The Quireboys, FM, Bad Touch & Vega at The Globe, Cardiff
Tuesdays are generally rubbish. Stuck in a void between the start of the week and the middle of the week and with no end in sight they are pretty much the most depressing day of the week. So when a chance to brighten up my Tuesday evening with some live music I grabbed the opportunity by both horns and hit The Globe to see a touring package containing some very prolific UK hard rock and AOR bands.
With four bands playing in total it was gonna be a long gig with an early start and the band that had the unfortunate position of kicking off proceedings at 19:10 were AOR heroes Vega (8). I have had the pleasure of seeing Vega perform live before albeit in their own headlining show and they are a fantastic live band and even with this early slot and a half full venue the band gave it their all and played a short but energetic set that showed just why they are so revered by the AOR scene. The band were clearly enjoying themselves clowning around despite the very limited space they had on the stage. Frontman Nick Workman especially played up to this purposely bumping into the other band members and generally larking about. It’s always great to see bands having fun on stage. Despite the short set length they crammed in a good number of songs such as Let’s Have Fun Tonight, Kiss Of Life, Every Little Monster and White Flag amongst others,
The only band I had absolutely zero knowledge of on this bill were Bad Touch (7) who are a hard rock band from Norfolk and they impressed with their old school inspired hard rock. With a sound that has plenty of groove and swagger as well as a bluesy undertone the band took to the stage, kept on stage banter to an absolute minimum and let the music do the talking. Frontman Stevie Winwood impressed with his soulful vocals an the band kept the room rocking from the start of the set to its conclusion. Unfortunately not being familiar with this band I could not tell you what songs they played.
The first of the nights co-headliners were UK AOR legends FM (8). Another band I am not wholly familiar with but have certainly heard of and know their strong reputation in the UK hard rock scene and a reputation they have rightly earned as they played a brilliant set. Easily one of the slickest and most professional sounding performances from a band I have seen in a good while FM played a set chock full of sweet AOR anthems such as That Girl, Face To Face, I Belong To The Night and KIlled By Love. One of the things that stands out the most with FM is frontman Steve Overland and his INCREDIBLE voice. Probably one of the finest live vocal performances I have ever seen I was absolutely mesmerised throughout their set. FM are definitely a band that I need to go on a journey of discovery with as they thoroughly impressed and had the biggest cheers and singing from the audience for the whole night.
Last but not least were the night’s other co-headliners Geordie hard rockers The Quireboys (7). The band put in a strong performance although frontman Spike sounded very hoarse and strained from the start. His vocals did slightly improve throughout the set but they definitely did not sound right. The rest of the band were tight and cohesive and seemed to be enjoying themselves on stage pouring out a good many tunes which resonated well with the audience. We were treated to a couple of new songs from upcoming album Amazing Disgrace as well as old favourites such as Hello, This Is Rock ‘N’ Roll, I Don’t Love You Anymore and 7 O’Clock. The band were late on stage and did run over past 11pm meaning that a good chunk of the crowd had to depart before the conclusion of the set to get trains and buses but this didn’t seem to bother the band or dampen the enthusiasm from the rest of the audience. There is little I can fault about the performance by The Quireboys apart from their music just isn’t much to my taste.
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