Live Review : Phil X & The Drills + Collateral + Western Sand @ Rebellion, Manchester on March 7th 2020

I’m still buzzing from interviewing Phil X as Ryan and I rock up to Rebellion for tonight’s gig so, rum in hand, I settle down for what I expect to be a good night of rock. I’m not disappointed either.

We start the night with Western Sand, a band I’m not familiar with. They play upbeat southern blues, in a ZZ Top kind of style. Their songs are catchy and hummable, and the drumming is superb. There was a standout track, a cover of Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” that I particularly liked, and although this is not my favourite genre they were really good at what they did and I enjoyed watching them.

Collateral of course are not strangers to my ears. Their self-titled debut full album was released just over a week ago and is currently sitting firmly in the UK top 30 rock chart, so the band are currently riding high on its success. They bound onto the stage tonight to the strains of “Mr Big Shot”, an old favourite, and the rapidly swelling crowd immediately seem to warm to them. Their light and frothy commercial rock swirls around the room and bounces off the walls in the same way the light bounces off singer Angelo’s impossibly bright white trousers, and they romp us through a setlist comprised mostly of songs off the album. This is a band that could easily find success just on the basis of their looks and attitude, but they also have the tunes. Their songs are soft centres in a hard casing, they are the Cadburys Chocolate Eclairs of rock music. They make me want to dance, and looking around the room I see I am not alone, there is a definite aura of movement about the whole room. They can do feelings too, and the sublime “About a Boy” with its acoustic goodness and hints of Mellencamp is just wonderful tonight. The crowd are loving it, the band are loving it, these boys are taking the first steps on the road to rock stardom and they’ve hit the ground running.

When it comes to headliners Phil X & The Drills I really don’t know what to expect. I mean I know who Phil is, and what he does in his day job. but that’s about it so after chatting to the band earlier I am cautiously looking forward to an interesting night. I’m not disappointed. This happy 3-piece band put on a display of stunning musicianship to a packed-out Rebellion. The music is hard and uncompromising, but at the same time shot through with a lazy, sleazy edge that makes it highly listenable. It bounds and bounces, and makes you want to bounce along with it. Some of the titles are superb, with “I Wish My Beer Was As Cold As Your Heart” being a standout one despite something of a stuttering start to it. There are covers that sort of merge into mash-ups, including a powerful version of AC/DC’s “Walk All Over You” which sees Phil doing that spin-your-guitar-around-your-body-by-the-strap thing, much to my delight. There are spurts of Led Zep, and even Hall & Oates’ “Maneater” which sounds pretty cool when done with power chords.

Wherever I go on the world someone always plays ‘Hotel California’ at me, and tonight Phil and his band oblige with that too. Have to admit, I’ve never heard it played quite like this before though, and I love it. Phil’s voice is good, and he flexes it nicely with a power ballad, then slips on a slide guitar finger piece to do a bit of speaking in riffs. This is rifftastic indeed, and may or may not be the title to a song or even an album. I don’t know, I don’t care, I’m enjoying the show way too much to be bothered looking it up. And now for something completely different – the other two band members leave the stage and leave Phil literally solo, with just his guitar and voice to entertain us. He does this with a soulful semi-acoustic ballad followed by a screaming noodly electric solo.

The band come back and we go into another original song filled with snippets of other songs that we recognise, including (I swear) at one point the theme song from the Flintstones. This finishes the main set and after a brief interlude they are back. Phil tells us that as much as he enjoys playing stadiums of 80000 people with Bon Jovi, it’s better for his heart to play in a small sweaty venue like this for us and you know what? It may be a cliché but I believe him, This is a man who lives for his music and as he leads his band and the crowd into a rousing finale of AC/DC’s “Highway To Hell” I can’t help thinking of something Phil said earlier in the evening. He promised to rock our asses off and as I look down at my rather substantial one I can confirm that although physically my ass looms as solidly as ever, metaphorically I am indeed assless.