Francis Dunnery’s It Bites

Venue:

Bush Hall, London

Date: 22/01/2023

A freezing Sunday night, in the dark side of town, and a queue outside Bush Hall wind’s it’s way around the corner. Five Swedish guys, all nine foot tall, are behind me – they have made the trip specifically for this gig. It Bites were that kind of band.

A stellar bunch of musicians shuffle onto the stage, (Peter Jones, the blind keyboard player from Camel and who is also Tiger Moth Tales, is helped to his seat by the bass player, Paul Brown, to a huge roar. Pete is a Prog legend,) including guitar prodigy Luke Machin, from Maschine & Tangent and drummer Bjorn Fryklund. Finally, the 6’ 4” Dunnery comes out, with that white Squier Strat still around his neck, beams out at the audience, and counts in All In Red. And I’m at Guildford Civic Hall, in 1988, in awe at Frankie’s sheer charisma, and singing my lungs out.

It is clear from the off that Dunnery is amongst friends, with the audience singing every chorus, every backing vocal and every vocal tick that we loved from the albums, which Frankie still sings too.

The setlist mines all three original It Bites albums and is a veritable greatest hits, with the odd Prog deep cut thrown in, (their album tracks were always where the gold was.) Francis is in rare form, joking with the band, the audience and the crew. He grins the whole time, even when he mangles a guitar part, looking at Machin, who has, of course played the twin-lead harmony perfectly, and winking. His love for Pete Jones is wonderful to see, they swap jokes from the van, Pete doing a note perfect impression of Frankie’s gravelly, Cumbrian voice and bringing the house down. More than once, Dunnery goes over to the keyboard, puts his arm around his old friend, and kisses him on the head.

The set ends with ‘the bigguns,’ Kiss Like Judas, Calling All The Heroes and Still Too Young to Remember before they’re back for Once Around the World, their 15-minute Prog opus, which sends everybody home more than happy. The final lyric, sung with a wonderful smile, of “It’s been a good day and at last – I’m on my way, to keep my heart warm. I’m sure you enjoyed my day.” is sung by everyone in the place, a few wiping away a tear of happiness, me included.

I catch up with the Swedes as they leave, all of them talking excitedly, in Swedish, about what they had just witnessed. I ask when they fly back. They tell me they have to be at Heathrow in 6 hours. “Not much sleep then?” I say. They laugh, heartily. “Sleep? We have vodka at the hotel and have all the songs to talk about. We won’t sleep. Too excited.”

The audience:

Mainly 50-60 year-old blokes but also plenty of women too who remember Francis in his pomp as that blonde, spiky-haired helicopter who, for 15 minutes, was so important to them.

It made me think..

It Bites were everything to me, in the late ‘80’s. I was mid-thirties and loved that I could love a band who were popular, on telly and in Smash Hits, but still ‘get’ the Prog feel from. Francis put himself through hell after they split up, (he found himself off his head on crack cocaine, on Sunset Boulevard, with a dealer’s gun at his temple,) and is now devoted to raising money for helping addiction. He’s a great big northern bassterd, (his description,) and I love that he found his love again for these songs.

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