After a number of delays due to the little issue of a global pandemic, one of my favourite live bands, the wonderful Barenaked Ladies finally returned to the UK this week… well… most of them…
As regular visitors to the site probably already know, I’m a huge fan of the Canadian band and have been since around 1992 when they released their first album ‘Gordon’. I’ve seen them multiple times over the years in various line-ups, and the performance in Birmingham saw another line-up change thanks to the pandemic. Earlier in the tour, Bassist Jim Creeggan and Keyboard/Guitar/Accordion player Kevin Hearn both came down with positive Covid tests. Lead guitar and singer Ed Robertson and drummer Tyler Stewart soldiered on for a few gigs, jokingly describing themselves as “Half Naked”, but we weren’t entirely what the situation would be when Birmingham came around.
As has been the case for the last few years, the band have been offering VIP passes to their gigs, which was the option I went for. This not only gets you priority entrance to the concert, but also lets you go and listen to the soundcheck, gets you a goodie bag of exclusive merchandise, and a chance to meet the group in person.
The Sound Check / “Meet & Greet”
I wandered down to the O2 Institute Birmingham in the afternoon, to get in line for the soundcheck. One of the lovely things about BNL fandom are the people you meet, many of whom are members of the BNL UK Fans facebook group, which is a great online community of like-minded BNL souls. After chatting in line for a while about previous gigs, and life in general, we were let into the soundcheck, and to see who out of the band had actually made it. Given the last few gigs they have been playing as a duo, it was a lovely surprise to see Kevin had tested negative and was well enough to return to the stage! As this was the first time the jokingly named “Mostly Naked” trio had been playing together, there was a lot of figuring out which songs from their massive back-catalogue would work in the set.
After watching them play through a few tracks (see the video above), we lined up for photos. Understandably this time around, the band stayed socially distanced on stage, rather than as a group shot which is how they had been done previously. I did ask how Jim was doing, and Ed said he was feeling much better – thankfully, we have news today that they will be back to full foursome force for the final gig of the tour tonight at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Following that, we headed back out to wait for the gig to start in the evening.
The Gig
At around 7pm, the doors opened, and thanks to the VIP pass, we were let in first to get a good spot at the front of the stage. After some chatting with fellow fans – including someone who had also been at the same BNL gig where I first saw the group in the early nineties at Wulfrun Hall in Wolverhampton! – the lights dimmed and out stepped support act, comedian & singer/songwriter Boothby Graffoe. Boothby has supported the group for most of BNL’s last few UK tours, and is a wonderfully fun opening act, and great at revving up the crowd. He was joined on stage by Liam McKinnon and his Cajon (yes, I know it just looks like a box but is genuinely a musical instrument!) for a couple of tracks, ending with some audience participation, then on to the main event.
The “Mostly Naked” trio took to the stage, hilariously walking out to De La Soul’s three is ‘The Magic Number‘, before kicking into ‘New Disaster’ from their 2021 album ‘Detour de Force’ which seems somewhat appropriate given all they’ve had to deal with on this tour! They followed that with the equally appropriate ‘Odds Are’ from the 2013 album ‘Grinning Streak’. After a great rendition of the classic tune ‘The Old Apartment’, they stopped to officially welcome Kev back into the fold, which led to another BNL tradition of making up a song on the spot – in this case, inspired by the bible Kev found in the hotel room drawer. Having Kev back on stage meant Ed could take a little rest from doing most of the vocal work, so we were treated to ‘The Township Of King’ from the album ‘Fake Nudes’, followed by some impressive accordion work on ‘It’s All Been Done’. From there, some more entertaining banter, along with more tracks from ‘Detour de Force’ such as the uptempo ‘Flip’, the beautiful ‘Toe to Toe’ from ‘Silverball’, and classic tunes such as ‘Blame It On Me’.
As we headed toward the end of the gig, we were treated to some covers of Black Sabbath (we are in Birmingham after all!), along with the ‘Big Bang Theory’ theme, ‘One Week’, and of course, ‘A Million Dollars’. For the encore, they unleased Tyler from the drumkit for a rendition of ‘Drawing’ from their children’s album ‘Snacktime!’, before ending with ‘Tonight Is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel’ from the album ‘Maroon’.
As always, it was an amazing day out and a brilliant performance from one of the best live bands on the planet, despite being down by one member. If you’re a fan, you will probably have already seen them by now, but even if you’ve never BNL before and love live music, just go… get tickets. You will never be disappointed!
