Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter

Ian Hunter's 1997 UK Tour - Liverpool 21st May 1997

The Irish Centre, Liverpool

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Brief report on the Liverpool show last night at the Irish Centre. The venue itself has seen better days (I don't know when as it hasn't changed since the last time I was there 20 years ago) and is rumoured to be closing down soon.

Sat in the bar before hand and saw a number of familiar faces beforehand and Darrell Bath and Alan Young came in for beer. There were about 250-300 people there , all in good humour and high spirits without anyone being too over the top.

The set was as I'd heard at Burnley with a slightly different order and with the addition of The Moon Upstairs! Halfway through OBTS the amp for Darrel's guitar blew a fuse so they had to carry on without him for the first 3 numbers and part way through the 3rd number the lights blew! Seemed as if the venue's set up couldn't handle the power requirements. Talking to Ian after the concert he was concerned that those incidents had partially spoiled it, he thought "it was going to be one of those nights". But they honestly didn't detract from either the performance or the atmosphere and I got the impression that many there were just happy to be in the same room as him! Anyway they got some lighting on pretty quickly anyway.

Ian was relaxed and said he'd enjoyed it - well the rest of did as well. The acoustics weren't brilliant and I think I must have been standing too close to the speakers as my ears are still ringing this morning! Trudi must get to see what goes on to this mail group as when I said something (can't remember what) she said "are you Dave then?". Anyway must do some work. next concert for me is South Shields on the 29th (special permission from my wife to take a day out of our holiday in the North East!).

(Dave Davies)