Degree Welcome Gig @ The Sage Gateshead. October 16

(Review by Russell)

A celebratory gig to welcome the Class of 2015 to the BA (Hons) Community Music and BMus (Hons) Jazz, Popular and Commercial Music degrees delivered at The Sage Gateshead in partnership with University of Sunderland. So said the blurb and that’s exactly what we got. 

The new intake of music students gathered to hear just what their tutors could do. A cast of thousands over two sets, the jazz element led the way.

 Vocalist Katherine Zeserson and guitarist James Birkett reprised their GAS Book set with two Gershwin tunes – The Man I Love and It Ain't Necessarily So. The heavyweights followed. Gerry Richardson (keyboards), Rod Sinclair (guitar), Neil Harland (electric bass) and Paul Smith (drums). The Meters, Freddie King and Jimmy Smith made for a smokin’ set. The Stumble featured Sinclair (Hey Mr Guitar Student – put down that copy of the Beano and get wood shedding!). Richardson and Sinclair had some fun on Back at the Chicken Shack, Harland slung around some funk lines and Smith surely has the patent on the metronome. The first set drew to a close with an energetic, exhausting performance from Boom Dang. Eight drummers marching, dancing, doing the hokey cokey, they were good fun, supremely talented. They hail from Dalton in Furness and distance being no object, should Graham Hardy need to call up a dep for Brendan or Nik in the Northern Monkey Brass Band then any one of these guys would fit the bill perfectly.

The second half opened with Dave Camlin (guitar & vocals), Paul Susans (double bass) and Brendan Murphy (Sauvignon  Blanc-o-phone & sundry percussion). Singer-songwriter Camlin sang with clarity and conviction (Bells of St Nemo), Susans expressed relief that the desire of the student audience to sing along spared him backing vocal duties and Murphy coaxed sounds from an array of instruments. The Sauvignon Blanc-o-phone, as Camlin called it, could well have been mistaken for Murphy’s unsuccessful entry to this year’s Turner Prize. Twenty or more wine glasses - half full/half empty, the choice is yours – crowded on to a makeshift platform resembling the empties on a table at last orders after a good night out in the club. Sauvignon Blanc or water? Who knows? Murphy rang notes from one, then, sleight of hand, another and another. 

The vocalists followed in ever-changing combinations (Camlin, Zeserson, Bex Mather and Helen Chadwick sang Cumberland Moon). One by one the evening’s participants returned to the stage (vocalist Sharon Durant and steel pan player Wendy Doyle appeared belatedly). At the last count thirteen of them were up there jamming on a Zimbabwean Hi-Life vibe Home 3. A talented lot these tutors. So, over to you, the Class of 2015.

Russell