GIG REVIEWS

The Saw Doctors
@ The University, Leeds.
5th December 2002
www.vanguard-online.co.uk

 The Saw Doctors are an institution. People love them. No surprises likely, but a good night out more or less guaranteed. Plenty of dancing, plenty of singing along and a bar stocked with Guinness. They regaled the crowd with a punk / folk / ska / calypso / rock'n'roll mix. And the crowd loved it. This was one of the few gigs I've been to where I felt relatively young and not as grey haired as everyone else. And the maturity meant a lack of inhibition so reels and jigs fired off at random.

We'd rolled in fashionably late at nine and the band were already going. They fired off singalong after singalong and I worried that this was the climax of the gig and I'd somehow turned up at the end – did they have that many tunes that they could toss them away early in the evening. Well, this wasn't the end, they played another two hours and, yes, they did have enough tunes to blast through the evening. Plus they had the legendary weapon – Irishness. With an Irish lilt, any song lyric, no matter how naff, takes on a significance that bypasses the normal 'cool' filters we put up. So: 'Why Don't We Share The Darkness Tonight' became more than a desperate end of the night singsong. 'Wish I was on the N17, stone walls and the grass is green' filled us with longing for a trunk road. 'Why Do I Always Want You?' became a philosophical enquiry on the meaning of unrequited. Getting the theme? Love lost, love spurned – good maudlin stuff – but delivered with an upbeat jig.

What lifts The Saw Doctors above a pub band is not just a very fine set of original material and love for the music but an affection for rock and roll. Vis the Ramones- esque 'Ask Her Why She Don't Want To Go With Me'. They throw in a glorious snatch of I Wanna Be Sedated at the end as a nod to their roots. Add to that the packed crowd out for the craic and I understand their place in the hearts of the audience. www.sawdoctors.com

Ross McGibbon