LA2, London

19th October 1999

Whitchurch Festival

4th August, 2001

Venue: LA2, London        Date: 19th October 1999

Setlist: Paper Chains; Shatter; Without a Trace; Fallen; Annabel; A New Age Tyranny; And Finally.

I was disappointed, last year, to learn that Grey Lady Down were to disband after performing a farewell concert at London's LA2 - particularly in view of the fact that, despite buying their CD's, I had never actually seen them live. Consequently when I heard, earlier this year, that the band were getting back together again (minus drummer Mark Robotham) I was delighted.  This was their second outing, having performed for the CRS the night before in Rotherham.

As always at the LA2 time was short and the band only had a very limited amount of time available to setup and perform their sound check - and throughout the gig Mark Wilson was plagued with technical problems from a misbehaving microphone.  However the band were back on form, full of enthusiasm and nothing was going to stop them giving it their best.

The band came on stage promptly for their support slot to Arena and with no time to lose they opened what was to be a very tight set with the song 'Paper Chains', from their CD 'Fear'. This was followed by 'Shatter', the first of three new songs performed tonight, which was well received.  Next came an excellent performance of 'Without a Trace' which gave rise to some soaring guitar work from Julian Hunt.

Another new number, 'Fallen', followed - and very enjoyable it proved to be. The initial vocal section had a fairly typical GLD sound with clear crisp vocal delivery and a strong melody.  This is followed by a very powerful instrumental break which makes full use of guitar and keyboards - with some brilliant bass work from Sean Spear. The build up to the finale of this number, which I have to say was reminiscent of IQ without their Mellotron, also gave the new drummer (whose name I sadly did not catch) a chance to prove his worth and the song played out with a gentle keyboard passage skillfully played by Mark Westwood.

An old favourite and guaranteed crowd pleaser came next with a rocking performance of 'Annabel', taken from the CD 'The Crime'. It was delivered with real vigour and the audience responded well to it.  The final piece of new material, which Martin Wilson announced had only just been finished, came next in the shape of 'A New Age Tyranny'.  The track was well performed but due to it's unfamiliarity seemed to fall a little flat in contrast to the preceding number.  The aptly named 'And Finally' rounded up the set to tremendous applause from the audience but sadly, after playing for just under an hour, there was no time for an encore.

All in all this was a very creditable performance from the band with a good mix of new and old material being played. A most welcome return!

Simon

Venue: Whitchurch Festival                 Date: Saturday, 4th August, 2001

Before Grey Lady Down's set on Saturday afternoon at The Whitchurch Festival, the announcer said that vocalist Martin Wilson had just rushed here from a London hospital, where his son was seriously ill. Given the circumstances then, Grey Lady Down - and Wilson in particular, acquitted themselves admirably, particularly given that rehearsal time was presumably fairly minimal.

For those not in the know, Grey Lady Down are an almost textbook 'neo-prog' band, and make little attempt to disguise it. Sometimes this can lead to some rather too obvious comparisons with others (the encore track sounded very similar to Marillion's 'Incommunicado'), but generally the band do have their own style and in particular are well served by the impressive vocals of Wilson and the fine guitar playing of Julian Hunt.

Although I'm not familiar with the band's records, having seen them live a couple of times the set seemed nicely balanced between older material and stuff from the new "comeback" album 'Star-Crossed'.  In general, I think that the latter material sounded more robust and musically interesting - which is obviously encouraging from the point of view of the band's musical progression. Particularly good was the track 'Crossfire' which featured some explosive guitar work - apparently Bernie Marsden played on the track on the album; in his absence Julian Hunt did a fine job on the solos.

The band's set goes down well throughout and when the encores were finished, it was announced that it was tipping down with rain outside ... did we want some more? The audience most emphatically did, and the band played the impressive 'And Finally', a song which has almost symphonic overtones and was actually one of the highlights of the set. Having played that, the band were out of rehearsed tracks and started asking the audience which tracks they would like to hear again!

Eventually though, the band finished with a cover of Pink Floyd's 'Comfortably Numb'; not the best version I've heard, but it seems churlish to criticise it in the circumstances - and it went down a storm with the crowd.

Overall then a fine set by this enduring British band, who deserve special praise both for playing through an obviously traumatic time for certain members - and for playing on even though they were obviously pretty tired. I wouldn't be surprised if they were asked back next year!

Tom