IQ - Christmas Gig, Oakwood Centre, Rotherham 2000

On the morning of the gig I still hadn't decided whether I was going or not. The weather had turned bad, and by 5pm it had started snowing! However, I'd missed IQ's last three gigs in the north and as I had never seen them live before I decided to go, which turned out to be the best decision I ever made. I had heard from various sources that IQ were fantastic live. And they were!

I arrived at Oakwood School a bit early and found myself in the bar (a real ale bar in a school - that was a nice surprise!). The band were doing the soundcheck, which sounded excellent, but when they finished they decided to have a drink and a chat in the bar themselves.

Once the doors opened for real, I had a saunter around and looked at the merchandise. OK but I grew out of buying and wearing promo T-shirts years ago. And judging by the prices these days that was a good decision too. By the time the support band came on there must have been about 150 people in the hall.

The support was the Sharon Winfield band. I'd heard that they were pretty good considering the lightweight folky type material they played. Sharon has got a cracking voice, really powerful. A lot better than the thin, pathetic, flat voices you hear in the charts, and everywhere else, these days. She also had a good rapport with the audience and they played a long but well received set. Well worth seeing if she appears in your area!

I then took my position at the front of the stage right in front of Mr Jowitt, which turned out to be another good decision.

The familiar opening bass pulse of "Outer Limits" kicked off the show, and what a brilliant version. It was the first IQ song I ever heard and it is a belter opening track. The next thing they played was "The Darkest Hour" which is one of my favourites. Stunning. And it was at this point when I realized just how good John Jowitt is. I've never seen a bass player put in so much work. So many notes played effortlessly with such accuracy. His style reminded me a bit of Geddy Lee, but with the right hand technique of John Entwistle and the showmanship of Chris Squire. And he managed to knock back at least eight cans of beer during the show and still play mind numbing stuff. Top bloke!

It was at this point when they played "Erosion" from the new album which didn't go down particularly well due to its newness. But I thought it was excellent. The other songs they played from "The Seventh House" were the title track and "Guiding Light", the latter being one of my favourites. Both were performed to perfection, even the numerous complicated bits were spot on. Again they didn't go down as well as the older stuff, perhaps it was the extreme complexity of the songs that bamboozled most people. Having already become familiar with the album before the gig (most had waited until the gig to buy the album) I was able to keep track of what was going on within the new stuff which is why I enjoyed them enormously. I was a bit disappointed about them not playing "The Wrong Side of Weird" as that is probably the best thing on the new album, a real classic. It would have been brilliant live.

I was particularly pleased by the "Subterranea" material they played. I didn't get to see the "Subterranea" gigs, so their choice of "Overture/Provider/Subterranea", "Failsafe" and "State of Mine" gave me a taste of what I missed. Again, they picked some of my favourites from the album, and played them with verve. They went down a treat with the audience! "State of Mine" in particular was suitably vast, and the band segued from it into "The Magic Roundabout" (if I remember but it might have been something else) which featured some phenomenal fretless bass playing.

Amongst the early stuff they played were "The Wake" (second encore I think) and "Human Nature". I've never been a big fan of the "Nomzamo" album, but their performance of "Human Nature" made me relisten to it when I got home. It really is excellent and they did, again, pick the best from the album.

The highlight of the show was, for me at least, "The Enemy Smacks". They closed the show with it and brought down the house in the process. Not only did they play it with such freshness and power, but Peter Nicholls also did the full "art rock" performance. The best use of strobe lighting I've seen at a rock concert, and the costumes and masks etc. really did give the song a fantastically intense atmosphere.

By this time, I'd started to lose track of the songs they were playing. I knew when I was there but I couldn't remember afterwards! So the encores were something of a blur, mainly because the band were up to so many humorous christmas antics throughout. I was more interested in what they were doing than playing!

