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Gerry & The Pacemakers MJC 26th April 2009

Gerry & the Pacemakers
Mick Jagger Centre 26th April 2009

The first ever pop concert I went to was to see Gerry & the Pacemakers at the Vaudeville Theatre in the West End in about 1963 or 4 I think. It seemed a bit of a hoot to see him 45 years or so later so off we trotted to the Mick Jagger on a nice traffic free Sunday evening. As opposed to Friday’s rush to get there in the nick of time we made it in time to get a drink in the foyer with a much more sedate crowd that the blues fans of two nights previously.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect as it was billed as Gerry Across The Mersey so I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was a support band and Gerry Marsden came on strumming an acoustic later on. Fortunately there was a new incarnation of The Pacemakers and on they came all nicely dressed in matching black shirts. They started off with the old Cliff Bennett hit (one of 2!) Got To Get You Into My life which was a bit weird as Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers were on the bill in 1963 or 4. As a real nerd point in the Rebel Rousers at the time were Chas Hodges and Dave Peacock who became Chas’n’Dave. Gercha!

It was clear from the outset that they were a very good tight band. They operate in their own right as Soul Journey and are a 5-piece. There is a guitarist (nice two tone Strat white going into black), a bass player, a drummer and somewhat oddly two keyboard players. One keyboard player plays all the brass and organ parts on two identical Roland XP30s and the other electric piano on a Yamaha. There’s a load of blurb on them further down.

Then Gerry Marsden came on to good applause and for a 67 year old he still had a very good voice and didn’t stint on anything. His 2 tone wine red Strat looked really good and he was no slouch on it either. He explained that the first half would be all the songs that influenced him and after a break it would be the hits. That seemed a very sensible way of doing things and he launched into Lonnie Donegan’s Puttin’ on the Style. The audience were encouraged to join in and we had the panto stop the song and complain that we aren’t singing loud enough routine on a few occasions.

What followed was a very good show full of enthusiasm that years of the working men’s clubs and the cabaret circuit had honed. I don’t mean that it was particularly slick or insincere but that he knew what he was doing in and did it well. The rest of the first half was one good old song after another. I will risk boring you by listing the songs. The Wonder of You, All Shook Up, Sweet Dream Baby (inc the story of Roy Orbison’s dark glasses), Blueberry Hill, I Saw Her Standing There (The Pacemakers only as Gerry went off, maybe he has a problem down below is he did the same in the second half), Lucille, Bette Midler’s The Rose, Great Balls of Fire and Conway Twitty’s It’s Only Make Believe.

That was a pretty good selection and to show what a sedate, aging audience we were in when we went out at the break there was no rush for the bar at all (for Snowy White on Friday it was a scrum) and the barmaid remembered what we had been drinking for the same again. We had a look at the rather weak merchandising stall that was being run by one of the MJC staff and I got a t-shirt as an annoying gift for someone and a very cheaply produced CD. I also got a poster of the band to find out who they were & when I put it in the car I saw the most awful Fiat Panda in the car park. It was orange & white. I took a pic of it (available on request!) to show work that there were worse cars than mine out there.

Back for the second half the band were now in new shirts, different colours this time and they sort of looked symmetrical on stage. They started off with Barefootin’ on their own again for Gerry to come back halfway through with new clobber on as well. He obviously likes an entrance. Gerry did like a bit of interaction with the audience and we found out that a woman had come over from Florida especially for the show. Also he singled out a young woman in a wheelchair who he seemed to be familiar with. It turned out she was paralysed from a botched operation and he told her to sue and promised her the name of his solicitor. He even made a point of walking round the stage to her and giving her a kiss.

Back to the plot the hits came thick and fast with another break for the band to do their thing while he went off. We had, It’s Gonna Be Alright, Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying, I’m the One, The Way You Looked Tonight, Slow Down, I Heard It Through The Grapevine (the band solo number), Walk Hand In Hand With Me, Jambalaya and then came the biggest laugh of the night when he went to introduce the band.

He turned round waving at The Pacemakers (all bar the bass player were young enough to be his children – easily) and a woman’s voice called out from the audience ‘Are they the originals?’! The audience and band creased up, Gerry wanted to know where on earth she was from (Old Kent Road) and the balding organ keyboard player said indignantly ‘I’m only 36!’

Then we had Ferry Cross The Mersey, I Like It and of all things a Little Feat song - On Your Way Down. The last song they did was of course You’ll Never Walk Alone which meant a lot of standing up and arm waving. Cunningly he went off waving while the band still played and then came back on for another couple of choruses before departing for good leaving the band to finish off. It told us quite nicely that that was that.

It was a very enjoyable show and despite us having the giggles at some of the audience and the possibility that it may be awful Gerry Marsden proved to be a consummate entertainer still with a very good voice and a good sense of how to play an audience. He did tend to go a bit Les Dawson at times and his referring to those folk pertaining to the pink as Humpty Dumpties (why?) was a throwback to the working men’s clubs when we all know that correct terms are either whoopsies or wooly woofters. Would I see him again? Definitely as the band were very tight and good (most of them did the backing vocals as well) and there was a lot of joking and chatting between themselves and Gerry Marsden which indicated they were having a good time too. I think the car outside with the number plate GER 1E may have been his as well.

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