Forty years on: Dr Feelgood live, one week before Wilko’s death

Dr Feelgood are probably the world’s greatest tribute band. Consisting of three members from a 1980s incarnation of the legendary 1970s band, today’s Feelgoods connect to when the band could only half fill an Eastbourne seaside theatre. In November they did manage to entirely fill the Hailsham Pavilion, although this venue is intimate. Intimate is good. These 'boys’ can 'do it right' in such spaces. Not exactly the kind of sweaty ale house that Lee Brilleaux and Co. favoured back in the day, but it worked. Back then these doyens of Britain’s retrospectively lauded Pub Rock circuit unleashed their brand of white boy speed freak RnB on the punk and new wave scene. The rest were history.

Intimate space for the Feelgoods

I felt that same history as I admired the style of newbie lead singer, Robert Kane (front-man since 1999). Decked out in crushed velvet jacket and drainpipes - ‘he looks like you,' my partner said, observing proceedings without her glasses and from the back of the hall. Good strong Geordie voice. 'Away the lads'. Newcastle is one of the UK’s white blues meccas after all. No Brilleaux, obviously, but he wasn't trying to be and had presence and more than enough rock 'n roll attitude. Bizarrely, mid-song, the sound engineer climbed on to the tiny stage, nearly knocking Kane over, in order to tell a roadie to turn down the lead guitarist. When they'd finished the song Kane addressed the engineer directly, noting that in over 200 years combined gigging experience he, guitarist Russell, bassist Mitchell and drummer Morris, had never had that happen, and all to turn down a guitarist. "Next time you pull a stunt like that you’ll be leaving the gig without your head on your shoulders," Kane said to the sound man safely positioned behind his console.  

Russell, drummer Morris, and Kane get it on

I never saw the Feelgoods' original guitarist Wilko Johnson in his heyday. After the great man's sad demise this week, an old friend reminded me that he’d seen him and his Solid Senders in 1986 playing live in our Polytechnic student bar. Sadly I got to City Poly a year too late (having also left three years earlier). Missing my timing again with my usual flair. When I saw Dr Feelgood the first time – Eastbourne 1984 – Brilleaux, Russell, Mitchell and Morris walked on after Sinatra’s 'New York New York' was played at a deafening volume. Lee was appropriately decked out in a white tux, and could still strut his stuff without too much of a belly. Ten years later he was dead. 

Russell, Kane and bassist Phil Mitchell

On the phenomenal Dr Feelgood & Canvey Island homage, ‘Oil City Confidential’, Lee’s Mum talks movingly of her son... in the past tense. A sad world but one made better when even today’s Feelgoods can bring the visceral excitement of when British blues was as much about white punk attitude and amphetamines as it was about honouring old school players from across the pond. Lead guitarist Gordon Russell summoned up the adrenaline-driven excitement of teenage Bluesbreaker Clapton and more than a hint of the celebrated choppy rhythmic style of Wilko himself. Roxette, Milk and Alcohol, She Does it Right, On The Jetty, Down at the Doctors and the other hits were inevitable highlights, but the new stuff sounded pretty good too. Good on you boys. Sadly, but maybe appropriately, this was the last live music event that Hailsham Pavilion will be putting on. They went out loud and proud.

Doin' it Right

 

Dr Feelgood (sign) at the Six Bells, Chiddingly; another sacred music venue 

I have to say a word or two about the Dr Feelgood support act, ‘Spyboy’. The boy in question was a loud shirt wearing, pot-bellied, Billy Bragg minus any of the occasional artistry of the Basildon man. Bragg was so politically tribal it hurt but he also wrote the peerless New England. Spyboy trotted out one cloying leftist cliché after another. That said, ‘Minimum Wages’ worked because despite the obvious political messaging, it rang true: His dying mother’s dependence on vastly underpaid carers. Stick to that kind of thing Spyboy and leave the leaden agitprop to Labour’s nostalgia buffs.