THE LIQUID ENGINEERS + SYNTHONY 101 – THE VENUE, WORTHING 24.2.23
The Brighton & Hove Information actually couldn’t cross up on the chance of witnessing a stay digital music live performance inside an uncommon constructing of nice curiosity. Thus we headed West to sunny Worthing to the previous St Paul’s Church.
St Paul’s Church was designed by John Rebecca and constructed by Ambrose Cartwright and first opened in 1812. The constructing has a Doric portico with 4 columns going through Chapel Street, with a bell cupola behind it. The constructing’s yellow bricks are produced from the blue clay taken from Worthing Widespread (also referred to as the Saltgrass), the inexperienced house which within the nineteenth century existed south of the present seashore and is now underwater. The constructing is partly stuccoed. The inside of the church was completed by a Worthing man, Edward Disguise. Queen Charlotte, spouse of George III, introduced the church with the royal coat of arms in due to the individuals of Worthing for exhibiting such generosity and kindness to her two daughters, Princesses Amelia and Charlotte once they stayed within the city.
The constructing is now often known as The Venue, an independently owned 500 capability stay music venue and leisure house. The Grade 2 Star listed constructing is famous with English Heritage as a constructing of nice historic curiosity. Following a £2m refurbishment the constructing is now one of many UK’s main stay music venues.
In the primary, the Worthing live performance going expertise is far totally different to that of Brighton. It’s probably related with the final demographic of the city’s inhabitants as in comparison with our metropolis, which has a excessive pupil inhabitants. That is mirrored within the present batch of concert events developing at The Venue, specifically, tribute bands! There’s a Duran Duran one within the providing, a Depeche Mode one, a Human League one, a Supertramp one, a Coldplay one, and Hendrix Clapton Cream one. A number of days in the past there was even a Wrestling half time period spectacular which had offered out! You’d by no means get me at wrestling, even in the event you supplied me £1000 to go!
Tonight’s tribute was a homage to the now a lot revered and regenerated Gary Numan within the type of The Liquid Engineers who I had first witnessed stay again on 1st Might final yr up at The Prince Albert in Brighton.
To be sincere, I’m probably not a fan of tributes, except they’re actually, actually good!
If a factor is value doing, you then do it correctly! Traditional examples of this being Bootleg Blondie, Absolute Bowie and The Ramonas. Tributes are just about nearly all the time a shadow of the unique artist and in sure instances must be averted just like the plague. I averted any type of Numan tributes ever since they happened, aside from two of my mates going beneath the banner of The Borg, again within the day, however they have been sadly brief lived after the premature passing of certainly one of them.
Final yr I plucked up braveness to witness The Liquid Engineers as they have been taking part in in Brighton a couple of hours earlier than Gary Numan was himself on the Brighton Centre, his first time there in 39 years (Evaluation HERE). So I actually had nothing to lose! I concluded the overview of The Liquid Engineers by stating that they “had received the gang over, together with me. Let’s hope that they make a swift return”. At present is that partial return! Nonetheless, they are going to be taking part in Brighton on fifteenth September, the place they are going to be filling Patterns. You should purchase your tickets for that live performance HERE or HERE.
This Liquid Engineers are a five-piece outfit normally consisting of Pat (lead vocals and occasional guitar and synth), David H (synths and programming), Faye (bass and Moog synth), Pete (lead/rhythm guitar) and Dave T ‘Twiggs’ (drums).
This quintet proudly carry out materials from the beginning of Numan’s profession in 1978 and 1979 with ‘Tubeway Military’, proper by way of the a long time as much as his most up-to-date 2021 ‘Intruder’ album. They select choose tracks from all period’s during the last 45 years as a way to present an ever changeable setlist, together with all of the fan favourites and a few lengthy forgotten, however nicely liked album observe decisions, a few of which is for certain that Numan wouldn’t revisit in a stay setting once more. Thus tonight can be probably the one likelihood to witness a few of these masterpieces in a stay setting.
The quintet graced the stage at 8:56pm and ran by way of a minimum of 20 Gary Numan numbers till 10:29pm. The 2 ‘Dave’s have been stationed fairly a manner again on the efficiency space, however I assume they have been utilising the obtainable house, house that wasn’t obtainable at my final encounter with the band up at The Prince Albert.
