Live Event: Mean Man, The Tivoli, June 17th 2023
A month ago I was on stage at our beloved Tivoli, but this time I was once again back there to watch another great rock gig.
Gracing the stage was Chris Holmes and his band Mean Man, and being a big fan of Chris since I bought the debut W.A.S.P. album back in 1984 and seeing them numerous times on every UK they did through the 80s, this was a gig I’d very much been looking forward to.
Support came from UK band Kaine, who put on a solid show, and despite at one stage saying “who here loves speed metal” (a genre of rock regular listeners of our podcast and readers of my reviews know that I’m not a huge fan of), the ensuing song was still a banger.
Sitting at the heavier end of music I normally listen to, Kaine won me over with a string of songs that were rifftastic and sound perfect for blasting into your ears during a particularly sweaty gym session. Check them out.
Then it was time for 100 minutes of Chris Holmes singing a selection of songs from his Mean Man albums, while knocking it out of the park on guitar as bassist Chuck Lambert took over on vocals for the classic W.A.S.P. songs.
The rest of the band consists of Florian Lagoutte on guitar and drummer Stephen Jackson…each and every one of them bloody good too.
This tour is titled the “65 Tour”, as Chris is 65 on June 23rd this year (the date I’m putting this online…HAPPY BIRTHDAY Chris) and I’m sure that Chris himself would admit that there were times in his life where he thought he wouldn’t reach this age.
Thankfully for us all he is still kicking ass on stage (as well as kicking cancers ass too…make sure to watch the documentary Mean Man: The Story of Chris Holmes to see what Chris has had to go through over the years) and he ripped through a setlist that had the crowd pumping their fists, singing along, and at one stage getting up on stage and shredding the guitar…more on that in a moment.
The W.A.S.P. songs have obviously been ingrained into the crowds rock memories for many years now and got the most vocal response, with songs such as L.O.V.E. Machine, Blind in Texas and Animal (Fuck Like a Beast) raising the roof off the Tivoli. But that’s not to say that songs from the Mean Man albums suddenly started an exodus to the toilets for a pee break, as Chris sure as hell knows how to write a damn good rock song and everyone joined in with Let it Roar and Get With It too, as well as a few cover songs thrown in for good measure.
One of the cover songs played was AC/DC’s Highway to Hell, which was preceded by Chris announcing “who wants to come up onstage and sing?”
Pointing to a guy near the front of stage (who I later found out was called Anthony) Chris invited him up and waited for him to make his way through the Tivoli crowd.
Getting up on stage and before the band began playing, Anthony started making air guitar moves and mouthing something to Chris that I couldn’t make out. It turned out that Anthony was a guitar player and was telling Chris that he could play. So upon hearing that, Chris took off his own guitar, handed it to him and let him go for it…the result of which was fantastic and you can watch in the video below.
A gesture such as that shows that Chris just isn’t a rock legend, he’s also a bloody nice guy too…as I witnessed when I had 10 minutes with him upstairs after the gig for a chat…he’s crouching down in the photo below so as not to tower over us all!
I love that Chris is still rockin’, something he admits that is only possible thanks to his wife Catherine, and so I hope that his passion and energy continues so that I can see him on the “70 Tour”…if not before then too.
As always, make sure to support bands by buying their music and merchandise, go and see them live, and tell your friends about them too. Keep live music alive by supporting your local gig venues as well, we all went through a period not too long ago with not being able to go to live events, so get out there and show them how thankful you are that we can all enjoy live music.
Review by Dave, with thanks as always to Roki, Kirsty, Swilly for his awesome photos, and the whole crew at the Tivoli for yet another great evening.
Photos © Swilly’s Photography.
