In the last five years London's annual mod festival Le Beat Bespoke has established itself as an event whose line-up provides fans of '60s music with genuine thrills. Previous headliners for instance have included The Yardbirds, the Chocolate Watchband, The Remains and, last year, the Sonics.
This year Le Beat Bespoke 5's line-up is equally tasty, the highlight of the Easter Friday night bill being The Pretty Things and a grand performance of their 1968 rock opera S.F. Sorrow in its entirety. The album recorded at Abbey Road studios with The Beatles engineer and Pink Floyd producer Norman Smith was never performed at the time (the group did, however, mime to one side of it at Camden's Roundhouse in January 1969), and Friday night's concert is only the third public performance of the work. "And we've never done it stripped down like this," beams the group's singer Phil May, who is clearly excited by the prospect. "It's a speedball with a bit of mogadon and hopefully it will kick ass," he says of the show. And it certainly does.
It's a very different performance to their 2001 live debut of the LP as part of London's Royal Festival Hall Mind Your Head festival where they were joined by guitarist David Gilmour and narrator Arthur Brown and the emphasis was on watching the spectacle unfold from our seats. Tonight, at the sports hall-like 229, with its stage backdrop of oil slides and swirling shapes and colours, women with long bobs wearing mini dresses and men in three-button hand-me-downs and an abundance of cord garments are encouraged by May to frug, shake their heads and sing along which they do throughout. It's hard not to because the singer along with guitarist Dick Taylor - and newer recruits guitarist Frank Holland, bassist George Perez, drummer Jack Greenwood, backing vocalist Scarlett Wrench and manager/percussionist Mark St John - deliver the poignant life-cycle of Sebastian F Sorrow with passion and ferocity.
It's the perfect mix of the group's early '60s raw, roughed-up R&B and their Floyd-like psychedelic dabblings that defined the original album. Opener S.F. Sorrow Is Born and Private Sorrow sound remarkable, easily matching their studio versions; Dick Taylor barks his way through the jolting Baron Saturday; the finale Loneliest Person sees the band leave just May and Taylor, with his acoustic guitar, on the stage for a melancholic pause for thought. But the audience isn't given much time to ponder as the group then return for 1964 45 Don't Bring Me Down plus '66 singles Come See Me and Midnight To Six Man which tear the place up. Alexander (originally recorded by the band as library music under the name Electric Banana) is all pounding drums and searing acid rock guitars, while a medley of Bo Diddley's Mona and Pretty Thing (the 1956 hit which gave the group their moniker) and Billy Boy Arnold via The Yardbirds' I Wish You Would feature wild blues harp courtesy of Frank Holland, while the encore of rousing debut single Rosalyn leaves no room for complaints whatsoever.
While Saturday sees sets from garage combos The Revellions and King Salami & Cumberland 3, Sunday night is given over to a northern soul all-nighter which offers up yet another musical treat by welcoming South Carolina/Alabama girl group trio The Flirtations - sisters Earnestine and Shirley Pearce and Viola 'Vie' Billups aka Pearly Gates - to the stage at midnight.
In remarkably fine voice and sassily dressed in shimmering sequinned gold and silver frocks, the three-piece sing, purr and squeal their way through an hour-long set. Their stage show is modelled on The Supremes; songs are accompanied with graceful hand and arm movements and cute dance steps. They even introduce themselves a la The Supremes - Shirley's the "sexy one."
For those who don't know, The Flirtations began life as The Gypsies in 1962 recording dance party numbers for the Old Town label before changing their name (and line up) and leaving their native America for the UK after falling in love with The Beatles. Signing to Deram, success was almost immediate thanks to the crack songwriting partnership of Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington. Their Nothing But A Heartache, built on the sound of The Cookies and The Supremes, gave the trio a Number 34 hit in the States, but also became a biggie on the rare soul scene, hence their inclusion on the bill tonight. An album 1969's Sounds Like The Flirtations (recently reissued on the RPM label) followed the 45 and it is from this that tonight's highpoints come from. There are glorious versions of Need Your Loving, the aforesaid Heartache single and Candy And The Kisses' Someone Out There. Each see Vie's husky, raw vocal provide the perfect contrast to Earnestine's more poppier tones (Vie will later impress on a radical reworking of the Jackson 5's I Want You Back, here it is tough and wild punctuated with yelps and screams.)
There's further mining of the Motown label with assured takes on Frank Wilson's Do I Love You (Indeed I Do) and Marvin Gaye's Little Darling I Need You; febrile renditions of Gypsies singles Hey There, Hey There, Jerk It and It's A Woman's World have everyone dancing; 1967's Stronger Than Her Love, released under The Flirtations name on Festival records but recorded by a different group entirely, is triumphantly claimed as their own. And while their sign off with Kool And The Gang's Celebration (as part of a medley with Dancing In The Street) is misjudged - The Flirtations were made to sing harmony drenched exquisite soulful pop and poppy soul, not disco - there's no quibbling with the song's call for rejoicing tonight.
Source MOJO
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