3/7/2006 Ginger @ Islington Bar Academy

Subject	Ginger @ Islington Bar Academy
PostedDate	7/3/2006 1:36:00 PM
	This was a gig I'd been looking forward to for some time. I arrived to find the venue full - I'd have been very surprised if it didn't sell out like virtually any London gig featuring this man does. As usual there were plenty of familiar faces present, and Jon 'Random' Poole was holding court at the back. I discovered when I arrived that I'd missed Imperial Vipers playing an acoustic set. Having seen their high powered dirty rock 'n' roll set a couple of times already I found it hard to imagine them playing acoustically, but apparently they did. Chris Catalyst was playing when I walked into the venue. He was quite entertaining and mixed in some amusing stories between songs, but maybe it was a bit too similar to what was to follow from the headliner? The infamous Jon Poole appeared on stage first - still sporting his slightly scary facial hair. He proceeded to throw plastic balls from a large transparent bag into the audience for some 'Random' reason... Not surprisingly, a lot of them were thrown back at him! Although this was billed as an 'acoustic' set it wasn't really - they rarely if ever are. For 'acoustic' read 'electric guitars - just not distorted'. This doesn't really matter though - what matters is the songs and the atmosphere.As usual, both of these were terrific!  Joining Ginger on stage were ex-Wolfsbane guitarist Jase Edwards and Jon Poole - effectively a slimmed down 'Sonic Circus'. Actually, Random is a one man circus in his own right!  Ginger was on good form and in fine spirits so the banter flowed freely as usual as well as all the terrific songs.  Interestingly, there was a lot more WiLDHEARTS material aired than his recent Sonic Circus stuff - although that was featured as well. I wondered if we were being softened up for something - a suspicion that was confirmed when Ginger anounced later in the show that the Wildhearts should be starting to record a new album towards the end of this year. Needless to say, this announcement went down very well indeed with the crowd!  Ginger then mentioned that he didn't know when (or even if?) the Wildhearts might finish recording this album... In between songs Ginger had a bit of a rant about how bad he thought Guns 'N' Roses were at Download recently - concluding with "Why didn't they just get AC/DC instead?" Maybe next year huh? The show was rounded off with the inevitable '29xThe Pain' and everyone went home happy after a top night's entertainment.