Alabama 3 live review
This Alabama 3 concert review is of their gig at the Concorde 2, Brighton on October 8th 2007. It was incredible amounts of fun, and I attended with my good friend Paul Hodges, who brings you this review.
Concorde 2 was rammed for Alabama 3, mostly with people old enough to remember rave music the first time around (including me). The perfect audience for their blend of country music, left-wind politics and 90s techno then. Prior to this I had only seen Alabama 3 at Glastonbury and I don’t own any of their albums. I was blown-away then by their reckless attitude on stage, risqué lyrics and the up-lifting nature of their music which made the whole crowd dance. I recall them being one of the highlights of the whole festival. I wasn’t expecting this gig to be as emotional as that first experience and this proved to be the case for the initial songs (newer material). When they started playing songs I recognised though I found myself gurning and ‘throwing shapes’ like an epileptic eating alphabetti spaghetti.
One song: “last train to Nashville” made me really happy. It has the simple rhythm of a country song with lyrics about a young girl’s MDMA related death at a rave: “she don’t dance to techno anymore”. Not as trite as it sounds and certainly not the sort of song you see X Factor contestants butchering, which has to be a good thing. Very occasionally parts of their more housey-piano tracks sounded a bit similar to cheesy 90s chart dance such as (and this pains me to say) “Things can only get better” by D-ream. The difference is D-Ream are sh*te on several levels (lyrically, musically and via their affiliation with ‘New’ labour’s landslide election win). Alabama 3’s are most certainly not sh*te: the lady singing the female vocals was a really capable singer especially during the duet parts. They all had a real presence on stage, especially the Reverend all dressed in black who – despite being visibly pissed-up – was interacting with the crowd and ad-libbing with ease. He had the calm aura of a man who has seen a lot of bad things but was better for it and he looked as cool as f**k in his mirrored shades, reminiscent of Boss Godfrey in Cool Hand Luke.
Due to the overwhelming need to urinate I didn’t see the end of their performance, the crowd was too dense to penetrate again so we ended up outside listening through the windows. I would have no hesitation in recommending Alabama 3, I think their style of music suits outdoor venues better but having a band with such an interesting and different sound is a boon no matter where you see them. I would familiarise yourself with the music before-hand as the members of the audience who were clearly committed fans were getting a lot more out of their lyrics than us the uninitiated. Get a country & western hat, some party drugs and go see them, it’s worth every cent.
For more on the band check out their website or myspace. Of course, we have some videos for you below anyway so why not stick around for now partner. Sorry.
If you want to see more gigs like this check out our listing page of gigs in Brighton.
Videos
Woke up this morning
[youtube jgoyXJiZqLk]
Too sick to pray
[youtube uvLB_tcZ4-w]
I ain’t going to goa
[youtube v7lsBZ9bspw]
Buy Albums
Click on the images to make your investment.