Live Review : Revival Black + Scarlet Rebels + Attic Theory @ Jimmy's, Liverpool on January 24th 2020

First gig of the year and I am starting my review, as usual, by complaining about the traffic. Well actually not so much the traffic this time as the parking. Jimmy’s is a cool little basement venue under a bar/restaurant just on the edge of Liverpool’s China Town, which means that there is limited on-street parking nearby which was all full, and an incomprehensible one-way system of little streets that saw us drive past 3 times before we finally found our way to a pay and display within walking distance. Sadly this meant that my enjoyment of openers Attic Theory was restricted to their last song. This was frustrating because on the strength of said song they appear to be a decent band. They have two vocalists, some nice whoa-oh-oh chorus and a hint of Chilli Peppers. Hopefully I will be able to check them out properly at some point.

Scarlet Rebels and Revival Black have teamed up for this tour as co-headliners. I’m not sure how they are deciding who goes on last at each show but tonight as this was a hometown show for Revival Black. It made sense for it to be them. Scarlet Rebels therefore took to the stage next, and proceeded to pretty much blow the roof off this little cellar. I came across them properly at SOS Festival last year and was hugely impressed, so I was keen to see if they were as good as I remembered. Nah. I think they were actually better! This is a band who are currently at the top of their game, and if you enjoy your rock melodic, catchy and bouncy I strongly recommend you try and catch one of the upcoming shows on this tour. They start with a handful of tracks off their recently-released album “Show Your Colours” and immediately the bar is set high in terms of quality songwriting. I particularly liked the song ‘Let Your Love Go’, which featured some great guitaring from young Chris and also gave him the opportunity to throw some serious shapes. He’s very bendy.

I also noted that there was some rather excellent drumming happening. Kudos to Gary Doyle who is a bit of a powerhouse. It’s easy to overlook the drummer at a gig as he’s at the back and just keeping things going, but tonight the drum sounds really stood out, and it was good to see just how well a good drummer can pull the whole band together. Talking of together, I did notice that there seemed to be one less person on stage than last time, not sure if this is a permanent change or not? Anyhow the band seemed to work perfectly well as a 4-piece and none of the songs from the album seemed to be lacking in any way. Quite the opposite in fact, Scarlet Rebels are a band who, to my ears at least, sound better live than they do on record. The album is good, but it doesn’t really capture the energy that this band has live. They chuck in a couple of songs from their previous incarnation as Void, much to the delight of some obviously die-hard fans in the audience, steal a bit of Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted Dead Or Alive’ and finish the set off with their own ‘Take My Breath Away’. Yes, they sure did that, I am now feeling all my feels and wondering how the hell Revival Black are going to follow that?

Needn’t have worried about that though. If Scarlet Rebels were on fire then Revival Black were chucking on more petrol because they too played a stonker of a set. Their sound, their vibe, is different but just as good. They too ooze energy, but in a more bluesy, grittier, dirtier way. They also have the distinct advantage of Daniel’s voice, which just seems to get better and better every time I see them. It’s complemented tonight by the addition of a mic stand that is a sort of light sabre, glowing white in the somewhat dim and hazy environs. I was very impressed! From the opening bars of ‘Wide Awake’ to the closing notes of album title track ‘Step In Line’, they seem to barely stop to draw breath. The pace is frenetic, the energy is palpable and the home-town crowd is in fine voice. As well as the glow-in-the dark mic stand I am also impressed at how the whole band’s stagecraft has improved over the last few months. Dan’s between-song banter is smooth and polished, and the other guys move about the stage with ease. They bounce off each other and engage with the crowd and it all just works.

There a couple of coves in the set, they have totally deconstructed Deep Purple “Burn” and made it their own now. It’s slower, sleazier, a totally different animal to the original and I love it. They also encore with Creedence Clearwater Revival ‘Fortunate Son’ and the crowd, exhausted and sated, sing along and wave their arms for all they are worth. The band have fed off the audience like vampires, taking every last drop of rock goodness and feeding it back as superb songs played perfectly.

I’m actually running out of words now, I suspect that in years to come when both of these bands are filling stadiums this will be another of those “I was there'“ nights. It was spoiled slightly by the discovery later on that someone had stolen Revival Black stage banner. Hopefully this was just an over-enthusiastic over-imbibed fan who thought it was a good idea at the time, but in the meantime if anyone spots it out and about do contact the band so they can try to get it back. There’s still a lot of dates left on this tour and they need it, so if you know where it is do the right thing eh?