Dave T ‘Twiggs’ is actually the luckiest member of the band as he was sitting behind the Tama drumset that was owned and utilized by Gary Numan’s South African born band member, Cedric Sharpley, from 1979 to 1992. In 1979 the Tama’s have been model new as nicely, and fortunately tonight the package is wanting in tip high situation. Sadly Cedric handed away in 2012 and ‘Twiggs’ managed to have a dialogue I consider with Cedric’s different half to safe the devices future. Not solely that, however The Liquid Engineers encourage punters to donate cash into an upturned drum on their merch stall. This has been put to good use, as final yr alone, the presents managed to place two children by way of drum faculty.
As David H was up to now again and his tools was just about hidden behind a panel, I used to be unable to establish what he was utilizing. I may see the laptop computer because it was the very best, however I’m not sure what the 2 keyboards have been, but it surely’s probably they’re the identical two Alesis synths as final yr.
Centre entrance stage is Pat, who was in essence ‘Numan’. He’s mastered the voice and mannerisms completely, however a bit of work on the cocky swagger Numan stroll across the stage is likely to be wanted. Tonight he didn’t play his guitar as he had final yr and he solely performed a couple of bars of the Yamaha CS1X synthesizer on the tail finish of ‘Vehicles’.
Faye was stage left (our proper) in charge of her Rickenbacker bass and occasional Yamaha CS1X keys, and on the alternative facet (stage proper, our left) was Pete who flittered between lead and rhythm guitars, certainly one of which was a Gould.
The lighting within the venue was quite good and thus negated the usage of the 1979 fashion ‘The Touring Precept’ tube lighting put up by the band final yr at The Prince Albert. The sound tonight was completely excellent, the standard of the FBT audio system in use was nearly unreal, you’d by no means guess that they’ve solely been round for a decade. Thus, tunes like ‘Down In The Park’, ‘My Title Is Destroy’, ‘Steel’ and ‘Are ‘Pals’ Electrical?’ – which began quietly just like the Numan stay model does – sounded great, there was an important depth of meaty sound! I used to be standing there pondering to myself “Are these actually a tribute act? They sound so good!”.
Mid set, through the ‘Airlane’ instrumental, Pat left the stage for a slight costume change, similar to Numan used to do. The 20 tunes have been a good cross part of Numan classics and included a number of that Numan himself would not entertain in taking part in stay. It was value driving ‘over the border’ to this gig, only for these. A journey that was made all of the extra pleasurable by listening to ‘The Ruben and Sharon Present’ on RadioReverb, which is the UK’s solely common intergenerational radio present with a mum and son presenter. They excelled themselves this night by taking part in the really great ‘The Morning Of Our Lives’ (stay model) by Jonathan Richman & The Fashionable Lovers, in addition to dropping ‘These Days’, not the Pleasure Division one, however the Nico one. I’ve been lucky to have witnessed each Jonathan Richman and Nico performing stay.
In the meantime….again in Worthing….The Liquid Engineers have been rattling their manner by way of their pleasurable set, which was vastly totally different to final yr’s and the followers have been all on board, together with myself. The one grievance being ….”Wot no ‘Telekon’ tunes”. Sure I do know that each 1980 ‘We Are Glass’ and ‘I Die: You Die’ singles have been discovered on the cassette model, however I’m speaking in regards to the 10 others. Roll on fifteenth September, once they play Patterns…can’t wait!
The Liquid Engineers setlist of Gary Numan materials:
‘Engineers’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Precept’ album)
‘Me! I Disconnect From You’ (from 1979’s ‘Replicas’ album)
‘Creatures’ (from 1985 ‘The Fury’ album)
‘Down In The Park’ (from 1979’s ‘Replicas’ album)
‘Advanced’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Precept’ album)
‘Chilly Warning’ (from 1984 ‘Berserker’ album)
‘Love Damage Bleed’ (from 2013 ‘Splinter (Songs from a Damaged Thoughts)’ album)
‘Saints And Liars’ (from 2021 ‘Intruder’ album)
‘My Names Is Destroy’ (from 2017 ‘Savage (Songs from a Damaged World)’ album)
‘Airlane’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Precept’ album)
‘Vehicles’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Precept’ album)
‘Stormtrooper In Drag’ (from 1982 ‘New Man Numan: The Better of Gary Numan’ compilation album (Paul Gardiner cowl)
‘Love Wants No Disguise’ (from 1981 ‘For Future Reference’ Dramatis album) (Dramatis and Gary Numan tune)
‘I Don’t Consider’ (from 1999 reissue of 1988 ‘Steel Rhythm’ album)
‘She’s Obtained Claws’ (from 1981 ‘Dance’ album)
‘Tracks’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Precept’ album)
‘Steel’ (from 1979 ‘The Pleasure Precept’ album)
‘I Die: You Die’ (from 1980 cassette launch of ‘Telekon’ album)
(encore)
‘Are ‘Pals’ Electrical?’ (from 1979’s ‘Replicas’ album)
‘We Are Glass’ from 1980 cassette launch of ‘Telekon’ album)
www.theliquidengineers.co.uk
Assist this night got here from Synthony 101 who’re an 1980’s digital tribute act hailing from West Sussex (Rustington, I believe). They shaped in 1999 and function as vocals and synthesizers solely, with the odd little bit of guitar thrown in for good measure. They pleasure themselves on creating cowl variations from scratch and refuse to “cheat” through the use of MIDI recordsdata downloaded from the web.
