Live Review : Stevie R. Pearce & The Hooligans + Porcelaine Hill + Dig Lazarus + Falling Doves @ The Waterloo Music Bar, Blackpool on September 10th 2021

Tonight is not the night I’m expecting to have. There’s bad news on the drummer front for all the bands playing, and even the addition of an extra band to the bill can’t quite shake off the bad vibes. Said band are a bunch of reprobates from California called Falling Doves. Yep, even in these days of covid restrictions and quarantines this band plus Porcelain Hill have sneaked in under the radar to tour together. How’s that working out for ya boys? Well, not so well actually. This 3-piece play sharp,pointy, punky rock, with between-song banter and anecdotes that border on stand-up comedy. I like them, they are fun, irreverent and happy, and that coupled with some real dirty grooves makes for a good set. Bad news on the drummer front though, they are currently borrowing Porcelain Hill’s drummer because during the course of a night off in Liverpool the previous evening theirs got arrested. No, really. So yeah, great start to the night but not great news on the drummer front.

Dig Lazarus are also a 3-piece,and they play classic bluesy rock. They have a very good bouncy bass player, but their drummer has a strapped-up knee and is on crutches.I have no idea what happened to him but I hope he recovers soon! In the meantime their sound reminds me of a slightly lighter Florence Black, and I enjoy the back-and-to vocals very much. Nothing particularly leapt out and grabbed me about them, but there was nothing bad about them either. There’s an album due out next month, and they are about to go on tour with The Virgin Marys so if you’re heading to one of those shows get there early, so you can catch them.

It’s turning into a night of trios, as Porcelain Hill are also a 3-piece band. They too are from the US and it’s rather odd to hear proper American accents in deepest darkest Blackpool in the middle of a pandemic but hey-ho! Thankfully nothing worse than having to pull a double shift tonight has happened to their drummer, which is a relief I’m sure. Their sound is full-on retro blues rock, with a hint of funk thrown in. There’s a definite Jimi Hendrix vibe going down, and I’m not surprised when a cover sneaks in at the end of the set. They are technically competent, there is wah-wah guitar and technical bass and some super drumming but this is not my favourite genre of music and I find it well-executed but not really for me.I’m a minority of one though as the space in front of the stage is full of people cavorting and singing along so if this is something that you are into they are probably worth a look. They are on tour here in the UK until mid-October so if you like your rock bluesy and your riffs groovy do go along and check them out.

So to our erstwhile headliners. Turns out that tonight they too are a 3-piece band, as sadly drummer Carl tested positive for covid just hours before they set off to drive up to Blackpool. Oh. Rather than cancel, Stevie, Lance and Richard still turn up, but rather than the full show featuring the just-released new album “Major League Son Of A Bitch” we get a stripped-down acoustic set. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a bad thing, but it does leave poor old bassist Richard Jones with little to doexcept a few bits of backing vocals and some fairly serious heckling! I’m not sure how familiar you are with Stevie? If he looks familiar you may well have caught him playing guitar in the current incarnation of Jizzy Pearl’s Love/Hate, or riffing alongside Kory Clarke in Warrior Soul. Tonight though is all about his own stuff, and that stands tall alongside any of his other work on its own merit. The Hooligans started off as a motley bunch of sidekicks but seem to have coalesced into a Proper Band over the last couple of years, and their raucous brand of high-energy rock is right up my street listening-wise. Tonight’s music then. Despite it just being Stevie (in the best sequinned biker jacket ever) and fellow guitarist Lance (complete with Elvis specs) they start with the title track from the new album and somehow even though it’s acoustic it’s still raw, animal and snarly. This is brutal.Stevie spits out the words with a ferocity that belies the between-song banter, leaving you bewildered and unsettled.

The mood changes in an instant from dark to bright and breezy by the time we get to the knotted-hankied loveliness of ‘Lunatics By The Pool’ and the onstage dicking-about between Stevie and Lance is a pleasure to watch. We record a “fuck you but get well soon” message to Carl, and we thank Ian and his hard-working team at the Waterloo. We take a breather with the emotional ‘If I were Blind’, a heart-wrenching belter of a song about lost love that wrings us all out like soggy sponges. Some old favourites are thrown in for good measure, including staple signature song ‘Bad Day’. This evening had the potential to be just that, but Stevie and the Hooligans pull it back from the brink and turn it into a good good night instead. They close with a demonstration of the right way to do blues rock, which is with a tearing rendition of ‘Folsom Prison Blues’, and even though this has not been the night I expected to have it’s been good.

The next few dates on the tour have had to be postponed due to Carl’s illness, so I would like to wish him all the best and remind anyone reading this that you should get along to one of the re-scheduled gigs if you possibly can. After all, if the band were this good doing an impromptu and barely-rehearsed acoustic set can you just imagine how great they are going to be when they get back up to full speed?