Review:'Thirsty Quireboys and Bones Of The City' 'Live at The Spice of Life Soho.'
- Genre: 'Rock'
- Release Date: '30.7.26.'
Our Rating:
This was the launch show for the new God Bless America The Best Of Thirsty album that is a celebration of Thirsty's legacy, they were the band that Quireboys guitarist, the late Guy Bailey formed to put the poetry of Irina D to music, alongside original Quireboys Keyboards player Chris Johnstone who worked with Squeeze drummer Simon Hanson and Rolling Stones producer Chris Kimsey. I was at the last thirsty Launch night back in 2018 when the bands old PR legend Roland Hyams rip, helped put on an art exhibition of the paintings by Chilean artist Pato Bosich that had help inspire the Nomad 12" EP, a magical drunken evening where Roland, Guy, Pato and Irina D held court and told some fascinating stories alongside Chris Kimsey and a host of others.
This launch started with Bones Of The City the band of Deptford desperadoes who like Tasty Quireboys were warming up for Rebellion festival where they are mainly playing in other bands, While Thirsty Quireboys are part of this years rebellion Run-up shows playing with Steve Conte. Before Bones Of The City played the band's latest drummer Martin Parrott was getting tips from the bands last drummer James Sherry, on how flash he needed to be, to live up to original drummer Chris Musto's playing. He needn't have worried, they are a properly loose and louche rock & roll machine, who opened with Take It Slow played at about 100MPH with Leigh Heggarty and Richard England battling it out on guitar. Rebecca Closure did her best to get the fraught danger needed for the cover of Wire's Ex-Lion Tamer that Michael Bayliss' bassline drove forwards. The next song Set The Building On Fire (?) played super-fast and with Marty pummelling away to the gloriously messy guitar rave up.
Anyway seemed to just about hold together, before they took us to Cyber City and all the troubles they find there, before Rebecca made clear we should Get Your Hands Off Me making clear the sort of bad behaviour they disapprove of. In tribute to Martin's t-shirt they then took on MIA by Johnny Thunders about a 100 yards from where he last sung it in London at the Marquee, this was a decent version, my notes get messier so the next songs are just a blur of guitars and intense frantic drumming before they closes with Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Rum that left most of us smiling at the cheek of it all.
After the break they had the Thirsty Q & A session where Neil Jones asked Irina D, Chris Kimsy, Simon Hansen and Spike some questions about this project and working with the late great Guy Bailey and how the working relationships happened, before they introduced the premier of the new Thirsty video for God Bless America there song about Rebecca Kennedy and the despicable treatment her family dealt out to her because of her personal struggles, after a couple more questions it was time for Thirsty Quireboys to perform.
For this show Thirsty Quireboys were Simon Hanson, Chris Johnstone, Matty James Cassidy, Tom Golzen and Spike with Irina D, From the opening 10, 7 And Possibly 6 this was good dark blues infused rock, driven as much by Chris Johnstones keyboards as the guitars, Spike ambled onstage to wail the lyrics at us. Spike made us all welcome before Flawless that kept the dark louche feel and Matty let rip a bit, but this was mainly cool and calm. Spike then got Irina D up to help out on Chaos and she tried to sound deeper than Spike over Simons super steady backbeat making it easy to believe both of them claiming to be Chaos. God Bless America sounded great, while helping us to remember just how screwed up the Kennedys really are, as well as the dangers of Camelot.
Irina d was back for Mercury Rising and Chris Johnstone's son took over on Keyboards while Chris switched to Bass for this deeply sensual song of love and pain. They closed with Albatross that could easily have been an Quireboys classic and Spike was certainly singing it like it was one, this was a cool end to a very cool showcase.
