Review by Steve Bruty for MPM
With the memories of the previous nights events “THE WILDHEARTS” still fresh in everyone’s mind, it was the turn of “THE QUIREBOYS” to shake a bit of life into Dover and entertain the gathered masses. With the weather warm and the venue sold out both, the excitement and the heat was rising by the minute.
With spike announcing from the stage that they would be playing the debut album in its entirety as a treat the smiles on peoples faces grew wider.
Roaring through “MISLED” and the timeless “ MAN ON THE LOOSE” it becomes apparent that long time seasoned guitarists “Paul Guerin” and “Guy Griffin” stand as far out the way as possible when “Spike” is in full flow with the mike stand twirling not just over the stage but the first 5 rows of the crowd the man is a human dynamo and one hell of a front man its his warm and sincere attitude than makes him such a well loved character.
HEY YOU” with “Paul Guerin” peeling off some lovely chunky guitar work and the first proper roar of the evening from the punters, this song still sounds as good today as it did 30 years ago when I use to play it non stop on my Walkman and hearing this great song just took me back to a time and a place as a teenager and judging by the audience singing along it did the same for them as well.
THERE SHE GOES AGAIN” is another solid classic followed by “WHIPPIN BOY” with its lovely flowing barrel roll keys from “Keith Weir” who compliments all the songs tonight with just the most gorgeous keyboard work. “WHIPPIN BOY” would never feel complete without it’s breakdown section and crowd sing along, the perfect QUIREBOYS live song.
LONG TIME COMIN” with its raucous Rock n Roll swagger shifts everything into top gear with lots of slide guitar and Spike just busting his balls left right and centre on stage.
At times the group come across as just a good time lads band that is so far from the truth, as “Spike” announces from the stage that “ROSES AND RINGS” is his favourite track from the debut album so with all the goofing about put to one side we get treated to a charged up vocally emotional rendition of an amazing song, with all band members putting in a serious shift of musicianship over the next 4 minutes.
Brilliant stuff indeed, and keeping the emotion running high we get “I DON’T LOVE YOU ANYMORE” which has to be one of the best pieces of music THE QUIREBOYS have ever composed and damn near brought a tear to my eye such was the delivery.
SPIKE pays a tribute to the recently departed “CHARLIE WATTS” with a nice little stab at the STONES classic “FOOL TO CRY” before the country and western twang of “SWEET MARY ANNE” and lots of Yee Haa’s from the group and the audience.
I don’t know how the group manage to do this every time I see them live but the whole event is turning into a hot sweaty party with the good time vibes just flowing and to make it even more of a party we get a fun “7 O’CLOCK” with some mean harmonica from the front man, another song that I believe has been in the live set since year dot and one that can never be left out.
With the main set finished and the group outside cooling off ( it was like a oven) they return for a four song encore, “MONA LISA SMILED” “BLACK EYED SON” a raunchy high tempo “ROCK N ROLL” and then to round things off the most requested song of the evening “SEX PARTY” got everyone jumping and singing one final time.
After the band left the stage for the final time “Spike” decided to have a quick blast through a couple of VERA LYNN classic “White Cliffs Of Dover” etc, not because he had to but because he was having such a good time he just felt like doing it, after bidding farewell to us all, we all get outside where everyone is chatting and it becomes pretty obvious that tonight was very special indeed.
People appreciated the fact that the “QUIREBOYS” were prepared to put as much effort into little Dover as they would at a “DOWNLOAD” event. Final word has to go to Darren our Intrepid photographer over here at “Metal Planet Music” who having witnessed the band on nearly 30 occasions stated that was about the best he had ever seen them, High Praise indeed.
Photography by Darren Smith for MPM
