Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The Bad Flowers at Asylum 2, Birmingham. Photograph reproduced with kind permission by Mark Varney and Noble PR.
If you are not ready, focused and with your eyes trained on the 10 yards beyond the finishing line then no matter how hard you try, you won’t hear the Starting Gun and before you know it that finishing line has been reached and the possible enjoyment, the statement of intent and your mark upon the world has been sabotaged by your own reluctance to see how great you could have been.
It is a fact of life touched upon by the great Pink Floyd that somewhere we miss the initial beat of the starter’s flash, we overlook the heartbeat, the spark of the burst of creativity and it is too often down to bad timing or just ill judgement on our part. We take solace in the asylum of the damned and with bouquets from well wishers as we find out that they heard and took notice the click before the bang and have since been at the forefront of the race to witness everything since.
It is to The Bad Flowers and their debut album launch at Birmingham’s Asylum that the faithful of the Rock gathered, not in a ritualistic manner, there was no need for any sign of displays of outrageous affection and over the top summoning of the force of the guitar to shake the foundations, what it was though was honest craft, the culmination of willing to run with the passion and the talent and see it through to this moment, this sense of pride and classy demeanour.
The guitar may not have needed to shake the Asylum foundations but it did so with pleasure, Tom Leighton’s strings the calling card for angels and devils to play together with a knowing smile etched on their faces, Dale Tonks creating a sense of mastery and demolition as the Bass pounded like a sledge hammer to the walls and the surreal beauty of expression to be found in Karl Selickis’ drums; this was moving, an experience that was up close and so personal that the sweat from the instruments could be seen glistening like rain drops caught in the radiation of the sun.
If a Hurricane can divert traffic, then The Bad Flowers can turn the ignition on and create power steering with a blink of the instrument’s heart; it is a heart that glows and will only get hotter as the rest of the rock community come together to understand how good this band are.
In songs such as Who Needs A Soul, Lion’s Blood, Let’s Misbehave, Be Your Man, I Don’t Believe It, Thunder Child and a tremendous cover of Black Sabbath’s War Pigs, which was played out in great rebellion style at the end of an evening which saw the foundations of expectation crumble and shatter and a new dawn, heralded by the Starting Gun, take place.
Ian D. Hall