Live Review: Ginger Wildheart - Waterloo Music Bar, Blackpool
21st April 2022
Support: Carol Hodge
Words: Dan Barnes
“This is my favourite gig in England.” states Ginger, two songs into his acoustic show at what is rapidly becoming one of the North of England’s premier music venues. He goes on to give massive props to Ian and the team for their tenacity, hard graft and sheer force of will over the past two years in just being able to keep the doors open.
I saw The Wildhearts doing a full-band electric show at this venue back in 2019 but with that project on indefinite hiatus, it affords Ginger the opportunity to showcase some of the not inconsiderable material he has created away from the main concern.
Billed as April Fools on Tour, this is very much a DIY trek around the country, with family and friends pitching in to work the merch stand and act as guitar tech; even the family dog comes along and gets a massive cheer when name-dropped during the show.
Huddersfield singer-songwriter and self-proclaimed seven-fingered piano pounder, Carol Hodge, pulls double-duties on this, the last night of her tour, by being part Ginger’s set and as the show’s opening act.
Her songs are poignant and speak to the emotions and could come across as maudlin or introspectively out of place for the evening. But Carol’s personality carries the set with aplomb and you soon click into her life view that the world can be a rough ride but it’ll only beat you if you let it.
She takes her life into her own hands by asking the Blackpool audience to react as though Craig David was turning on the town’s illuminations; that’s a reaction that could have gone any number of ways, but she remained unscathed.
Ms Hodge’s recorded output are full-band productions, but the reinterpretation of songs like You Don’t Dream Enough and Twenty Miles Up lose nothing being stripped down to a single instrument.
Ginger Wildheart seems to have been a man on a mission since the early nineties. Not content with fronting his namesake band, he has been involved in more side projects than you can shake a stick at. Over the past fifteen years or so, Ginger has busied himself away from The Wildhearts with releasing music under his own name.
Joined by Carol on piano and long-time collaborator, Jon Poole, one-time Cardiac and on-again/ off-again bassist for The Wildhearts, this is a stripped-down show that is as much a communion with the crowd as it is a performance. The vocal harmonies between all three performers is captivating and emotive and although there appears to be on-stage monitor issues, they cannot be heard out in the crowd.
That only Bad Time to Be Having a Bad Time, Geordie in Wonderland and 29x the Pain are played from Wildheart’s discography works to remind everyone of the richness of the seam Ginger has to mine.
Opening with the theme songs from Cheers, yet making it sound the most natural thing in the world is some achievement and a signifier of what’s to come. Going back as far as 2007’s Yoni for When She Comes and 2012 for 555%’s Very, Very Slow proves Ginger’s faith in the longevity of his older material is well-founded. The more recent Ghost in the Tanglewood’s countrified style and Headzapoppin’s more direct approach are each represented, as is The Pessimist’s Companion – but more on that record coming soon!
It would be incomplete for Ginger not to revisit some of those project other than his solo work, so Inside Out from Silver Ginger 5 and Hey! Hello’s How I Survived the Punk Wars are unexpected but very welcome additions to the set.
There’s a measure of unbridled chaos about Jon Poole’s performance – his mid-set toilet break notwithstanding – and this is never more apparent than on The God Damn Whore’s Unemployment Man which threatens at one point to fly out of control and take the whole pub down with it.
Ginger speaks of the tour being a family affair– as mentioned earlier – and his son is acting a guitar tech. It would have been remiss of Ginger not to bring out the young fella for a cruise through the Dr Hook song The Cover of a Rolling Stone, which somehow complimentes the earlier cover of Lindisfarne’s Run for Home.
Any time spent in the company of Ginger Wildheart is always time well spent and the intimate nature of this tour only goes to re-enforce that notion. The early-set monitor issues became something of a running joke and – on the subject of jokes – Ginger’s somewhat off-colour jest, filling time while Jon used the facilities, suggest maybe he isn’t a massive loss to comedy and is better suited with a guitar stung around his neck.
That The Wildhearts is on hold for the time-being is a real shame but as long as Ginger still gets out and plays shows like this it’ll go someway to soften the blow.
Header image credit: Tim Finch Photography
