150 or so souls and myself made our way down to the country's noisiest former tyre fitting bay, Derby's Flowerpot, hoping Man would move us the way they did back in the day. My own opinion, and the reaction of those assembled, is that they did just that, with a high-energy, very tight set, mainly songs from the classic era but enough other stuff to satisfy.
A cracking C'mon started things off, Malcolm showing early with some appeallingly meandering keyboard work and Shane driving the band with some inspiring Ludwig-bashing, he's a real find in my view and looks like he can't believe he's in the band. Next was one from waaay back, Sudden Life, then two new songs - Too Much Too Soon with Josh on keyboards and vox and Malcolm on acoustic guitar - not very Man-sounding to me, but good punchy poppy rock which has its own appeal, and a more striking second newbie, the 'Three Blind Mice' song, and those childish lyrics take on a whole new meaning when spat out by Martin and backed by this band.
The band hardly make an effort to look like rock stars, the exception being Martin, wandering round like Young Mr Grace in a crisp white cufflinked shirt and suit jacket. A word or two in defence of Josh who was accused elsewhere I think of looking uninterested - well not everyone can project like Eddie Van Halen, Josh actually looks like a young Robin Trower without the gurning, and plays his part unobtrusively but admirably whilst James, the real virtuoso of the ensemble, takes the lions share of solos
Big highlight of the early part of the set was my favourite song about police brutality, Romain, very well received by the crowd, and the follow up, a Malcolm song Vision(?) fits in well, demonstrating the craftmanship that has resulted in an avalanche (3 according to Martin) of copies of his solo album Aliens being sold on tour. Hard way To Live rocked as well as ever, and James continued to demonstrate his versatility with another new intro to Spunk Rock. The band, and especially Shane, rocked into the closing brace of songs, Manillo and the classic riffola of Many Are Called But Few Get up before leaving the stage to applause as rapturous as 150 old fellahs and the odd femme can muster
Encores, the Malcolm-sung Ride And The View and a stirring Bananas were the cherry on what I consider was a very rich cake - I'll be honest and say the magic of the classic line up was absent, but hey I was in my teens then and NOTHING is as magic as when seen through teenage eyes, this is a SERIOUSLY good rock band in its own right, confirmed by the 'young' (in their 40s) couple I spoke to briefly. Not Man fans, just music lovers looking for something to groove to on a cold thursday, they also gave hope that Man Could exist even after Malcolm, joking early doors that is was nice of the young lads in the band to drag their uncles up on stage for a jam. Thankfully by 11pm they'd had a change of mind and conceded that they'd witnessed something pretty damned good
