After Thursday evening’s refreshing taste of Manchester’s putative Indie scene, I was treated to a tribute band in Oldham’s premier music spot, Whittles @Tokyo. I had been before and enjoyed seeing one of Thin Lizzy’s founding members, guitarist Eric Bell, do his bluesy thing. Tonight’s show was more interesting from a sociological perspective, than a musical one, for me.
Adam Ant Army was the only act on the bill. Scheduled to do two sets, I wondered if Adam Ant had produced enough original material to be covered over two sets in one evening. As it turned out, this was a reasonable question.
Allowing for the use of abbreviated song titles, the tribute band clearly only had about half-a-dozen well-known numbers to pivot around. After that, they had to dig out some hidden gems from the ancient Ant man’s back catalogue, in the hope of getting the audience off their bar stools and onto the dance floor.
I am not sure I can write a separate gig review for this one. I got through the first forty-five minutes, having enjoyed the re-hashing of ‘Ant Music’, the band offered up early on. After a very long intermission, the modest crowd had drunk enough to be less modest and get up to boogie along to the punk-pop covers they loved so much in teenage years.
I was impressed that so many of the audience had made the effort to dress up, and apply wear make-up, to enter in the spirit of an Adam Ant tribute evening. For several, all that effort was them done for the night, whereas others, including Seán particularly, only needed an encyclopaedic knowledge of every recording Adam Ant ever made, ensured every single tune played tonight was danceable in his mind.
By the time it was time to go home, I was ready. The six mile towpath walk had been great. The tour of the four Littleborough pubs had been great. The tribute band, on their final tour had been fine. I was ready to get my head down and sleep before my trip to Blackburn tomorrow for Pompey’s next challenge in the battle to avoid relegation.
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CLP 06/02/26
Journey of Words 
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