{"id":22553,"date":"2023-06-28T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-28T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=22553"},"modified":"2023-06-24T15:57:59","modified_gmt":"2023-06-24T15:57:59","slug":"sparks-mr-b-the-gentleman-rhymer-the-civic-at-the-halls-wolverhampton-22nd-june-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/?p=22553","title":{"rendered":"Sparks\/Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer \u2013 The Civic At The Halls, Wolverhampton \u2013 22nd<\/sup> June 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Sparks are a band I\u2019ve long since wanted to see live but never actually got around to getting a ticket for. So, when the legendary (and I mean that in every sense of the word) band added a date to their ongoing tour itinerary in promotion of their new album \u2018The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte\u2019 at the recently reopened Wolverhampton Civic, it was a total no-brainer for yours truly. A chance to see one of the all-time greats of avant-garde rock music in one of the very best live music venues the UK has to offer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We just have to get there first, the traffic is horrendous tonight, just trying to get out of our home town of Newport takes nearly thirty minutes (it normally takes us five) so unfortunately we arrive at The Halls a little too late to see most of tonight\u2019s support act Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer (who is actually Jim Burke from Collapsed Lung) playing his very own genre of hip hop called chap hop. His set (or what I get to see of it) largely involves him rapping in pronounced English tones whilst playing a banjolele over backing tracks and the audience here appear to love it, especially when he drops in a cover of \u2018Big Boy\u2019 by tonight\u2019s headliners. In his online biog Burke proclaims his creation to be akin to “Noel Coward and Afrika Bambaataa enjoying a sweet sherry together.” Me, I close my eyes and can\u2019t get the image of a Cassetteboy mash up of Jacob Rees-Mogg out of my head. This immediately sends shudders right down my already hunched up sciatica riddled spine, that\u2019s beacuse tonight\u2019s gig is also one of those dreaded things called, an all-seated show! Arrrrrgh!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Yup, Sparks appear to prefer to play these kinds of shows here in the UK, so its makeshift seating for my first gig back in The Halls since it reopened just a few weeks back and I can\u2019t help by feel just a little bit jealous of the Amon Amarth fans who got to air row their way through their favourite band\u2019s set in the venue just a week or so earlier.  To be honest, seating does actually work well for Sparks, simply because their live show is, just like their back catalogue, all over the place. There is a point tonight where the Mael brothers jump from the electronic pop of the title track of their new album to the unconventional deep cut art rock of \u2018Beaver O\u2019Lindy\u2019 by way of the almost new wave throb of \u2018Angst In My Pants\u2019 and the poor girl sat a few rows in front of me is doing a Clodagh Rodgers, up and down like a jack in the box, not quite knowing whether to dance or just sit and watch the art (because there is no other word to describe it) of Sparks unfold before our eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it turns out tonight is also the final date of Sparks\u2019 run of European theatre size shows before they play Glastonbury over the weekend, and me being me, I\u2019d perhaps half expected them to mix the set up a bit ready for a greatest hits overload to please the Glasters masses, but no this is Sparks and they do things their way, so if you want \u2018Beat The Clock\u2019, \u2018Tryouts For The Human Race\u2019 or perhaps \u2018Get In The Swing\u2019 look away now, because what we do get is a most pleasurable trip through six tracks from thew new album (my pick being the uproarious \u2019Nothing Is As Good As They Say It Is\u2019) along with the likes of  \u2018Balls\u2019, \u2018Bon Voyage\u2019 and \u2018Shopping Mall Of Love\u2019 with the title track for the album from which the latter track is taken also providing the cue for the people of Wolverhampton to finally realise they really can dance too, and with everyone finally up on their feet for a fantastic \u2018When Do I Get to Sing My Way\u2019 the last piece of the Sparks jigsaw puzzle drops perfectly into place.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Of course, they have to play \u2018This Town Ain\u2019t Big Enough For The Both of Us\u2019 and its here that I\u2019m suddenly thinking of when I saw Sy Keeler\u2019s post-Onslaught band Mirror Mirror thrashing their way through the classic in a tiny nightclub in Newport back in the early \u201890s, and then it hits my how much Sparks not only blend genres but actually help create them, as that really could  be current arena metal giants Ghost up there as the chords come crashing out of The Halls splendid all singing all dancing new PA system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having almost turned back at one point during tonight\u2019s seemingly endless journey trying to get to the gig, I\u2019m so glad we didn\u2019t, as just like tonight\u2019s headliners, great things do come to those who tough it out, and no that isn\u2019t just a way for me to get an FM song title into my review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A truly magnificent night of music.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author:Johnny Hayward<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sparks are a band I\u2019ve long since wanted to see live but never actually got around to getting a ticket for. So, when the legendary (and I mean that in every sense of the word) band added a date to their ongoing tour itinerary in promotion of their new album \u2018The Girl Is Crying In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-live-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22560,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22553\/revisions\/22560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rpmonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}