BIG COUNTRY live @ The Limelight, Belfast, 28/04/13
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I went along to Belfast’s Limelight with a sense of expectation for a night fuelled by atmosphere and emotion from the band I grew up listening to, but also unsure of what to expect from new album ‘The Journey’ (their first in 14 years) considering the mixed response it has received from the people who matter most; the fans.
It’s hard to believe any band could survive the cataclysmic loss of their mainstay and creative inspiration. So when Big Country’s Stuart Adamson took his own life in 2001 it was thought to have drawn a permanent line under their career. Despite a temporary return in 2004 under the guise of
‘Casbah Club’ with ex-Jam & Stiff Little Fingers bass player Bruce Foxton among their line-up, it seemed we would have to be content with a nostalgic remembrance of the band as they were in their 80’s hey-day. However, Adamson’s legacy has been continued on with the resurrection of the name Big Country and the addition of Alarm frontman Mike Peters, while revered bass player Tony Butler who retired last year has been replaced by ex-Simple Minds man Derek Forbes and co-founder Bruce Watson’s son Jamie joined the line-up three years ago to revive the classic “big” anthemic twin-guitar sound the band were known for.
The place was rocking from the minute the band set foot on the stage and they failed to disappoint the mainly middle-aged, predominantly male audience with the usual suspects of classic celtic rock anthems including Harvest Home, Lost Patrol, Fields Of Fire and Look Away. There were elements of the departed frontman’s punk & new-wave past in The Skids and to an extent Mike Peters’s early post-punk Alarm days evident on a couple of songs from the new album. The atmosphere was electric and each song was greeted with cheering and rapturous applause and elements of the crowd (myself included) in the vacinity of the crash barriers at the foot of the stage indulged in the customary bouncing up & down and punching of fists in the air and singing along to every lyric delivered by the now permanent frontman & his new-found cohorts.
If the doubters present were still unsure of the current incarnation’s line-up and the new album, then hopefully these were dispelled by the immense sound of the father-son guitar set-up (you could have been forgiven for believing Stuart was actually up there on stage) and Mark Brezezicki’s thundering drums that created a reminiscence of what had gone before.
If Adamson himself was looking down from above, then there’s no doubt that he would have felt an enormous sense of pride in the fact that the band he founded have gone from strength to strength in these past three years; from the original nostalgic ‘road-trip’ after resurrection to fully-functioning outfit with something to prove once again.
Johnnie Grattan 30/4/13
It’s hard to believe any band could survive the cataclysmic loss of their mainstay and creative inspiration. So when Big Country’s Stuart Adamson took his own life in 2001 it was thought to have drawn a permanent line under their career. Despite a temporary return in 2004 under the guise of
‘Casbah Club’ with ex-Jam & Stiff Little Fingers bass player Bruce Foxton among their line-up, it seemed we would have to be content with a nostalgic remembrance of the band as they were in their 80’s hey-day. However, Adamson’s legacy has been continued on with the resurrection of the name Big Country and the addition of Alarm frontman Mike Peters, while revered bass player Tony Butler who retired last year has been replaced by ex-Simple Minds man Derek Forbes and co-founder Bruce Watson’s son Jamie joined the line-up three years ago to revive the classic “big” anthemic twin-guitar sound the band were known for.
The place was rocking from the minute the band set foot on the stage and they failed to disappoint the mainly middle-aged, predominantly male audience with the usual suspects of classic celtic rock anthems including Harvest Home, Lost Patrol, Fields Of Fire and Look Away. There were elements of the departed frontman’s punk & new-wave past in The Skids and to an extent Mike Peters’s early post-punk Alarm days evident on a couple of songs from the new album. The atmosphere was electric and each song was greeted with cheering and rapturous applause and elements of the crowd (myself included) in the vacinity of the crash barriers at the foot of the stage indulged in the customary bouncing up & down and punching of fists in the air and singing along to every lyric delivered by the now permanent frontman & his new-found cohorts.
If the doubters present were still unsure of the current incarnation’s line-up and the new album, then hopefully these were dispelled by the immense sound of the father-son guitar set-up (you could have been forgiven for believing Stuart was actually up there on stage) and Mark Brezezicki’s thundering drums that created a reminiscence of what had gone before.
If Adamson himself was looking down from above, then there’s no doubt that he would have felt an enormous sense of pride in the fact that the band he founded have gone from strength to strength in these past three years; from the original nostalgic ‘road-trip’ after resurrection to fully-functioning outfit with something to prove once again.
Johnnie Grattan 30/4/13