A Night Out with the Saw Doctors

Venue:

The Institute, Digbeth, Birmingham

Date: 30/04/2017

Jings, but it’s been a while since I stepped out for some live, forgetting quite how much I delight and deplore the process. Thankfully this was more the former, a homecoming for the boys of Tuam to what is still one of the bigger cities in the west of Ireland. And by Paddy, they were out in force, all ages, shapes and sizes, mainly generous in all three parameters, at times the room reminiscent of the Craggy Island Farmers Dance. I962. And that was the mood set by the support, as if merseybeat had never happened, a world where all the bands are populated by Richard Hawley lookalikes. They and the ridiculously overpriced piss sold in thin plastic slop jars to refresh the audience provided the downside. Thankfully a brief yet all too long set ended and, just before half nine, on trouped the current six physicians, kicking straight off into a set of favourites, both old and, probably, brand new. With a newish record to promote I am sure some songs were new, but they all sounded familiar and the audience knew all the words, or seemed to. There is something almost unique, if not clever, about the way they can play what is so essentially folkie fare, yet without a hint of twiddle-dee, solid guitars, bass, drums and, largely inaudible, keyboards thrashing to the fore. O, and sax. Did I forget to say that Anto Thistlethwaite is still a Dr, his parping and his mandolin a wonderful counterpoint to the rest of it. A veritable Big T in the band, the reference to the E Street Band not entirely remiss. I don’t think he was in the band on the last occasions I saw them, during the last century, so it was a wonder to hear the songs remodelled around his playing. In some of the slower songs, notably ‘Same Out Town’ and ‘Clare Island’, his playing was transcendent. The two main men, Leo Moran, glasses, and Davy Carton, Father Ted, who handle most of the songwriting and singing duties, must thank their lucky that he is in the band, rightly acknowledging his excellence on a number of occasions. A quick mention of what must be a new one, referencing Snoop Dogg in the intro, ahead of the audience being asked to put their motherfuckin’ hand in the air, this uncharacteristic profanity being explained away as “you know, like when the big rap stars want it to go all a bit silly”. It worked, the room being transformed silly in seconds. All to soon we were being rushed down the ‘N-17’ (SWIDT) into the home straits, ‘I Useta Love Her’, their, gulp, 1990 breakthrough, and still the biggest selling single in irish pop history, being reserved for the closing. An almost overlong delay and they were back, the new keyboard player now strapping on an accordion for 3 rumbumptious encores. Wonderful show, excellent band.

The audience:

As stated above, all shades of orange, white and emerald green, with all the alcoholic stations between merry and maudlin well catered for.

It made me think..

Defiantly against any shade of trendiness, any notion of hip or any colour of cool, the epitome of find your niche and stick with it. Consummate. Having been nearly swayed by the ongoing cough that made me blow out both Kokomo and the St John Passion, I am so glad I made the effort.

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