Spike - Saltash Review

March opened with a local show, although Torquay is around an hour away from Plymouth due to some of the roads which go there, and it finished, earlier this afternoon, with another. I have spent time in London, Birmingham, and Wolverhampton over the past month, but earlier this afternoon I made the short trip over the border into Cornwall - and to Livewire Youth Music Project in Saltash. Having grown up in Saltash, and was a budding musician and big music fan even in my teens, Livewire is somewhere I spent many an evening. A youth club with a particular focus on music, I spent two or three nights most weeks there with friends from school and further afield - learning guitar and drums, writing songs, and even playing live shows. There is nothing really like Livewire anywhere else as far as I am aware - so my friends and I were extremely lucky to be able to make the most of its facilities for essentially free before we all went our separate ways when university beckoned. Long before I knew the building as Livewire, too, I used to go to football training there in the winter when I was very young - so the building itself has been a big part of my life. Not long after I started to go to Livewire more regularly, the old sports hall where years before I had played football was turned into a small live music venue - and lots of local bands have graced its stage over the years. A handful of bigger names have also been tempted down - with acts like The Damned, Funeral for a Friend, and Martin Barre having played the venue. It is not often that a 'named' band makes their way down to Livewire, but back in 2018 I saw The Quireboys deliver a memorable show to an unsurprisingly full house. That Quireboys show was probably the last time I was at Livewire, but eight years on it was nice to return - and the reason for such was The Quireboys' frontman Spike returning, this time for an afternoon of acoustic music and stories. Since the pandemic, Spike has been playing stripped back acoustic shows in between the band's recording and touring commitments - and he was one of the first musicians back out on the road following lockdown restrictions. I made the trip to London in May 2021 to see one of these acoustic shows in Raynes Park - which was the first concert I had been to in over a year. It might not have been the best or most memorable of the many, many concerts than I have been to - but it was a special one for obvious reasons, and it was the slow start of things returning to normal. Spike's last few years have been notably hectic, too, having been fired by The Quireboys before he returned triumphantly with a new version of the band - only for the previous, now Spikeless, line-up to rebrand. I think that part of the reason he was fired was his wish to continue his acoustic solo shows in place of The Quireboys then-traditional acoustic tours - although I am sure the split was more complex than that. As such, despite a new-look Quireboys which includes classic members from back in the day and famous faces from other British rock bands, Spike has continued to play acoustic shows on and off over the years - usually accompanied by guitarist Chris Heilmann. The shows are generally off-the-cuff - featuring a mix of music and road stories from Spike. Given that there is not all that much to do in Saltash on a Sunday afternoon, Livewire was busy - and most of the seats in the room were taken by the time Spike and Heilmann took to the stage.

There was a support act, but I missed them due to getting to the venue a bit later. As such, it was just Spike which made up my afternoon - but he delivered a memorable and funny afternoon of acoustic rock and roll which lasted for around an hour and a half. I think that Spike and Heilmann have something of a repertoire of songs, and a loose setlist, but I get the impression that the shows are largely just allowed to flow. As much of a spoken word evening as a traditional concert, there were often long gaps between songs whilst Spike would tell stories about his life as a musician. Many of these involved drink and drugs - with some of his peers from over the years, such as Mick Ralphs, Michael Hutchence, and Ginger Wildheart all featuring. There were tales from his time living in America, times spent in Monaco, and also ones about this family in the North East - where his Grandad was an important figure in a coal mine union. The songs which followed the stories were sometimes relevant, but most they were not - and the evening was just a good excuse for a few laughs and to sing along to a few light-hearted songs. Whilst I knew some of the songs played, there were a number that I was not familiar with. Spike sang some of his own Quireboys songs, alongside some new material from his upcoming Spike and the Geordie Rogues project, but a number of songs played were covers - many of which were his Mum's favourites. I think that the whole genesis of these acoustic shows came from him recording a few low-key acoustic songs for his Mum during the pandemic - which have since been released publicly and form the basis for the setlists for these shows. He opened with a dirty blues number, with plenty of harmonica - but for the rest of the set he played guitar alongside Heilmann. Early on the crowd were treated to a stripped back version of Frankie Miller's Raining Whiskey, which appeared on the last Quireboys album, alongside Spike's own You and I from the same album. The hit There She Goes Again was played later, but generally the rest of the set was a mix of ballads and some well-known surprises. A strong version of Chris Isaak's Wicked Game came quite late on in the set, which worked well thanks to Spike's gravelly voice, whilst standards like House of the Rising Sun had everyone in the crowd singing along. Perhaps some of the surprises of the night were the songs from Spike's upcoming Geordie Rogues project. These folky tracks, one original and one cover, were interesting both musically and lyrically - and I look forward to hearing more from that project when the album is finally released. With a new Quireboys album in the works, too, Spike is clearly a busy man at the moment - and it is great that he is being so creative and writing so many songs at the moment. With plenty of banter between him and the crowd, this afternoon's show flew by - and it was not long before he was taking his bows following There She Goes Again rounding out the main set. He did return for one final number, though, with the classic Streets of London rounding out what was an enjoyable afternoon in Cornwall with one of the musicians that I have seen live the most over the years.