Tonight
I headed down to the Academy in Bristol to watch
Me First And The Gimmie Gimmies and Old Man Markley
play to an almost sold out venue.
The doors had been opened for over an hour before
first band Old Man Markley took to the stage which
meant that by the time they took to the stage
the venue was busy and the crowd were buzzing
for a band to take to the stage.
Old
Man Markley are a seven piece bluegrass-punk band
who have been signed to Fat Mike’s Fat Wreck
Chords label for many years now and the band is
made up of John Carey (guitar, vocals), Annie
DeTemple (autoharp, vocals), Jeff Fuller (drums),
Joey Garibaldi (bass, vocals), Ryan Markley (washboard),
John Rosen (banjo) and Katie Weed (fiddle) and
if you have never come across the band you can
kind of gather than they are full of energy and
a lot of fun just by reading their line up and
the instruments that are featured within the band.
As
soon as Old Man Markley took to the stage John
Carey shouted out to the crowd “Sorry it’s
been a long time but I told you we would be back”
and from that moment the band entertained the
crowd nonstop for the best part of an hour and
the crowd were in their element singing, dancing
and drinking along to the band whilst they whipped
up a frenzy with their interesting selection of
instruments.
Despite
the band looking slightly cramped on stage with
seven members of the band gracing the small stage
of the Academy they still managed to let off a
lot of energy with Annie DeTemple spinning around
constantly playing her autoharp, Joey Garibaldi
laying down some solid basslines whilst also constantly
striking a pose for the waiting photographers
and John Rosen and Ryan Markley charging all over
the stage playing their banjo and washboard.
The
band managed to fit 15 songs into their set with
the likes of ‘Party Shack’, ‘Train
Of Thought’, ‘Blindfold’, ‘Living
And Learning’ all going down well with the
crowd but it was the extremely catchy ‘For
Better For Worse’ and their No Use For A
Name cover ‘The Feel Good Song Of The Year’
which they dedicated to the late Tony Sly who
sadly passed away in 2012.
It is clear to see how Old Man Markley have had
a successful career so far however I did feel
that towards the end of the set the excitement
of them was starting to fade away as things started
to sound ever so repetitive.
Up
next were the band that everyone had been waiting
for, Me First And The Gimmie Gimmies and they
took to the stage dressed in orange Hawaiian shirts
like they were ready for a party and straight
away I noticed that both Fat Mike and Chris Shiflett
were absent from the band which I am guessing
was due to them having commitments with their
other bands and lines of work however Chris Shiflett
was replaced by his brother Scott Shiflett who
looked so much like his younger brother but just
a few years older and Fat Mike was replaced by
bad Religion’s Jay Bentley which was good
news for me being a massive bad Religion fan.
They
started off with covers of ‘I Will Survive’,
‘Danny’s Song’ and ‘Leaving
On a Jet’ and for every song after this
moment front man Spike Slawson would announce
in a serious tone “The next one’s
a cover” which became a running joke for
the whole show as Me First And The Gimmie Gimmies
played out loud and clear all the classic covers
that the fans tonight were expecting.
Through the set Me First And The Gimmie Gimmies
play songs from every genre from pop
to punk to movies to RnB but the most enjoyable
was when they played the likes of Dolly Parton’s
‘Jolene’ and Vaughn Monroe’s
‘(Ghost) Riders In The Sky’ which
caused the band to crack some country music jokes
with Jay Bentley shouting out “We put the
cunt in country and also there is no I in team
but there’s a u in cunt” which was
met with a lot of drunken cheers from the crowd.
Normally at Me First And The Gimmie Gimmie shows
Fat Mike and Joey Cape take centre stage with
the banter and encouraging the crowd to get involved
but due to Fat Mike’s absence tonight it
was Jay Bentley
who was on top form with the banter with a bit
of help from Spike Slawson as they spoke about
everything from cover songs to getting drunk to
winding the Bristol crowd up saying that the crowd
in Liverpool will be better tomorrow night and
throughout they got an excellent reaction from
the crowd.
The majority of the crowd were loving the show
tonight but a select few idiots towards the back
of the venue thought it would be fun kick a fight
off as a group of about 6 males and females started
lashing punches
at each other, luckily the security stepped in
managed to sort the situation out quickly chucking
the brainless idiots out whilst the band and majority
of the crowd were unaware and continued to have
the party that everyone came to have tonight.
The highlights of the show were the covers of
Stevie Wonders ‘Isn’t She Lovely’,
R Kelly’s ‘I Believe I Can fly’,
John Denver’s ‘Country Roads’
and Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man (I think
it’s going to be a long, long time’
and despite the band playing well over 20 songs
it felt like the show was over far too soon as
it is not every day you get to witness a show
as fun as tonight’s was and we all know
it will be a long time until the band return to
the UK again.
Old Man Markley 5/5
Me First And The Gimmie Gimmies 5/5
Review By Trigger
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