20th February 2001
Blå
Eskilstuna
Sweden
UK SUBS
20th February 2001
Blå
Eskilstuna
Sweden
U.K Subs Time Warp world tour 2001
and just one Swedish date, in Eskilstuna, only a one hour trip from
the capital of Sweden.
Would this make the gig improve on
last years show in Hultsfred?
These were my thoughts when I took
the train for another "two days off work to see the U.K subs".
And just like last year none of my friends seemed to be interested
enough to come along.
Blå
is quite a nice little venue with a capacity with, I guess up to 700
people if they use all the space. Tonight they only used the bar
(luckily) because the audience was around 200.
21.30 the
first support act started up the entertainment. First gig ever for
the Swedish quartet with the Birmingham born singer, and they did
pretty well. Carnated stood up as second with the confidence that
follows a bit of giggin' habit.
Charlie of course spent this part of the evening
in the bar, listening to the bands whistling and giving them a
hand. I had a chat with him while we where listening.
Always nice, talking to everybody about everything and
gladly answering any question, and never remembering
my face from time to time, but who can blame him?
He's must be talking to thousands before and after shows during a tour. Still
it was interesting to hear about the forthcoming plans of a new studio recording.
Charlie talked about doing a different kind of album, not as fast, Joy division
style, still punk, and with new influences and with a modernised sound. (He
said almost the same thing some year's ago when he was about to record the last
Urban Dogs album and in my opinion it went out pretty well. I think they can
speed down the music and still make it work, and the matter of the fact they
have already done it some times before, last part of Endangered Species,
Betrayal, etc) Time Warp is to be realised soon and with a little luck
they find a record company who wants to put out an "U" album
with this new material.
At
last Charlie finished the discussion and entered the stage for C.I.D, which
went straight into Cyberjunk, Disease and State of Alert (I think, I can't
remember clearly because I was crawling around with my camera). This far
everything went on quite well even if the crowd hadn't the size, energy
or the enthusiasm that I had hoped.
The boys went on with Go Home, Squat
96, Emotional Blackmail, and Tomorrows girls. But somewhere along the line
of hits the pulse of the evening went down a bit and the show started to
go a bit off. I don57;t really know why, maybe because the sometimes
poor sound, Charlie's vocals didn57;t seem to come through.Still, they played on and delivered
Left for dead, a new one called Global, a furious version of
Live in a car, Endangered Species, Rat Race, Organised Crime,
and Confrontation, the only song in the main set from
may personal favourite "D" album.
The last three
songs, Warhead, Riot and Stranglehold, improved the result
a bit but I cant say the audience exactly was dying for
more.... Still the band came back for another few songs.
Limo Life (always a killer!), New York state police,
Party in Paris and Down on the farm.
The encore
peaked the evening but again (just like last time in Hultsfred)
it's just gotta have been another "day at the work" kind of
gig for the band.
I hope
they'll come back and do some more gigging in Sweden next year.
Why don57;t go for north Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden around the
Botnia sea through Finland and then they can do their regular
30something dates in Germany (lucky bastards!).
I have no
expectations having them playing in my garden but I sure
hope I don57;t need to take two days of and travel this
far next year.
It always great to meet this guys and the
T-shirt girl Zoe who was pretty as ever with no purple
wig on her head this year, she's gotta be the longest
living t-shirt girl in the Subs history. Cheers to her
and to the U.K subs for still being one of the greatest,
and cheers to everybody at Blå who did try to add
some spirit to the evening!
Erik Nilsson