Another November gig… but far from the last!
I was at the Sage Gateshead two nights running over the weekend of the 9th and 10th November. The Saturday gig was Adam Ant, who is of course an absolute ‘80s pop legend and thus a must-see in my book. The tour was celebrating the 1982 Friend Or Foe album, which was played in its entirety, followed by a set of favourites and crowd-pleasers.
The support act were the Glam Skanks, who are an all-female glam rock band: basically, everything I was looking for in a band when I was a teenager. The image and the music is just right – being from California, their sound leans more towards the American end of glam rock (New York Dolls etc.), but they obviously know their stuff regarding the British history as well and it was a really fun, energetic set. I loved them and will be investigating their music further!
The energy only ramped up further when Adam Ant and his band came on stage after the interval. It was most definitely a ‘standing from the outset’ gig (if you go to a lot of older bands’ gigs, where the audience tends to skew a bit older as well, you will know that this is usually not the case!).
The Friend Or Foe section was a good romp through the album tracks (including a rousing ‘Goody Two Shoes’, probably my highlight of the gig), and then things really kicked off for the rest of the set. I was so happy to hear ‘Xerox’, my favourite track from the Ants’ earlier and slightly gothier days, and of course the crowd went mad for the big hits. Here’s a video I took of ‘Antmusic’:
It’s getting really hard to choose my favourite gigs from among the many I’ve been to this year, but this one is definitely up there! I’ll do a 2019 gig roundup next month. But I’m not quite done yet…
