the backbone of Black Grape’s Camden set, but fresher tracks from Orange Head and 2017’s Pop Voodoo more than hold their own.
Opener In The Name Of The Father instantly gets the crowd jumping – a not inconsiderable achievement given the ages of most of us watching.
The two front men lock into a familiar call and response, Paul leading the sermon, while Shaun interjects with his own brand of gonzo wordplay.
Dressed in Fred Perry top and jeans, Shaun stands rooted to the stage, barking into the mic like a benevolent goblin king, while Paul bristles with wit and energy.
The frontmen’s between song banter is one of the many highlights of this show.
There are anecdotes about songs written off their faces in wardrobes, jokey squabbles about failures to turn up to rehearsals and songs ‘robbed’, ‘inspired’ or ‘extrapolated’ from The Monkees and, er, BBC News.
Paul explains the band only got the name Black Grape because he happened to be drinking a can of the stuff at the time and they needed to secure an advance.
“We had to get the money in!” Shaun agrees.
This being Black Grape, drug stories abound, Shaun mockingly introducing Temazi Parti by saying there’s ‘nothing clever’ about taking Temazepam.
After every song he hunches over the setlist announcing: “Ah back to the ‘90’s – they were fookin’ great the ‘90s weren’t they?” or “this one’s from our 2017 album… I think,” or “this is from our new album, what’s it called again Paul?”
Alas the set is hampered by a few sound problems, there’s occasional break-up and distortion on both instruments and vocals.
However the capable band deliver the songs with such verve and good humour that no-one really seems to care.
More recent tracks like Set the Grass On Fire from Pop Voodoo and Dirt from the new album are already real monsters live.
The latter – getting only its third live airing tonight – is a real cracker, an incendiary blast of exploding bass bombs.
Reverend Black Grape, with its memorable harmonica sample, gets the audience punching the air, while encore fave Kelly’s Heroes has everyone chanting: “Who’s got the biggest/Who’s got the biggest/Who’s got the biggest brain!”
Fantastic entertainment and a great way to warm the cockles on a freezing pre-Christmas night in Camden.
You’ve got to hand it to Shaun Ryder. He could be putting his feet up, munching treats with Bez on Gogglebox and enjoying life as a national treasure.
But instead he’s back out there, doing what he does best, banging out a new album and dragging his arse up on stage to trade lyrical blows with his old sparring partner.
Black Grape, they’re still great, when they’re straight, aren’t they?
- The Black Grape release Orange Head on DGAFF Recordings on 19th January 2024.
- Find out more about the band here: Website | Twitter | Facebook | Spotify
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