GIG REVIEW: MANGO CROW
5th APRIL 2008
Mango Crow travelled all the way from Cwmbran to provide us with a
wonderful evening of Blues and Blues/Rock adding their own style and
interpretation notably to works by BB King, Muddy Waters and Cream. The room
was fairly full by the time they started but people kept on coming in and very
soon it was standing room only at the back!
The band kicked things off
with “The Thrill Is Gone” which was so far removed from the BB King
original it was barely recognisable as such, and that set the trend for the
night. Paul Morgan (Or “Podge” as he is
usually addressed) adds to and amends the original work to give a point of
difference to their performance. They followed this up with “Cant
Complain” and “That’s Why I Love You So” before an
excellently reworked “Hoochie Coochie Man” really impressed with its originality.
Things calmed things down with John Hiatt’s “Feels Like
Rain” and then Clive Tomlinson showed us his wares with the Hendrix
classic “Red House”. The next track was “New Day
Yesterday” by Jethro Tull,
the only 12-bar track they ever did apparently! Then we had a real surprise as
Paul Morgan produced a flute to compliment his vocals and harp playing, a
“first” at the BBC as, to my knowledge, nobody has played a flute
here before!
Clive Tomlinson then went
on to successively emulate Walter Trout, Peter Green and Joe Bonamassa all to good effect before the band stepped down
for a mid-session interval.
The second half started
with a succession of Clapton tracks, actually they were the Cream and Blind
Faith tracks “White Room”, “Cant Find My Way Home” and
“Crossroads”, followed by an awesome version of
“Badge”. They continued with some works by John Mayall, “Awestruck And Spellbound”,
“Romance Classified” and then “Chaos In The
Neighbourhood”. Interspersed with the Clapton and Mayall
were “Sloe Gin” by Joe Bonamassa and
“Don’t Take Advantage Of Me” by Johnny Winter.
Another Jethro Tull track provided an
excuse to give the flute some more air, Dion’s
“King Of The New York Streets”, The Beatles “Come
Together” and Family’s “Burlesque” filled the gaps
between a couple of Rory Gallagher tracks, and Hendrix’s “Hey
Joe” completed the score. There had to be two encores as this band proved
their popularity once again here at the BBC.
Throughout the night the
rhythm section of Wayne Jenkins on bass and Russell Harry on drums complimented
the front-men superbly, with Russell wielding his sticks with great enthusiasm
and laying down a steady cooking beat all night long. Clive Tomlinson started
slightly nervously but grew in confidence throughout the night and was very
impressive indeed by the end, especially so, I thought, on “White
Room” and “Chaos in the Neighbourhood”. The understated Paul
Morgan did a top job on vocals, sounding great on a brand new Yamaha PA system
once he managed to get the levels adjusted properly! He also juggled the flute
and the harmonica to great effect, and gave great direction, albeit with a
little hesitation at times.
Star of the show for me
though was without doubt Clive on lead guitar; Yes, maybe we have seen
technically better guitarists, but his enthusiasm for his trade really shone
through into his playing, so much so that at the end of the night he left the
entire room wanting more. It was a real pleasure to see a musician pushing his
boundaries a bit, in doing so there will inevitably be some mistakes, but the
overall experience is much improved as a result.
On a slight downbeat there
was a lot of chatter in between numbers that must have been quite off-putting
for the band and certainly spoiled the enjoyment of the night for some of the
members, this was not helped by the fact that some of the language being used
was not what you would expect to hear when there are ladies in the room, there
was some improvement after it was mentioned by MC Adrian Bold, and hopefully we
will experience better manners at the next gig!