Music / Reviews
Review: Wayward Sons, Louisiana
Few bands are sufficiently confident to print up and flog souvenir T-shirts for their very first gig – especially when said show is at the bijou sweatbox that is the Louisiana. But then few new bands have the pedigree of Wayward Sons. Bristol-based Toby Jepson’s long-awaited return to fronting his own hard rock band could easily have filled a much bigger venue. That brief Little Angels reunion packed the Academy five years ago after all, and he was last on stage in Bristol at the same venue fronting former Motorhead guitarist ‘Fast’ Eddie Clarke’s Fastway back in November. So it was hardly surprising that tickets for this show sold out as soon as they went on sale. If the intention was to create a buzz at the cost of disappointing unlucky punters, it certainly succeeded.
Having split at the height of their success after scoring a number one album and selling out the Royal Albert Hall back in the ’90s, the Little Angels took very different paths. A brace of them went on to assume academic roles in the industry. Guitarist Bruce John Dickinson co-founded the BIMM franchise, while his keyboardist brother Jimmy is now Dr. James Dickinson of Bath Spa University. Drummer Mark Richardson joined Skunk Anansie, where he remains to this day. But after dabbling with acting (blink and you’ll miss him in Gladiator), Toby continued to write, perform and produce, enjoying a low-key solo career and seemingly available for hire to any vintage rock act who found themselves in need of a frontman. Those of us who felt he was selling himself rather short always hoped he’d put another band together, despite the obvious challenges this presents in the current climate.
is needed now More than ever
An amusingly edited intro tape (the Doctor Who, Outer Limits and Thunderbirds themes, plus the opening line of Carry On Wayward Son – geddit? – by Kansas) has us smiling, but there’s no getting away from the fact that this is rather an odd gig. The packed audience is certainly up for it, while the band themselves are clearly overjoyed to be playing live at last after a year of cabin fever in the studio. But as Toby himself is quick to acknowledge, nobody knows any of the songs. (As he also observes with a smirk, we won’t notice when they fuck up.) The debut album Ghosts of Yet to Come isn’t out until next month, and just two tracks have been released as part of a grand proposed quadrilogy of thematically linked videos.
First impressions are that this is a much harder-edged band than the Angels, still unapologetically melodic but lacking the pop veneer that divided opinion among metal audiences. Currently rocking the mid-period Robert Plant look, Toby remains a great singer, a competent rhythm guitarist and a formidable, personable frontman. But this wouldn’t work had he not hand-picked such top-notch musicians. It’s safe to say that Phil Martini was never called upon to hit the drums quite so hard in the Quireboys. He also forms a potent rhythm section with bassist Nic Wastell of NWOBHM also-rans Chrome Molly, who gurns for England and bounces around the cramped stage with such glee that one fears he might explode at any moment. Young hotshot guitarist Sam Wood is a real find and can’t stop grinning with pleasure throughout. Tucked away at the back of the stage, Toby’s old mucker Dave Kemp from the Little Angels touring band fills out the sound with unobtrusive keyboards.
Powerful rockers Alive and Until the End go down best, probably because these are the only songs released thus far. This partisan audience already knows all the words and sings along with gusto. But there’s also promising evidence that Wayward Sons intend to push the classic rock envelope. Something Wrong, which Toby describes as a protest song (quite what he’s protesting about we’ll have to wait and see when we can read the lyrics), sounds a little like John Lennon in his hard rock period, with a cheeky keyboard quote from Won’t Get Fooled Again.
With 90 minutes to fill, some of Toby’s old solo material is repurposed for the occasion and there is, perhaps inevitably, a dip into the Little Angels catalogue with Kickin’ Up Dust (the singer calling attention to that “original wayward son” line) and the title track from Young Gods. He also shares a funny story about working with Saxon on their Sacrifice album. Every time Biff sang Night of the Wolf it came out as Nigel the Wolf. “I haven’t even told him that,” he confides. “So don’t spread it around.” Whoops!
Having secured a deal with Italian indie melodic rock label Frontiers, Wayward Sons are clearly aware that the days of chart-bothering, multiple-format releases are no more. But in the new paradigm of reputations built solely on live performance, they’re already fully-formed and able to compete with the best of ’em. Watch them soar during the summer rock festival season.
All pix by Shona Cutt
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