The Quireboys/FM + Vega / Bad Touch - Corporation, Sheffield 06/04/19

The Quireboys / FM / Bad Touch / Vega –

Corporation, Sheffield, Saturday, April 6th 2019

Set List: Intro: Mix Tape/Let's Have Fun Tonight/Explode/Kiss Of Life/Every Little Monster/Worth Dying For/White Flag/Savin' Grace.

Tonight is one of those nights I had been looking forward to for a while, whereby you get to see a couple of your fave bands on the same bill and everything else is a bonus. By the time I got there I only caught the last few songs of Vega but they came across extremely strong with a frontman who can really command an audience so early in the proceedings. Good going too since Sheffield aren't the easiest of crowds to please.

They have floods of confidence with their hard-edged melodic musical sounds that appear very boisterous and ballsy from what I could see in the short viewing time I had of them. Vega have been going a good wee while – 9 years in total and their performance up here tonight was knockout.

Set List: Life Your Head Up/Movin' On Up/Show Me What It Means/Too Many Times/Hammer Falls/Dressed To Kill/99%.

Now the Bad Touch boys, who have driven all the way from Norfolk to see us are one of those acts who never fail to disappoint. On perfect form as ever and even set up their own gear too before they start up that saves on stagehands. They are on their live promotion of the current outstanding album that goes by the name of 'Shake A Leg' which I have to say is utterly exceptional to those of you who have yet to buy it.

Many songs of the set is culled from it which are really establishing themselves in their own right as strong live favourites especially the opening 'Lift Your Head Up' and 'Show Me What It Means'. Basically if you can't bop to these or feel joyous when they are being performed then you can't have a pulse – lol.

A lot of presence comes from Stevie and the gang who crank up their passionate rock sounds that have flawless energy and make it look easy to us all. The mark of a good band indeed who totally give it all they've got in the short space of time they have on that stage and finish on that milestone '99%' that has become one of my all time favourite numbers.

Set List: Breath Fire/Bad Luck/That Girl/Life Is A Highway/Let Love Be The Leader/Other Side Of Midnight/Dangerous/Someday (You'll Come Running)/Face To Face/Story Of My Life/Metropolis/Over You/I Belong To The Night/Tough It Out/Killed By Love.

FM have been around since the 80's and are very much now one of the old guard when it comes to their smooth blend of melodic rock. The type that totally fits FM stations themselves without being offensive to any age or type of person. Mr. Overland and his gang are streamlined perfectionists of this ilk and have a good number of fans in this healthy filled room tonight. Well you should hope so too considering that they are co-headliners on the entire tour.

A smattering of their well-loved songs are cranked up tonight that go down brilliant with the hardcore in here. I can't say that myself and a few buds are that into their music since we prefer it a bit more in your face and gutsy – each to their own though as you can't please everyone. Some may even recognise a couple of the band from recent since they made up ex-Survivor frontman, Dave Bickler's backing band.

The lighting was killer and so was their sound overall. I especially liked the last couple of cuts that seemed to have more power than a lot of the previously played numbers – more of that yes please

Set List: I Love This Dirty Town/Misled/There She Goes Again/Seven Deadly Sins/Mona Lisa Smiled/Hello/Whipping Boy/This Is Rock 'N' Roll /Hey You/Original Black Eyed Son /I Don't Love You Anymore/Fool To Cry/Sweet Mary Ann/7 O'Clock.

Encore: Sex Party.

And so onto the second co-headliner of the night that is none other than The Quireboys. The coupling of these guys and FM seems an odd pairing since their musical styles almost come from direct opposite ends of the spectrum to me and others as well I spoke to. Maybe that's the idea since the draw could be be twice as many people on the same tour. That's my theory anyway.

After the Tour Manager who looks like Freddie Krueger announces them to the stage, I get the gut feeling that something is not right up there. I cannot hear Spike's vocals at all and the rest of the band come across mushy with no definition to their instrument frequencies at all. The band themselves carry on like nothing of the sort is happening like the true professionals they are regardless of them knowing something is wrong.

We get nasty feedback sounds and later on some cut outs in sound also which really gets the attention of Stevie Westwood and I. After chatting to Manager, Mark Hobson (AKA DJ Mutley) it turns out that the Monitor Engineer who was working upstairs for a different show could not be bothered to run the very much needed Monitor Mix on stage which is why the problems were happening throughout. Keyboard Player, Keith Weir even moved from his usual stage right to stage left because he could no doubt hear anything correct on stage.The guy in question has since been fired by the establishment.

Well that's that out the way with the band being on form who play us a brilliant array of their back catalogue gems from albums like 'A Bit Of What You Fancy' or 'This Is Rock 'N' Roll' for example as well as newer songs from their latest release 'Amazing Disgrace' (a bit like the sound tonight – sorry that was kinda apt). 'Original Black Eyed Son' and 'Seven Deadly Sins' fitted fabulous with the oldie goldies like 'Misled'; 'Mona Lisa Smiled' and '7 O'Clock' though they did miss a trick by not having any available for sale tonight or having a credit card payment facility.

Spike had us raising a glass to the sadly, recently departed Bernie Torme who played a brilliant show in the sister venue, The Local Authority a couple of years ago and told us he would buy us all a drink after too – hahaha. The Quireboys got to play a longer show to make up for the said issues and it was announced by Corporation a few days later by way of a full written apology on what had happened that night, going onto state that anyone who purchased a ticket for the show could ge in free the next time the Quireboys played.