Dylan Uncovered – The Voodoo Rooms, Edinburgh – Thursday 10th February
Shock and (No) Awe / Yusuf Azak / Edinburgh School for the Deaf / Tribute To Venus Carmichael / The Sundancer / Norman Lamont / Esperi / Hookers for Jesus / Isaac Brutal / Chris Bradley
Not a review as such but a series of random thoughts on last night’s ‘Dylan Uncovered’ at the Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh as part of Let’s Get Lyrical.
Firstly the Dylan. I recognised some of the covers although only a minority. Some were quite different from the originals and some sounded fairly faithful. There were a couple of particular highlights – Edinburgh School for the Deaf’s ‘Man In The Long Coat’ complete with guest appearance from former Saint Jude’s bandmate Mark Francis, as well as Hookers for Jesus’s ‘Hurricane’ which Andy described as ‘aiming for Portishead but ending up in Skegness’.
Apparently Esperi’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’ was something special but sadly I missed it since I was doing the door at the time. Shock and Awe partied up Dylan nicelyat the end of the show whilst there were good versions too of ‘Forever Young’ (by Tribute to Venus Carmichael’) and another version of ‘Watchtower’ by Isaac Brutal.
Dotting in and out of the venue meant that I didn’t see much in the way of full sets until later on and by that time the whole thing running late meant that the acts on the second half of the bill regrettably all lost a song.
Which didn’t deter Edinburgh School for the Deaf from being utterly spectacular. Mr Toad described them as ‘fucking awesome’ and no matter how unlyrical that may be, he was spot on. Apart from the cover with Mark they did only one other song, an original which will be on their LP but complete with extended feedback finale, they threatened to blast the roof off the Voodoo Rooms.
Shock and Awe suffered the misfortune of lead singer Teenage Bobby Awe being sick and unable to play, leaving them presumably as Shock and No Awe. But second guitarist for the night, Dr No, stepped forward to take lead to bring the show to a suitably rousing climax, complete with dancing promoter.
Yuzuf Azak was the final solo performer of the night and his brisk, sprightly set stood its groundsurprisingly well between the squall of Edinburgh School for the Death and the raucous Shock and (No) Awe.
There were loads of other acts and I did enjoy most of what I heard. All in all for such an ambitious venture it all seemed to flow remarkably smoothly and pleasingly there were sufficient punters to meet costs and provide beer money for the bands. A decent night all round then.
Roll on 2012 and the Nick Cave tribute!
My own photos from last night.
Official Let’s Get Lyrical photos.
Official Shock and Awe photographer Malcolm McLean was also there although there aren’t any up at time of typing.
Sounds like it was a success ! Gie yerself a pat on the back.
I was sick as a dog after going to see Wire on Tuesday night they were magic, but I was already well on the way to being ill by then so I dunno how disorientating they really were ! It was a double whammy as I was also meant to be playing bass with Isaac Brutal and the hired hands and had even been going to the practices. Luckily shock and awe had practiced with Dr No or Mark Shade as he’s really named playing lead guitar, he is a Dylan fan anyway so I knew he’d know the words enough to pull it off, he probably played bass better than me in the Isaac Brutal band as well !