FM - Exeter Review

This past weekend was another busy one gig-wise. Following Saturday's trip up to Wolverhampton to see The Black Crowes live for the first time, who were excellent, I headed back home to Devon on Sunday - stopping off en route to Plymouth to catch one of my very favourite live bands, FM, once again. The British melodic rock/AOR act are a band I have seen most years since I first properly discovered them back in 2014 when I saw them opening for Foreigner and Europe - and some years have contained multiple FM concerts. They are one of those bands who tend to play a decent number of shows each year, so fitting in an FM show alongside other plans is usually quite easy. They also have a penchant for participating in package tours with other similar bands - and, in fact, my previous FM concert last year saw them joining forces with Tyketto and Dare. As such, I will always make the effort to see FM live. They are extremely reliable and always deliver on stage. They could perhaps shake up the setlist a little more than they do sometimes, but their brand of AOR always comes alive on stage - and in frontman Steve Overland they have one of the best singers in the business. As I recently mentioned in my review of their latest album Old Habits Die Hard (which can be read here), 2024 is a special year for the band - as it marks their 40th anniversary. FM formed back in 1984 from the ashes of Wildlife and they have been delivering the goods ever since (bar their hiatus between 1995 and 2007). Since reuniting in 2007, though, and solidifying their current line-up in 2008, FM have been extremely busy. Their want to stay creative and regularly release new music is welcome and, as mentioned, they are still pretty busy when it comes to touring. This year they seem to really be pushing the boat out for their anniversary, though, and have already undertaken a South American tour - with plenty of mainland European dates to follow. Thankfully, there were still plenty of UK dates on their schedule - and it seems that the band made an effort this year to visit some different places. Prior to Sunday, they had not visited Exeter for a long time - and it was great getting a chance to see the band relatively locally (especially as their Plymouth show a couple of years ago clashed with another concert I already had tickets for). The venue chosen was the Phoenix, which is always a great place to take in live music. It is one of the South West's best venues in my opinion, with nights there always being memorable, and the band attracted a pretty healthy crowd for a Sunday night and considering that the city is off the band's usual beaten path. Given that my train journey from Wolverhampton included a replacement bus between Birmingham and Cheltenham I was concerned that I could end up being pushed for time if there were delays - but thankfully all of the travelling went to plan and I arrived into Exeter in plenty of time for a trip to Wetherspoons for dinner before heading up to the venue in time for the action to start.

Opening the show were the Welsh hard rockers Hand of Dimes - a band I had been familiar with for a long time but had never seen live before or had never really even checked out. I am not sure why I had slept on them, given that I quite like frontman Neville MacDonald's former band Skin, but after enjoying their set on Sunday I think that I need to give them a proper go. I was not sure what to expect, really, but the band's sound was not all that different from Skin's first album - albeit with a slight southern rock and bluesy edge at times. The band's music was more keyboard-heavy, though, with Neil Garland (keyboard/harmonica/vocals) appearing to be their main driving force alongside MacDonald. Colin Edwards (guitar) still had plenty of chances to shine with some big solos, but generally Hand of Dimes' sound was less focused on showboating - with big riffs and choruses dominating. MacDonald, like Overland, is another extremely underrated British rock singer and it seems that he has lost none of his chops over the years. I saw Skin with Little Angels in 2012 and MacDonald sounded no different 12 years on - with his voice being high in the mix throughout the band's set. In fact, Hand of Dimes' generally had a great live sound. There was no typical support band muddiness, with each instrument sounding clear. There were plenty of keyboards in the mix to allow Garland's organ and piano to really cut through and the vocal harmonies, which were needed to boost the choruses, were tight and loud. Given that I had not heard any of the band's songs before Sunday, the fact that I can still remember a few of the choruses at the time of writing having heard them once is testament to the band's songwriting. They only appear to have one album, Raise from 2016, so I am certainly intending to check that out in the near future. Given it was released eight years ago, I would assume that the band are working on a follow-up - so I will have to keep an eye out. In conclusion, then, I am glad to have finally made the acquaintance of Hand of Dimes after many years - and I really should have made the effort to check them out before now. Better late than never, though, as they say - and I am sure that I will catch the band live again at some point.

Half an hour later and it was time for FM to hit the stage - and what followed when the lights went down was close to two hours of melodic rock goodness. Given the 40th anniversary nature of the tour, the setlist covered quite a few of the band's albums - including a couple of tracks from the new album and an old deep cut which had not been played live since the 1980s. The set kicked off with Digging Up the Dirt, which I had not heard the band do live for a few years - and the bluesy hard rocker got the set off to a great start. Early on Jim Kirkpatrick (guitar/vocals) was a little low in the mix, but the levels evened out soon - with the keyboards from Jem Davis toned down slightly. The harder rocking opening cut set really set the tone for what was to follow, though. There were a few slower tracks played, but generally the band rocked out - with the older Tough It Out and the huge sing-a-long of Killed by Love getting the decent-sized crowd onside from the off. Whenever Overland wanted the crowd to sing they did - and they only got louder as the set progressed. Even the newer songs were greeted with plenty of cheers. Don't Need Another Heartache saw much more singing than is generally expected in a song which is barely a month old and the yacht rock vibes of Out of the Blue later allowed for a slight moment of smooth calm during what was generally an anthemic set. There are very few FM songs which do not feature huge choruses, which meant that each track played brought a new anthemic moment to sing along to. Even older album cuts like The Dream That Died could have been hits under better circumstances - and the newer, funky Synchronized is one of my favourite FM songs from the current era so hearing it live again was a bit of a treat.

The real treat in the set, though, especially for die-hard fans, was Say It Like It Is - which was a b-side on some versions of the That Girl single from 1986. That Girl was, of course, played later - but the piano-driven hard rocker Say It Like It Is went down really well. I had heard the song before, but it was not one that I was really that familiar with - and the chorus was really easy to latch onto as the band were playing it. FM had lots of strong b-sides in the early days so it is good that this one got an airing again. The songs which followed were generally more well-known, though, with Overland taking the solos in the power ballad Closer to Heaven before a number of bigger singles brought the main set to a close. The funky bassline of That Girl brought the best out of Mervyn Goldsworthy (bass guitar/vocals), before the Desmond Child-written Bad Luck reminded everyone in attendance that, somehow, FM were never a stadium band when they certainly should have been. A pacy version of the generally more sedate Hot Wired was next, but a more modern cut in Turn This Car Around brought the main set to a close. It has become a real fan favourite over the past couple of years and there was plenty of singing from the crowd during the chorus when prompted by Overland. The band did not stay backstage for long following the main set, finishing, though, with Overland and Davis returning to deliver a stripped down rendition of Story of My Life - before the whole band returned to rock through the punchy harder rock of Don't Stop and the driving AOR of Other Side of Midnight, which saw Davis armed with a keytar. It was a great end to a lengthy set and the band certainly earnt the loud applause which followed. The setlist was:

Digging Up the Dirt

Tough It Out

Killed by Love

Someday

Don't Need Another Heartache

Everytime I Think of You [Eric Martin cover]

Out of the Blue

The Dream That Died

Synchronized

Say It Like It Is

Closer to Heaven

Does It Feel Like Love

That Girl

Bad Luck

Hot Wired

Turn This Car Around

-

Story of My Life

Don't Stop

Other Side of Midnight

Seeing FM live is always a treat and I am sure that I will do so again plenty more times in the future. This show was my first full headline show of theirs in a couple of years, so it was great to really see the band doing what they do best again. The new album is very good, too, so 2024 will no doubt be a memorable year for the band - and I am looking forward to their next tour already.