I final noticed them stay on ninth March 2018 in Lewes once they have been a quartet that includes Hayley, Antony, Sean and Dave. Again then there was greater than a whiff of Butlins/Cruise Ships vibe to them, though the parents then current loved their set, which included their variations of The HumanLeague (‘Being Boiled’), Gary Numan (‘Vehicles’), Blondie (‘Name Me’), OMD (‘Messages’), Kim Wilde (‘Children In America’), Yazoo (‘No one’s Diary’), Depeche Mode (‘Every little thing Counts’), Propaganda (‘Duel’), Eurythmics (‘Right here Comes The Rain Once more’), Blancmange (‘Residing On A Ceiling’) and Visage (‘Thoughts Of A Toy’) to call however a couple of.
Clearly within the interim interval they’ve actually honed their craft and have been, placing it bluntly, rather more pleasurable this time round! Tonight they’re a trio of chaps with Antony on vocals and the opposite two stationed behind Roland Juno keys and different inputs, plus a Ensoniq SQ1 Plus Workstation. They commenced their 10 observe set simply earlier than 8pm and entertained the punters till 8:40pm.
Tonight, solely ‘Residing On A Ceiling’ remained from their set 5 years in the past. The opposite decisions this night have been arguably not like their middle-of-the-road synth choice from my earlier encounter. The observe choice tonight was extra pure cred retro synth and all would have sat properly inside a synthesizer mixtape. By the way I bought the entire observe choice on vinyl once they have been launched, so I used to be blissful as Larry Loeber.
They opened with Depeche Mode’s ‘Photographic’, which simply is likely to be my fave tune of theirs. I’ve it on the 1981 ‘Some Weird’ compilation album, which additionally featured seminal materials from Tender Cell, Blancmange, The The, B-Film and Bare Lunch.
Subsequent up was the primary of two Ultravox covers, specifically ‘Passing Strangers’, the opposite was ‘Sleepwalk’ which was the penultimate observe. ‘Residing On A Ceiling’ adopted and was stable. Visage’s “ahhhh ‘Fade To Gray increase” was given an outing, a predictable selection, being the band’s greatest hit from 1980. Perhaps taking a punt on 1982’s ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’ or ‘Pleasure Boys’ would have been extra of a shock.
They took me unawares by taking part in the timeless ‘Love Will Tear Us Aside’ (Pleasure Division), which was most pleasurable, as was the next quantity ‘Seconds’ (The Human League), a clever choice as a substitute of choosing the very protected ‘Don’t You Need Me’, which like Kraftwerk’s ‘The Mannequin’, are each nearly the weakest tunes on their retrospective albums…..controversial or what!
‘Quiet Life’ (Japan) was unleashed subsequent. I’d have equally been proud of ‘Life In Tokyo’, ‘Gents Take Polaroids’, or ‘The Artwork Of Events’. Their second Human League cowl tonight was ‘The Sound Of The Crowd’, additionally from 1981’s basic ‘Dare’ album, which might solely be bettered by ‘Love Motion (I Consider in Love)’. Their second Ultravox quantity was ‘Sleepwalk’, which was additionally from 1980’s ‘Vienna’ album and each tunes (‘Sleepwalk’ and ‘Passing Strangers’), being chosen as singles forward of the biggie album title observe. A ineffective piece of knowledge?……“This implies nothing to me Ohhhhhhhh….”.
They left us with OMD’s debut single, ‘Electrical energy’. Now here’s a band that has gone in a handful of years from one I wasn’t fussed about ever seeing them stay once more, to actually eager to see once more! And that folk is why you all the time take a look at the help bands!
soundcloud.com/synthony101