The Angels @ The Gov, Adelaide(19/11/2011)

Wed 23rd Nov, 2011 in Gig Reviews

It wasn’t that long ago that a couple of the original members of The Angels were touring as The Brewster Brothers, when The Screaming Jets frontman Dave Gleeson jumped onstage to join the band for a couple of the classics. Not long after this, the band played a handful of gigs as Rick Brewster’s Angels featuring Dave Gleeson. I was lucky enough to catch one of these early gigs at The Norwood Hotel in an intimate gig. At the time, it seemed to be a rare opportunity to catch one iconic Aussie rock singer singing for a different iconic Aussie rock band, almost like a novelty mash-up, but it was actually too good to be just a novelty.

Now, just a few short months later, the band are not only touring as The Angels, but are also performing new songs and apparently have a new album coming out in the new year. This gig, at The Gov in Adelaide, was looking set to be a special one. Not only is Adelaide the city where The Angels originally formed, but it’s also the adopted hometown of frontman Dave Gleeson. From the look of the sold out venue, the crowd were pretty happy to claim both as Adelaide’s own.

The show was opened by local band Almost Human, who went down pretty well with the crowd and kept a good portion of the punters indoors to watch them warm up for the headliners. In fact, when Almost Human performed at The Gov a few months back in their own headlining show, they pulled quite a respectable crowd of their own. By the time The Angels arrived on stage, the room was more than ready to hear some Aussie pub rock classics.

Before I start giving my opinion of this particular gig, I should probably make mention of the recent controversy over this current line-up of the band:

For a while now, original Angels singer Doc Neeson has been out on the solo trail and this version of the band has sprung up during Doc’s absence. Now it seems a war or words has broken out over the circumstances of this current situation. The Angels are claiming that Doc and drummer Buzz Bidstrup are refusing to play with The Angels, while the two are counter claiming that they have no intention of leaving the band and that this current touring version of The Angels is not the ‘real’ Angels at all.

A lot of debate on this has broken out online, especially on Facebook, and there seems to be a lot of passionate Angels fans out there with a strong opinion on the matter. Even at the gig itself, you could hear this argument being discussed throughout the crowd during the night.

After hearing the arguments during the night in The Gov’s beer garden (which I listened to with great interest and an open mind) it seems to me that my opinion could be a little controversial to the die-hard Angels fans out there. One friend of mine who I spoke to said he saw this version of The Angels as just a cover band and would rather see the local tribute band Redback Fever instead. So for my opinion…

I’ve seen the Angels a few times over the years, with a few variations to the line-up. I’ve always loved the songs and most of them stand up well as true rock classics, however, I felt that the band, as a live act, were getting a little tired and worn-down…and fair enough too. These guys have been around since the early 70s so after so many years of living the rock and roll life, they are bound to get a little road-ravaged and they are certainly going to age over the years.

Now, admittedly, I may be a little biased as a fan of The Screaming Jets, but I’m a fan of the Jets largely because of the high energy entertainment factor of frontman Dave Gleeson. Hence, when you put an iconic and very entertaining frontman in front of a band with an amazing, iconic catalogue of classic rock songs…sorry Angels purists, but you have a fantastic band!

The whole night, the band tore through the back catalogue as well as a couple of new songs and the majority of the crowd loved every minute of it. Having Dave up front seems to have given the Brewster brothers and co. a shot of adrenaline which was needed to propel the band forward. Without this new line-up, it was very likely that Doc would have gone about doing his solo shows, while the Brewster Brothers continued to play very small gigs, and The Angels would have simply been remembered as a classic rock band that fizzled out years ago.

Some of the classics that were still ringing in my years well after the gig was over included No Secrets, Take a Long Line, and of course Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again with it’s infamous audience participation at an all time high. The only song that I thought really suited Doc better was the Angel’s version of The Animals classic We Gotta Get Out of This Place which didn’t quite sound right with Dave singing.

I think maybe even the Doc Neeson loyalists were enjoying this gig more than they would have liked to admit. Maybe if the band were playing under the moniker of The Screaming Angels there wouldn’t be an issue at all?