GIG REVIEWS

Shed Seven
@ Leeds Metropolitan University
14.12.03
www.vanguard-online.co.uk

 Rock and roll ain't what it used to be. Rick tells me about a girl in Cardiff, desperate to get ahold of his maracas. No - real maracas, like what he shakes in the show. Eventually, faced with a roadie's blank response she says "I'll tell you what; if you give me the maracas I'll……. show you a shop where you can buy some more." Rick Witter is rightly disgusted that the days of blowjobs for the roadcrew seem to have been and gone. Perhaps this is the reason that Shed Seven have decided to pack it in. Or maybe it's the age of the audience - I get to see the spectacle of my friend Colin trying to blag a ticket for the deputy head of Rick's son's school with the offer of an authorised absence for the knackered child in the corner. Somehow it's not rock and roll. But maybe it never was; the Sheds were always the local team. Their songs flitted between grandiloquence and diurnal matters but the mateyness and emotional honesty of the frontman inspired a rare devotion and a bizarre Yorkshire pride (Witter is from Manchester).

Tonight is a week from their final concert and the sell-out crowd is here to say goodbye. Thankfully, the Sheds have the integrity to give us new songs as well as a greatest hits. Why Can't I Be You turns up along with Going For Gold. Witter does his trademarked baggy-meets-fey dance and indulges the front row with a bit of heckling give and take. All his dances begin with his arse rising into the air like a puppet about to take a walk, then the arse leads the dance, dragging his body around after itself. The lead guitar works his way through the Who songbook till we get 'the Proclaimers slot' - some acoustic numbers and more singalongs. Rick disappears into the audience for a walkabout. There are plenty from the last, very strong, album mixed with other, older favourites. Getting Better sees the front row taking it in turns to sing the lines.

Then, after only an hour they troop offstage and hide for a few minutes till the obligatory encore. Four songs! That's an indulgent encore, but no one wanted them to go. You'll not be surprised to hear that three of the four songs were Disco Down, Chasing Rainbows and Dolphins. There is massed singing and some bopping around. A wave of beery affection beams across the LMU student union and the band is gone.

A nice way to end a career.

Ross McGibbon