Review and Photos by Keep It Live! Magazine
Chris Helme dropped into Blakey for another
gig last month. A specially invited audience were in attendance
for a rather special evening. Chris with his band, guitar - James
Nisbet (St.Etienne), drums - John Miller (St.Etienne) and bass
- Stuart Fletcher (The Seahorses & played with Happy Mondays
on their recent world tour supporting Oasis), were here to record
their first album-live.
There were some incredible support acts, but sadly I didn't catch
their names (The Halcyon Band, Defenbaker, Hayley Hutchinson,
Dave Keegan & Stu Jones), but there was some seriously
good talent on show here before the main attraction of Chris and
his band.
I was feeling incredibly priveliged and excited to be here. With no further ado, Chris launched into his newly found world. Utterly composed and now more focused with the job in hand, they took us on a subliminal journey of massive melodic proportions. Opening with "Spike" the band settled into a very early groove and found their optimum operating level almost instantaneously. I wouldn't class Chris' tunes as pop, they are better than that. The material he wrote and co-wrote with The Seahorses was good; very, very good; but now Chris has freed himself of all constraints and can concentrate on how he wants to be purveyed. The material is stunning, bold, bright and fresh and is more infectious than a cold. As they laced their set with the likes of "She's Been", "Matter of Time", "There Goes My Sunrise", "Treading Water", "Holding Heaven", "Broken", "On the Inside", "Alive" (written that afternoon by all accounts), "Fireflies", especially like this one, "Morning Sun", "Masters of War" (Bob Dylan) and "No Expectations" (Rolling Stones). Chris demonstrated he is well and truly back and with goods to make it happen all over again.
The album is due out and soon, and rest assured we will let you know where and when. I do feel another Blakey gig coming on as the launch night.
Steve is heavily involved with the York music scene, producing Shed 7's video to "Cry for Help", as well as stuff for upcoming band Osiris and footage of the recent Chris Helme Blakey Ridge gig - "I love his music, I'm such a fan of his. We filmed Chris for an hour then everyone got wasted..."
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