Bad Touch/Knaves - Waterfront, Norwich, Saturday, 8th July 2023
What night this promised to be! As Norfolk’s finest return to home soil to promote their 5th Studio record. Currently on-going roadworks, which I think started around the summer of 1976, makes Norwich not a destiny of choice, especially if you are using the A11! But I have to be there for this momentous occasion.
Outside it is hot, which is perhaps another reference to 1976. Another reference would be to that era of ROCK legends, it is a decade that Bad Touch would have so easily fitted into, I mean Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Bad Company & Thin Lizzy. But Dereham’s Bad Touch have been born in the era of Spotify! A time when the youth invest £120 a year to hear their music rather than buy something tangible.
Ok, I have set the scene now I am heading for the photo pit for a night where I am 99% sure I am going to witness a night of blues rock heaven, so I will hand you over to my partner in crime, my wife Jane.
Set List: Ace/Sille Billet/Pillows And Sheets/Kill Me With Kindness/Gods Gift/Ignore Me/Cheddar Goblin/ Grow Up/I Want My Hoodie Back.
Support band, Knaves soon have the Waterfront jumping as Singer, Caitlin Mapes spins, twists and turns. Meanwhile, Guitarist, Tim Frost throws some amazing shapes and looks like he’s practicing for a gurning competition.
Mia Webster keeps it all together with some throbbing mean bass lines. Mike Colman provides the thunder from the drum stool. Their set closer is about a break up and when you find it difficult to regain your possessions, in this case, Caitlin plaintively howls, ‘I Just Want My Hoodie Back!'
A fun fuelled and upbeat set that has the venue ready for Bad Touch.
Set List: Bittersweet Satisfaction/I Got High/Strut/Lift Your Head/Wise Water/Too Many Times/ Good On Me/Dressed To Kill/See It To Believe It/Spend My Days/Let Go/Hand In My Pocket/ Come A little Closer/This Life/Baby Get It On/Nothing Wrong With That/99%.
Tonight, is simply about the music, the unmistakable joy that permeates from the stage from the drums of George Drewry to the dual Guitars of Rob Glendinning and Daniel Seekings plus the Bass of Micheal Bailey through to Vocalist, Stevie Westwood, with that mane of hair and greatest moustache in rock!
Norfolk simply rocks to the sound of Bad Touch, a band so drenched in the countrified blues of the Southern States that it is almost impossible to believe they come from just 20 miles down the road. With new album, ‘Bittersweet Satisfaction’ set for release in November, it is no surprise that tonight sees plenty of the forthcoming songs aired, which is a treat.
The title track opens proceedings and new single ‘Nothing Wrong With That’ opens the encore seeing Stevie Westwood out front on his own on acoustic guitar then joined midway through by the rest of the group. ‘Spend My Days’ and ‘See It To Believe It’ also get an airing. These songs show that Bad Touch are really going from strength to strength, with Rock God charisma and the songs to match.
to, the legend that is, Tina Turner duetting ‘Baby Get It On’. There is a magical chemistry between them. The stage craft and musicianship is sensational and by the final song 99%, to say the Waterfront is steaming hot would be an understatement.
Review By Paul and Jane Mace
Photographs by Paul Mace