In her (initial) heyday as part of Transvision Vamp, Wendy James had swagger and arrogance. Perhaps she needed the latter due to the fact that she was a woman in a hugely male-dominated music industry back in the day. What we saw tonight was someone who’d very much maintained the swagger, but that arrogance has softened more into confidence. One thing’s for sure, she hasn’t lost the stage presence, or ability to communicate that always came across well in her interviews (including ours!).
With no support band on, the Wendy James Band arrived to a cheer at 8:30 and played for well over an hour to an audience of people mainly around my age. Not surprising, but dotted amongst the greying throng were some younger faces, including one lady in particular at the front who I’d guess was in her mid-20s and who seemed to know every word of every song. I do like seeing younger fans appreciating the classics! What I don’t like seeing are pushy old twats shoving people around and giving the stage staff a hard time as they won’t let them through to hand the singer a note that looked like it was written by the kind of person who should be wearing an electronic ankle tag. Those along the front row will know the muppet I mean. Well done to the crew for handling the situation well.
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The set was a mixture of songs old and new, the vast majority from James’ solo catalogue – expected as that makes up 70% or more of her recorded material. If you want to get a more Transvision Vamp experience then head for Australia and a Spain next year where the band are playing their first headline tour in decades! What struck me tonight was the diversity of her musical influences. There were breathy ballads, a bit of country, something akin to beat poetry, and hands-in-the-air rockers. I genuinely don’t think I’ve heard such a wide variety of songs in a single set from one artist before. The whole feel of the evening was that the songs were very much stripped back, and as such slightly and delightfully different from their recorded versions.
Three (I think) Transvision Vamp songs made it into the setlist and were definitely those that got the biggest crowd reactions. It was definitely an experience hearing “Bad Valentine”, “I Want Your Love” and “Baby I Don’t Care” being pumped out by two of the original artists (Wendy’s bassist is Transvision Vamp member Dave Parsons). Kudos also to guitarist and keyboard player Alex Ward, whose backing vocals also leant a lot to the songs, and drummer James Sclavunos who was definitely getting into “Baby I Don’t Care” judging by the fact he was hitting the drums way harder by the end of the song than at the start!
The other material was also great, though less familiar to me. James’ vocal style worked across all the genres she tackled, and I was quite taken by the likes of “Speedball” and “Farewell to Love”. Despite fighting off the end of a lurgy that she picked up recently, and a bit of between-song coughing, this didn’t seem to affect her voice at all.
As one person in the crowd shouted towards the end: “Fabulous”. Yup. That about sums it up.
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