Inspiral Carpets perform in New Zealand for the first time, which has only taken them forty years, and it’s like déjà vu all over again for the classic Sound of Manchester.
That’s close to two generations. In that time, they have retired and reformed several times.
A heavy presence of English ex-pats in the predominantly Boomer audience keep things lively with a near capacity audience. That’s yer Rovers Return, yer Man United and yer greatest fookin’ music city in England’s Dreaming. The Bee Gee’s grew up there and formed their first bands, so case closed.
The sole foundation member is Graham Lambert on guitar. Singer Stephen Holt came on board within a few years, and Clint Boon on keyboards was there soon after. The engine room is driven by fresh young La’s (lads), Kev Clark drums and Oscar Boon bass. Oscar is the son and looks like he is still in high school.
Inspiral Carpets were part of the era where Stone Roses and Happy Mondays were conquering Pop music. They are post-Punk in a similar fashion to the Smiths. New elements formed from that Big Bang of popular music.
Maybe they were at the historic Manchester Ballroom Sex Pistols gig. Less than a hundred attended. Over time that number seems to have been multiplied one hundred times.
A certain roadie named Noel Gallagher was on their tours. There are rumours he played on some records.
I approached the show as a fresh new band, as that was the energy they projected. The drum and bass attack was monumental and led from the front. Clint Boon acknowledged this half-way through the set.
They open with straight right-hand leads, Joe and Generations. Brutal drum and bass carpet-bombing. The keyboard weaves through with the Sixties garage band Farfisa sound.
Weakness has shouty Punk vocals with the ringing guitar jangles countering the Herculean drum thunder. Resembles the Monkee’s Stepping Stone over the latter part, in a minimalist fashion.
This Is How It Feels…to be lonely. The lyrics reflect the Manchester bed-sits of the Smith’s world. The keyboards carry this one with the Sixties space race pop music sounds of a Joe Meek.
Singer Holt has a flattened, affect-free tone. On songs like Caravan and Move, there is a striking resemblance to the early Who. He can snarl and sound bratty and genuinely menacing.
Tablefox
Tablefox are an Indie Rock quartet from Auckland, and they were impressive in opening the evening. I wrote about them a year ago, and tonight they appear to have risen in stature. A big part of that is the excellent sound desk.
They have built a good reputation over the last ten years. Opened for the likes of heavyweights Charlatans, James and Big Country.
Matt Carson lead guitar, Clinton Bell lead vocals and bass, Chris Dickinson guitar and Henrik Rylev drums.
Keep Them Guessing starts with a familiar rock guitar jangle and builds into a larger wall of sound reminiscent of Crazy Horse backing Neil Young.
They rev this up to good effect on Desire or Love and Tired Soul.
Reckless has the sound of Eighties New Wave and is cover of a James Reyne tune.
Mother, a relatively new single was written by Bell about his mum’s battle with an unwed pregnancy. What sets it apart is powerful fraught music with a feverish drive. Any trace of angst is banished.
Brand new single Only a Matter of Time is exuberant Power Pop which sounds like classic Th’Dudes and would fit nicely into the old Beserkely label.
Inspiral Carpets
The set list tonight draws from their first fifteen years and focuses on their popular hits.
Let You Down is one from their self-titled 2014 album, which they have described as cherry-picking from a fair amount of Sixties Pop music. Great driving rhythms with the keyboards adding sparkling crystalline tones. Punk Beat poet John Cooper Clarke speaks from inside the machine.
The band are big fans of Mark E. Smith and the Fall, and his distinctive Manchester Rap appears on I Want You.
I am eternally grateful/ For all my past influences sang Smith on the Fall’s How I Wrote Elastic Man. This would apply equally to the Carpets.
They do a stunning cover of ? and the Mysterians 96 Tears. A Sixties underground Psych Pop classic which features that distinctive Farfisa keyboard drone riff.
Commercial Reign starts with incendiary drums and bass, and the band fashion this to resemble the riffs to Otis Reddings I Can’t Turn You Loose on the vamp.
Closing song is Saturn 5. Begins with a NASA countdown, following which the heavy rockets fire off. The organ pierces through the heavy ordnance and keeps it all together. This song was first released in 1994 and re-released in 2016 to top of the UK charts, as a tribute to ex-member Craig Gill, who died in that ye
Inspiral Carpets clearly had a blast playing the last show of their tour to an ecstatic crowd, and of course they promised to return soon.
Rev Orange Peel
Photography by Leonie Moreland
Inspiral Carpets
Tablefox
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