Gig Review of:
PAT McMANUS
at ‘Warehouse23’, Wakefield
(30 October 2014)
What’s Goin’ On…? Do amped-up three-piece hard-Blues bands still go Rollin’ & Tumblin’ with Blue-Jean Mamas…? Apparently they do. It’s kinda like the big-haired early-Eighties never went away. Or maybe not. The wall-posters announcing forthcoming events include China Crisis, Steve Harley, and a ‘Punx Against Cancer’ benefit. But for forty-five minutes here on a warm Thursday evening Pat McManus does all the fancy speed-fretwork, tortured grimaces and manic grins that should see him headlining stadiums of heaving denim, say, the ‘Reading Rock’ Metal Festival of booze and studded leather. The trio run the first three numbers together in unbroken sequence, with no gaps for applause. Marty McDermott on bass and Paul Faloon behind the mighty drum-array, while Pat strikes all the poses, pogos up and down, and stalks down teasingly close to the barrier. It’s easy to see why this grandstanding was a big male cock-rock thing way back when. He plays long hard high-expertise solos flaunting daunting skill, in a jousting playfully competitive way that has less gifted guitarists jealously watching the fingering, picking up tips.
They’re playing Norway next, to Nordic ‘Vikings’. Apparently there’s still an audience for three-piece hard-Blues bands over there…
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