Aural Aggravation

Christopher Nosnibor

What do you do as a touring band over here from the US with a night off in between stadium shows supporting Guns ‘n’ Roses? Night off to unwind, maybe do a spot of tourism, rest up ahead of the next one? If you’re Rival Sons, you squeeze in an extra headline date in a city that is absolutely nowhere on the way between Birmingham and London. I suppose travel logistics in terms of getting about the UK of rather different from what they’re used to at home, but still – between Villa Park and Wembley Stadium, at relatively short notice, they decided to swing by York.

Music is so often interconnected with memories, times, people, places, events: it provides the backdrop and the sound track to our lives. And so it is with Rival Sons. My late wife purchased a copy of head down, which received heavy rotation in the car. She liked her old-school rock. It may not be the standard Aural Aggravation material, but when I saw they were coming to York, I decided my daughter and I should go – not out of any great love for the band, but for her, in absentia. She was, no doubt, with us in spirit. And I always write a review, for posterity, for the record, if nothing else. I am aware that I will forget things, in time. This is a document.

The demographic is very much slanted towards the more senior end of the spectrum: as my daughter put it loads of old white dudes, but also lots of couples clearly 55 plus, all dressed in such a way that says they don’t go to many gigs each year, and when they do it’s this time of a venue. I’m acutely aware that I’m rapidly approaching this demographic, but I’m mindful of trying to avoid being one of the annoying ones.

The metal detectors tickets scanners and £8.25 pints are something of a culture shock to me, more accustomed than I am to attending shows and venues with capacities under 400 more often than not, and where I can just give my name on the door – or not, as happens when you go to places often enough over a number of years.

Support act Creeping Jean are from Brighton but wish they were from America fifty years ago. They’re solid and adhere to the 70s rock template, down to the haircuts and the guitarist’s flared white suit (no doubt sourced from frontman Olly Tooze’s vintage clothing shop) . They’re decent enough, apart from the irritating tambourine guy (he does some backing vocals and plays acoustic guitar on one or two songs, but his main purpose seems to be to bring energetic posing and some tambourine action) and the fact that while the clean bass sound was nice and dense, the distorted sound reduced it to a horrible scratchy buzz.

Creeping Jean

From the off, it’s clear that Rival Sons are a cut above. The sound is loud and clear, and they have that essential swagger, which is justified when the musicianship is this good. Jay Buchanan struts on, barefooted, and they’re straight into ‘End of Forever’. And the band completely fill the stage with sound, and with presence. The hirsute Buchanan embodied the essence of Robert Plant, and Scott Holiday provides the perfect foil to his flamboyance with an equally dominant stage presence while wielding a multitude of guitars. He is a joy to watch, though, and his approach is innovative, playing with a host of effects and tunings that are anything but conventional. To describe him as the Tom Morello of blues rock may be a bit of a stretch, but you get the idea. He certainly pushes things out a way – and a fair way at that.

While most of the set is lifted from the two most recent albums, they always seem to ensure that all of the albums are represented during the course of a set. With ‘Keep on Swinging’ being the usual song taken from Head Down, I had next to no expectation of hearing what is by far my personal favourite track, ‘Manifold Destiny’ – but lo, they pulled it out around halfway through and played the full-ten-minute epic midsection.

Sure, the guitar solos are often overdone, over long, and indulgent (for context, they play for around an hour and forty-minutes, packing five songs back to back at the front end of the set and there’s no encore, but they still only play fifteen songs) and the vocal gymnastics are at times way over the top, but to complain of these things about a band so solidly cast in the Led Zeppelin mould would be to completely miss the point.

Rival Sons

Towards the end, Jay thanks us not just for supporting their band and live music, but also rock music, and it’s an important distinction: this is rock music in the classic sense, and when it comes to classic rock they do everything which meets the essential criteria, and they do it well, and deliver it with panache. Rock music by nature is over the top, and if you’re going to go over the top, it’s best to go way over the top, with the flashiest longest guitar solos the most extravagant delivery, the most showmanship. Rival Sons recognise this and revel in it, and it’s impossible to deny their quality.

I reckon my wife would have enjoyed it. And rightly so. They play hard and put on a show, and will likely piss all over G’n’R at Wembley.