‘Life-affirming’: Pop prophets Red Guitars turn up the heat at O’Rileys
RAPTURE: Bassist Lou Duffy-Howard enjoys the moment, with guitarist John Rowley, right. All band pictures by Richard Duffy-Howard
By Phil Ascough
Don’t be fooled by the glee on the faces of the revellers at the impromptu garden party outside O’Rileys. Or by the singing and dancing, clapping and cheering inside as a capacity crowd welcomed the Red Guitars home to Hull.
It was a commemoration of 40 years since the release of the band’s Indie chart-topper Good Technology. But it was hardly a celebration. The bad news is that the dystopian themes running throughout the song are even more relevant now than in 1983. What little optimism there might have been amid a set of lyrics which includes “missiles can tear the world apart” and “plastics that are indestructible” has waned somewhat.
Good Technology 2023 has the same lines but an even more chilling remix, as well as an extended version in which the understated guitar creates the perfect listening environment for uncomfortable contemplation, notably with the sample of Eve of Destruction.
BACK FROM ANOTHER WORLD: Red Guitars at O’Rileys. From left, Matt Higgins, Jeremy Kidd, Lou Duffy-Howard
Barry McGuire’s 1965 song featured in the original Good Technology but was so faint it was forgotten by many even if they heard it at all. Now the volume is up and the message is a clear and distressing call to action.
In the re-cut video there’s an alarming symbolism about the clip of the band members standing on a cliff. The precarious nature of their position is aggravated by the fact that this is Atwick on the Holderness coast where, little by little, the North Sea is advancing. It will sweep the ground from beneath your feet, and standing still is not an option.
So a remix in bright red vinyl, a repackaged video, the anniversary gig and a September tour of 12 dates in just 16 days. It’s the sort of polished, multimedia package that wouldn’t have been possible 40 years ago – now the band really are reproducing a work of art.
INTO THE MUSIC: Lead guitarist Hallam Lewis
The band convinced themselves of their capabilities during 2022 with a smaller tour triggered by the interest of Steve Homer, and the story behind his interest is worth repeating.
Steve first came across the Red Guitars in 1984 when he was a student at Leicester University and member of the crew setting up for a gig by The Smiths, with the Hull band as support. He took to them, followed them for a while but then lost touch as his own career connected him with various other bands.
Now the CEO of AEG Presents, the live events arm of global entertainment company AEG, Steve rediscovered the Red Guitars while playing some of his old favourites during lockdown. He tracked the band down and did what he does to organise a comeback tour at about the same time as he was promoting gigs by the Rolling Stones.
The biggest surprise for Steve was to find the band still with the original line-up rather than one of those rock and roll versions of Trigger’s everlasting broom. The slight change this year is that lead guitarist Hallam Lewis has moved back to Hull from Cape Town. Singer Jeremy Kidd is still in Brighton. Drummer Matt Higgins lives in Leeds, rhythm guitarist John Rowley in Bridlington and bass player Lou Duffy-Howard is in Hull. Guest guitarist Jos Allen again joined the band.
The clamour for tickets signalled the appetite was still there, and that was reinforced over the weekend as fans from all over England, Scotland and Wales descended on Hull for the latest milestone gig.
Before the show and in between bands, most of them congregated on the lawn outside the venue, taking relief from the stifling heat inside, bumping into old friends they hadn’t seen for years. They reminisced about gigs going back to the days before the Adelphi Club, about wild nights out in The Queens and about international football kick-abouts in Pearson Park. I remember the students from Zimbabwe, and the lads from Ray’s Place who used to call me Geoff Capes. But I’d forgotten about the journalists from Chile who apparently came to Hull to escape the Pinochet regime.
Jeremy Kidd
The venue is smarter than I remember from a previous visit pre-Covid, early in the year and utterly freezing. We all kept our coats on, Burnsy his hat as well when he took to the stage to introduce the bands. Tonight O’Rileys was at the other extreme. Maybe add a line about global warming to those doom-laden lyrics?
So what about the bands? Openers Terra Fin brought together Lou’s sons Dexter on violin and Corey on bass, either side of guitarist and frontman Jonas. It wouldn’t be accurate to say they captivated the crowd – too many people were still outside catching up on events of the last 40 years. But those who watched were rewarded with a set offering plenty of poise and passion and doing enough to make me want to see them again.
