Music / Gary Clail
Review: Gary Clail, The Thunderbolt
“It’s going to be a lot darker tonight”, I’m informed by Gary Clail pre-gig. He’s referring to a comment about his first hometown appearance in decades last year at Harvey’s Wine Cellars, when his political polemic was laced with great reggae and dance. But by ‘darker’, this former Bristol roofer means industrial.
Unfortunately there aren’t many people here at The Thunderbolt tonight, and it’s a shame as it’s this great and unique little venue’s 10th anniversary, and owner Dave McDonald has put a lot into it over the years, making it into a place where some interesting names from the past and present are only too happy to play.
But back to tonight and Clail, who had chart success with the Human Nature single and also his 1991 album Emotional Hooligan. He hits the stage running and is straight into agitation mode. True, there is more shade than light in much of the sound as opposed to his gig last year, as sounds are distorted and warped through the mix, but the overall effect is still rhythmic and hard.
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Another Bristol musician with pedigree, saxman Tony Wrafter stands imposingly behind Clail. His brass accompaniment is forced through the mangle of Clail’s doodlings to create something quite ethereal yet compulsively fascinating.
The night is a mix of his last album Nail It To The Mast and his next, Electric Sky… A Sound System. The show was uncompromising, political, yes it was dark but also extremely danceable. It didn’t all go to plan, there were some technical hitches and producer Mike Bennett made a kind of screeching punky appearance at one point. Although it was pulled back when Clail finished the night off by playing some of his older material, and of course the great Human Nature and Emotional Hooligan were in there.
With a producer, mover and shaker like Bennett behind him who’s produced and managed a variety of established UK artists over the years, and a launch for the new album scheduled for the Bloomsbury Theatre, London, sometime next year, things could be looking up again for our own Emotional Hooligan.
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