Garry squeezes in a trip to see Glenn Tilbrook (see what we did there?)
Another gig and another new venue for us…..and what a lovely place the Artrix Arts Centre is, this was the venue for tonight’s performance from Glenn Tilbrook’s solo tour, you always get a great show from the Squeeze frontman whether he is playing with his day job band or treading the boards as a solo artist.
This tour was promoted as a mixture of Squeeze material, solo work, a few covers and a few takes along the way…..and that’s exactly what we got from one of the finest song writers this nation has ever produced, some of the solo material that Glenn played tonight was not altogether familiar with most of the audience but all was received with generous applause.
The Squeeze back catalogue is one of the finest of all time…..and for me the Difford & Tilbrook songs surpass the tunes of Lennon & McCartney (controversial I know….but here to be shot down) and these were the songs that the audience had come for……if you are 40 plus you will have either bought, heard or sung along to a Squeeze track at some time or another.
Classics such as ‘Up The Junction’, ‘Labelled With Love’, ‘Black Coffee In Bed’, ‘Take Me I’m Yours’ we’re all received with enthusiastic applause but the loudest cheer of the evening came from the superb but lesser known early 90s track ‘Third Rail’……the reason being that Bryn from the second row of the auditorium took Glenn up on his invite to come up and play on a track…..and a fine job he did as back up guitar player.
More solo material, more amusing tales and an excellent cover of The Easybeats ‘Friday On My Mind’ followed along with Squeeze classics ‘Annie Get Your Gun’ & ‘Another Nail In My Heart’…..show closer ‘Goodbye Girl’ is always a good sing along tune and the packed audience duly obliged…..another fine performance from Mr Tilbrook came to an end and a lot of happy punters trooped out into the night…..many I imagine reaching for a copy of Squeeze ‘Greatest Hits’ to slip into the car CD player for the journey home.
It was a wonderful evening……the only sour point was the three seemingly intoxicated patrons on the second row who insisted on being a real nuisance to all around and became quite abusive if anyone dared to ask them quite rightly to shut up…..no matter where you go you always risk running into clowns like these who feel they can do anything they like…..sadly folk like these choose to leave their houses at various times of the day and unfortunately they are allowed to wander around amongst us decent people.
Garry Foster
Unchained: Tuesday’s 10pm-Midnight
Prog Rock Files: Thursday’s 10pm-Midnight
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