Red Guitars presented much the same set list as last year, and absolutely nobody had any problems with that. The significant differences were the inclusion of three new songs – Beyond the Blue, Trickledown and Ten Seconds of Fun.
Hallam Lewis, left, and guest guitarist Jos Allen
Time for me to fess-up. I missed two of them and – looking at the set list – a couple of classics as well because a dash out for a bit of fresh air led to another catch-up conversation. The garden cleared though as the intro to Good Technology, instantly recognisable, wafted out of the doors, the chatter ceased and people headed back in for the main event.
I’d suggested years ago that the band might re-release it for the millennium. More recently they invited suggestions for contemporary lyrics additions. There were some good replies and the favourite was the work of the late Eddie Smith when The Gargoyles revealed their cover version: “We’ve got photographs of men on the bog.”
But now they feel the time is right, and the sleeve notes to the new record reveal some of the band’s emotions behind the track.
Matt Higgins
Hallam: “I think the guitar solo was just about the first take we did and I thought it was crap… I guess it sounds OK in retrospect.”
Matt: “Great memories as it was our first single and the one people tend to remember.”
Lou: ”We lost a few lines in search of the 3-minute pop song.”
Jeremy: “This bloke called Tim who was an ex-telephone engineer figured out the number for the direct line into John Peel’s studio… various people phoned big John and plugged Good Tech. I must say he took it in a very relaxed and Peel-like manner.”
Lou Duffy-Howard and John Rowley
Peel loved it and so did his listeners, voting it into 11th place in the 1983 “Festive 50”.
John gets to grips with his thoughts on then and now: “It was a different world… there were a mere 100 McDonald’s in the UK… in essence it is a call and response song… a dystopian prophecy of things to come… 40 years on and the promise like the country is broken… it seems the right time to rerelease this song to a new audience.”
Buy the record to read the rest.
The second song, Fact, has its own story. Welcomed by Melody Maker as “powerful and sinister, fitted with the big beat as well as guitars which shrieked and squirmed”.
And the revelation – to me at least – from Jeremy that “take the profit out of war, we don’t need it any more” was borrowed from Winifred Holtby: “She wrote the line in an article about South Africa and was referring to the Boer War.”
Both tracks stood out in the live set as did Steeltown, prompting discussion during one of the garden chats about the tactics behind “everybody got a new car”. Take everything away from people, give them a quick and temporary windfall and they think they’ve made it. Not quite caviar and four-star daydream but throw in a council house and suddenly they’re landed gentry who vote accordingly.
Paris France, as last year, delivered a blistering finale.
But back to the video which, remarkably, is shot in the same location as 40 years ago, a scrapyard, graveyard for so much earlier technology, those new cars from Steeltown, but sadly not for the ideology of governments that put dogma before people.
It’s an absorbing watch, weaving new footage into old, the same performers simultaneously young and not so young but still passionate and pin-sharp, and harnessing powerful images to get their messages across.
And that was it for now. There’ll be more in a couple of months when, instead of exiles flocking to Hull, we might well be heading to venues all over the country. The tour starts on Monday September 4 in Manchester and wraps up in Brighton on Wednesday September 20.
There’s all sorts in between. Tickets go on sale this Friday, June 30, and you can do it all online including listen to Good Technology 2023, watch that amazing video, whizz through some testimonials from last year’s show to get the feel for the new tour, buy stuff from the shop because the money will support future projects.
It’s at www.red-guitars.com
Lou said: “We’re really grateful to everybody for buying tickets, the record and our merchandise because we have a set full of new material and we’ll use the funds to record an album. Maybe a single first.
“We just had an absolute party. It was really life-affirming seeing so many people who were our fans and have become our friends. They have talked to us, connected on social media, sent us pictures and memorable letters over the last 40 years.
“We are most excited about the new material. We love playing the old songs and everybody wants to hear them but we are really enjoying playing the new ones. We had to pick three and we were really pleased with how they sounded and how they went down.
“People were saying they fit so well with the sound of the Red Guitars and that it hasn’t aged. It sounds like it’s now.”
So plenty to look forward to but also time to dwell for a while on the closing quote in the video from Gerrard Winstanley in 1647: “Was the earth made to preserve a few covetous, proud men to live at ease, and for them to bag and barn up the treasures of the Earth from others, that these may beg or starve in a fruitful land; or was it made to preserve all her children?”
Become a Patron of The Hull Story. For just £2.50 a month you can help support this independent journalism project dedicated to Hull. Find out more here
