Dux for cover!

Alex the multi-tasker here (“roadie” has for a long time not come anywhere near close to covering my role).

When Thomas (singer, songwriter, wandering minstrel) initially suggested to me that I do a “roast” as the blog about last Friday’s show at The Dux Live, I thought that he must have been looking for an excuse to fire me – after all, he did ask me to be “unforgivingly abusive” in my review of the night’s entertainment. 
So, this morning, I find myself in the odd position of having verbal free rein on the outfit that pay me. The wisdom of this is yet to be seen!

The show started well with a horrific load-in. A year’s worth of touring up and down the country means that eventually cables will stop working. Quite a few of them were considerate enough to choose this day as the day to fail, with the result that soundcheck was embarrassingly lengthy and stressful, and far exceeded the allotted time. 

But really, the fun began for this show during the preceding week, when Infinite Lovechild, musical keeper of time, caught a debilitating ‘flu and proceeded to infect Thomas with his lurgy. I have to say, if a drummer ever was to hate a singer, he couldn’t have picked a better mode of revenge than to render Thomas’ voice so much damage that he began to sound more and more like Louis Armstrong throughout the night. 

During the show, Sleeping Dogs went through several genre transformations. Thomas at first sounded like he was trying to bring some Jazz influences into their music; his ‘flu-ridden,  smoky voice sounding very cool and laid-back. As it became apparent in the middle of the set that his voice was actually deteriorating, he began to morph Sleeping Dogs into a death-classic rock band; and from there, after he gave up singing completely, a progressive-instrumental-classic rock band. 

You can tell I’m not mean enough to do a proper roast. I do genuinely feel that Tony Pantera did an excellent job in his first show as guitarist, and it was actually very admirable that the band battled on for an entire set of ‘flu-hindered singing.

There was a good turnout, and the crowd loved it anyway – Sleeping Dogs always manage to pull a bevy of stunning women into their shows, and if I squinted, I could just make out through the incessant rain of ladies’ underwear being flung at the stage that the band was enjoying themselves.

Sleeping Dogs, Dux Live, Friday 22 June. A gig best forgotten. However – the afterparty was amazing!

PS – Supermodel were sublime. I will properly review them next time!