MANCHESTER Life Café
VETERAN ROCKS
Albert Lee & Hogan's Heroes
06 March 2005 / Life Cafe / Manchester
Review by Rachel Clegg
An array of baldheads fills the seated area of Life Bar in Manchester. Albert Lee and his touring band, Hogan’s Heroes, have not attracted the youngest audience this evening but they have certainly attracted one with taste; the audience know what is in store. For us novices tonight is a real eye-opener as to how good pure unaffected musical indulgence can be. Tonight Albert Lee and Hogan’s Heroes play a set which serves as a testament to the evolution of rock n roll itself, playing a variety of jazz, rockabilly, country, blues, folk and rock. If Jerry Lee Lewis, The Rolling Stones circa Let It Bleed, Elvis, The Beach Boys, The Everly Brothers and Floyd Kramer were mixed up into a musical cocktail the result would be Albert Lee and Hogan’s Heroes. This is indeed invigorating stuff. The minute the band start playing the audience is captivated. Albert Lee and Hogan’s Heroes are as musically hot-off-the-mark as you can get. Rhythm oozes from the stage for our taking and how grateful we are, not only for tonight’s set, but also somehow Albert Lee and Hogan’s Heroes make us feel grateful for the mere existence of rock ‘n’roll.
Lee and Hogan’s Heroes play a magical and timeless set; it is impossible not to lose yourself in the invigorating rhythms and swirling steel guitar melodies. The liveliness and rhythmical genius of tonight’s faster songs kick in the instant Wingfield shouts ‘1, 2, 3, 4’. The band’s version of Jerry Lee Lewis’ ‘Wild One’ is, quite frankly, fucking awesome. In ‘Wild One’ the band rip it up on every level, especially the keys; Wingfield rags the piano as if liquid rhythm were pouring through his fingertips. This is a sight to behold. ‘Tear It Up’ makes for compulsory body movement, be it hips, hands, of feet, pointing to rock n roll’s capability of physical possession.
Albert Lee and Hogan’s Heroes’ recipe for an awe-inspiring gig is simple: forty-odd years of experience and the desire to have a bloody good time. The combination makes for a musical passion and purity redundant of the pretence that often dominates the contemporary (younger) music scene. Tucked in shirts and corduroy trousers replace ‘just got out of bed’ expensive haircuts and contrived holey jumpers. Pianist Pete Wingfield’s sporadic, sometimes manic, leg movements attest to the fact that this band has no inhibitions.
The fact that Albert Lee and Hogan’s Heroes are tight-as-can-be facilitates this musical experience but it is their on-stage authenticity that really brings home tonight’s magic. Unadulterated, uncompromising and unhinged musical passion is exposed in every song.
