Lou Reed Tribute Night At The Monkey House November 9, 2013
Words by Tim Lewis.
I had a good time at the Lou Reed tribute night at The Monkey House on Saturday. I met up with Nathan Curtis just before 9 and headed over. There were quite a few people there already. I ran into Paddy Reagan and he said Lowell Thompson and Swale had cancelled. Rats! Oh well, there were still two bands on the bill I wanted to see. Charlie Messing opened the show by singing and playing a red acoustic guitar. He did a great job with Charlie’s Girl and Cool It Down.
Next up, a duo called Pours set up. The first song had a singer/keyboard player and a drummer. They played a nice version of All Tomorrow’s Parties. For the second song, the keyboardist picked up a guitar and they ripped into Venus In Furs.
After their set, Wolvings got up to play. They jammed out a nice version of Sweet Jane. The verse was pretty restrained, but they rocked the chorus hard. They followed with Oh, Sweet Nothin’ and used the same format. It was really nice that the whole end of the song was rocking over the top chorus. What a great set! The last time I saw Sean Michael Hood he played some very delicate and gentle acoustic guitar. This time he had an electric guitar, another guitarist, bassist, and drummer. They rocked hard on Crazy Feeling and Run Run Run. This set caught me by surprise and I really liked it!
As the evening wore on, more and more people filled the Monkey House. It was pretty packed when ROUGH FRANCIS hit the stage. They opened with a restrained, for them, Rock And Roll. It sounded great, but I was a bit surprised they did not send it over the top into heavy rock and roll. They followed suit with a killer I’m Waiting For The Man. Since everyone else only got two songs, I thought that was it, but they said they were going to play a Rough Francis song in Lou Reed style. After that they just played a few of their songs at top speed and volume. It changed the mood of the night, but I did not mind. I loved that they were rocking out so hard. They wrapped it up with the usual fantastic Come To Space.
With Rough Francis and Wolvings being the bands I wanted to see, and a 9:30 start time at work the next day. we headed out after their set. I think Paddy and Tooth Ache had sets to do, probably Lou songs, but it’s hard to come back down when Rough Francis take you so high up. It ended on an unexpected note, but I had a really good time that evening.
This post was originally published by Tim Lewis at his personal blog, https://timstriangletribune.wordpress.com.