1,139 CHAMELEONSVOX, Gloucester Guildhall Arts Centre, Thursday 23rd May 2019

The second of two in two nights for me, and whilst last night’s Juliana Hatfield gig may have been full of doubts (both before and after!), tonight’s hosts were pretty much the nearest you can get to a nailed-on Sure Thing “live” these days; the one and only Chameleons Vox! Barely 3 years since my post-redundancy voyage of 80’s musical discovery unearthed for me this ruffian band of epic goth-tinged post-punker Mancunians, but this would be my 5^th time seeing them “live” since then; making up for lost time indeed! An added bonus this time however was that this Gloucester gig would be a run-through of their third album “Strange Times”; their third and arguably most epic, sweeping and-anthemic sounding collection. Released in 1986 to a divided UK, with the South bathing in yuppie affluence yet the North still reeling from the after-effects of the bitter Miner’s Strike (strange times, indeed), it reflected the fear and doubt of those times, all moody melody and bleak intensity, yet also managed to sound joyful and euphoric at the same time. A great, great body of work, and (again) one that I should have held dear for 33 years, rather than just 3!

Ok, enough of the self-flagellation; another benefit of this Gloucester gig was that I finally get to hang out with a kindred spirit and likely my blog’s biggest fan; I’d been receiving favourable comments from a certain Cerebus660 pretty much since I set up my gig blog, finally getting to meet him at the Skids Guildhall gig earlier this year (gig 1,124)!. Simon (his real non-comic aardvark-related name) and I arranged to meet up for this one; he, like me, had allowed The Chameleons to pass him by somewhat back in the day, but some revisiting on my recommendation was enough to sway the man into joining me tonight! A quick drive up and parking in my usual free spot saw me hit the venue at 7.30; Simon joined me shortly after and we enjoyed a lengthy chat, discovering much common ground – comics as well as music, and even a difficult illness in our medical pasts; almost lives lived in parallel, 40 miles apart…! Kate and neighbour George joined us briefly as well, before we headed into this old school hall venue. Another fairly quiet one tonight, with the hall probably only 2/3rds full of the devoted church of the Chameleons, but hey, I’d go for knowledge over numbers any day of the week…!

With very little fanfare, the trenchcoated and monolithic Mark Burgess led his charges onstage dead on 9, announcing the run-through of “Strange Times” then remarking that in “honour” of the idiot incumbent in the White House, the opener would be re-christened “Mad Trump”! Of course, this found favour with this crowd, as did the rendition; as ever with this band the version was faithful yet epic, again a little slower than the breathless gallop on record, setting the tone for the performance. “Caution”, next up, was eerie, undulating and superbly widescreen, with guitarist Neil Dwerryhouse’s virtuoso picking a feature, the band already weaving the kind of taut, moody atmospherics that gained them such a devoted following (and, conversely, catapulted U2 to stadium status at the same time…!). The slow-burn “Tears” featured Korg synth embellishments from a mystery 5^th member, replacing the shimmering acoustic strum-along base of the recorded version, but an elongated “Soul In Isolation” was the first real skyscraping highlight from a set full of them; the complex drum pattern lurching the song into staggering life, before the clouds broke and the song really took flight, Burgess using its’ rhythmic middle 8 section to deliver some serious messages (“60% of the species on this planet have become extinct in the last 20 years!”) as well as throwing in the likes of “The End” (“all our leaders are insane!”), Bowie’s “Be My Wife” and various Beatles numbers for added emphasis. Utterly magnificent.

Photo courtesy of Cerebus660. Nice one Simon!

Burgess was again in rare form, the voice authoritative and commanding, and his band backed him up with another display of haunting, shimmering and plangent brilliance. “Time” and “In Answer” were both serious rockers, surprisingly hard-edged, yet the intervening “Seriocity” was simply gorgeous, proving this band have a lightness and deftness of touch when required. All too soon the almost angelic instrumental coda of “I’ll Remember” ended the “Strange Times” run-through, Burgess leading the band off after a quite magnificent hour. After a short interval, Burgess returned, canvassing the crowd for requests before a galloping “Paradiso” and an elongated “Second Skin”, which almost matched “Soul” for its epic scope, the crowd lustily providing “woah-oh” backing vocals from the off; then “Nostalgia” closed out another superb Chameleons set.

I thought I’d lucked out on a set-list when the roadie collected them all up during the brief interval; however, we stopped for merch on the way out and I was happily offered the one just lying there on the merch table! Had a quick drink with Simon to compare notes on the gig before taking my leave and blasting home down a pitch-black A419. Great company and one hell of a gig from as good a band as there is “live” right now. I’m still making up for lost time, but on this form I won’t ever miss a chance to see ChameleonsVox!