The first thing you noticed as the band came out on stage was John Jowitt in a sparkly party dress and furry boa!  What a star! Mike Holmes was also covered in christmas lights for one track! The band played a couple of encore tracks with the obligatory "morrrrre....." interlude between them. One was a great version of "Awake and Nervous" (I think!). Superb. During one of the tracks the band stopped dead and the road crew appeared in white coats and gave the whole stage and band members a thorough  clean. No instrument, armpit or brow remained untouched! They cleared off and the band resumed the song at exactly the same point. A superb bit of showmanship that! We were also treated to a piano rendition of a bit of "For Christ's Sake" (the "Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas" bit) played by Martin Orford, much to the amusement of the rest of the band.

After the two encore songs, the band took their bows and we all thought it was over. Then they appeared again. This time John Jowitt had put on a T-shirt, which had the neck taped up, with a shrunken "John Jowitt" head stuck on the top. The audience were in hysterics, as were the rest of the band! Even in such a silly outfit out of which he couldn't see a thing, he still managed to play the bass pedals on the encore version of "The Last Human Gateway (middle section)". Superb! More bows and the show ended. Or so we thought.

The band came out again! This time they played an immense version of "White Punks on Dope", originally by The Tubes I think, which had the audience shouting along with gusto. The band took their final bows and the show was over after nearly 3 hours of the best progressive rock you can hear. It's not often that a band does obviously unrehearsed encores, but we were privileged to witness it. They all were enjoying playing too, which isn't always the case these days.

Individually, all the band were on form. Martin Orford was as solid as ever, he really is one of the shining lights of the British progressive rock establishment. He played brilliant keyboards all evening, giving the band the textural sound they are famous for.

Mike Holmes' guitar playing was excellent. He is certainly underrated, and reminds me a lot of Steve Hackett. His solos were tuneful, tight and precise, and on the whole he sounded a lot heavier than on the records. He also played some keyboards on the beginning of "Guiding Light".

Paul Cook's drumming was great all evening, apart from a slight timing hiccup in the middle of "The Darkest Hour". Very powerful and managed to pull off all the time signature changes with ease.

Peter Nichols' performance was fantastic. He proved that you can still do a performance within a song rather than just singing it. Very Gabrielesque. He also has a great voice, and live you get a more emotional slant to his impenetrable  lyrics. Wonderful stuff.

Finally, we have John Jowitt. Never have I been more impressed by a musician. He played more notes than I've ever seen a rock bassist play before. His flamboyant style and impressive technique certainly makes him one of the top three bassists I've seen in action. In fact, I thing he is the best live bassist. His versatility and imaginative choice of notes puts him up there will the likes of Geddy Lee and Chris Squire. He also plays the bass pedals and sings too! Brilliant.

One niggle though and it concerns the usual perennial problem of inconsiderate people. Why do people talk during a gig? Don't they come to listen to the music? Wouldn't it be easier for them to sod off to the bar and leave us in peace? We had a couple of blokes push to the front, several times due to the need for beer and toilet trips, to the annoyance of those they stood in front of. They continually talked and messed with their crap mobile phones. They were told to shut up by a couple of blokes, and promptly turned aggressive until they realised they had the backing of about half a dozen others. The gits soon shut up then!

To conclude, this was a stunning performance with fantastic sound quality and great light/projection effects. You really got a sense of the dynamic qualities of the material better than all the previous gigs I've seen.  It cemented my view that IQ are the best progressive rock band in the world today. They are easily the best I've heard anyway and come close to Yes as my favourite band of all time. Their albums are consistently excellent, and if all their gigs are as good as this one, are a definite "must see" for anyone who likes prog style music. The set list was perfection, although I would have liked to have heard "The Narrow Margin" or "The Wrong Side of Weird" but you can't have everything in three hours!

The most enjoyable concert I've ever been to? Most definitely.
 

(Copyright David Hopton -  6 February 2001)

All Artwork Copyright Tony Lythgoe, IQ and GEP Records 2000