The Jim Jones Revue + Y Niwl + Black Mirrors @ The Sugar Mill, Stoke 21/4/12

Having spent 3 days at a Biomechanics Conference my esteemed colleague ‘Boy-Lee’ and I stayed on in Stoke an extra night to go gigging. We were on the guest list thanks to Alun  from Y Niwl and had one heck of a night. We were having a curry before the gig when 3/5 of The Jim Jones Revue walked in. “What time are you on” “About half nine” “Actually, we’ve come to see Y Niwl” “So have we! we’ll meet you out front”. Wierdly, the sag paneer came with no pieces of cheese in it, but melted (?cheddar) cheese on the top which I’d never seen before. That night my mate Khalid posted on Facebook that he’d just had a curry that came with melted cheese on the top “….that’s just wrong!”.

The Sugar Mill’s a great place to see a gig – Small and sweaty with a sticky booze covered floor. First up were The Black Mirrors who didn’t look old enough to be in there but they made a decent 80’s indie sound – the lead singer did a good Ian McCullogh impression to boot.

Y Niwl won the crowd over with their wonderful guitar riffs and driving beats. The intricate guitar play between Alun and Gruff just gets better and better. If you haven’t got their LP then you really are missing out. There’s a 6 track EP coming soon too – can’t wait!

I do like shouting “YEAH!” at gigs and lead singer Jim Jones wants everyone to shout “YEAH!” and “FUCK!” and “FUCK YOU!” quite a lot. This was the third time Boy-Lee and I had seen them and they just get better and better at working the crowd. Guitarist Rupert Orton may actually be the brother of Beth – but he’s the spititual brother of Mick Jones, Johnny Ramone and Mick Ronson. Ain’t no smoke without fire!

Had a great chat with Sion and Al after the gig, who were very complimentary about the JJR boys “they’re just lovely blokes!”. We all commented on how good the venue was. Sion: “I didn’t think I’d been here before, but when I was outside having a fag I realised I’d been here about 10 years ago with Gorkys“. After they jumped in their van back to Wales, we jumped into the ‘Stage Door’ pub next door to hang out with the Hanley Goths and Punks – we didn’t stand out at all……well, we did but by that time didn’t really care……

Bob the Chiropodist