By Terry Marland, Rock At Night Wales
Live Review: Bad Touch, Piston, Hollowpoint-The Tivoli Buckley, North Wales, Saturday 27th November 2021
The much rescheduled “Better Late Than Never” tour finally comes to Buckley.
Bad Touch bring their “Better Late Than Never” tour to Buckley eighteen months after the original gig was postponed due to the Covid outbreak. With support coming from Piston and Hollowpoint a night of solid Rock is in store for the Buckley faithful.
Hollowpoint
Taking to the stage at 7:30 veteran rockers Hollowpoint get the evening started in fine style with a mix of self-penned songs and covers. Featuring powerhouse vocals and spiralling dual guitar sequences they set the bar high for the rest of the night. The spirit of comradery is evident throughout the evening with all three bands enthusiastically supporting one-another and it was great to see members of Bad Touch and Piston sitting in on the Hollowpoint set.
Piston
After a quick turnaround Piston take to the stage. Vocalist and charismatic front man Rob Angelico greets the crowd with arms aloft bedecked in black and sporting a Piston vest and dayglo sunglasses. The cheer from the audience, which includes Stevie Westwood from Bad Touch, indicates they are on side before he sings his first note.
The all too short set features numbers from their 2019 self-titled album and for the most part is highly energised with Angelico covering every inch of the performance area and stage jumping at will. The poignant “Carry us Home” shows the band in a softer mode and features some stunning guitar work. New song “Shangri La” has a Red Hot Chilli Peppers vibe and goes down well with the crowd. They wrap up their performance with a highly charged take on Creedence Clearwater’s “Proud Mary”. At just thirty minutes, for me, their slot ended too soon and it’s good to see that they return to the Tivoli next April when they support The Treatment.
Piston band members are: Rob Angelico(vocals) Jack Edwards (guitar) Luke Allat (guitar) Stuart Egan (Bass) Brad Newlands Drums.
Bad Touch
Before Bad Touch appear there is an off-stage band request for the audience to have a ”Ruddy Good Time”. They then take to the stage to the “Pearl and Dean” (Cinema Advertising) theme from the seventies and waste no time launching into a scorching renditions of “Lift Your Head Up” and “Good on Me”.
Front man Stevie Westwood stands centre stage resplendent in a floral suit. His engaging vocal style straddles rock, blues and soul and together with bandmates Daniel Seekings (guitar and vocals) Rob Glendinning (guitar) Michael Bailey (bass) and George Drewry (drums) they deliver a storming set.
About twenty minutes into the set there is a slight hitch with the vocals that is quickly corrected before the band continue with a wonderful version of the Edwin Starr classic “Twenty Five Miles From Home“ which draws one of the biggest cheers of the evening, with members of Piston now taking their place in the audience.
“I Get High”/ “Come a Little Closer” and “Can you Save Me” from last year’s highly acclaimed Kiss the Sky album are interspersed with a powerful cover of Alanis Morriesette’s “Hand in My Pocket”.
Any technical problems are now a fading memory as the band reach full throttle with scorching guitar exchanges between Daniel Seekings and Rob Glendenning. The main set concludes with “Outlaw” before the band returns dressed in Christmas garb (recently acquired from the local Home Bargains store we are reliably informed) for a rendition of their 2020 seasonal offering “A Gift For You “ which has the crowd buzzing. Their usual encore “99%” sends the fans away very happy punters.
It’s fair to say that as requested by Stevie at the start of the set the audience did have a “ruddy good time”.
The pairing of Bad Touch with Piston for the national tour makes this a must see combination and if you get the chance get yourself to one of the remaining gigs.
The Tour Continues:
29th November Cardiff Clwb Bach
30th November Exeter The Cavern
1st December Southampton The Joiners
2nd December London 02 Academy
4th December Gravesend Red Lion – Sold Out
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