Well, my time with the Shout Brothers was 20 years ago, when Roaring Jack was de rigeur at the Sando every Thursday, and it might mean a hangover on Friday. The Shouties also played there on Sunday afternoons, always covers, always raucous and enjoyable.
The Shouties were back for New Year's Eve, and the only thing in common seemed to be me and Bernie Hayes (and brother Justin?). The pub was different (it was the Botny View, down the St Peters end of Newtown), the punters were younger, the covers were different, and of course brother Stevie was no longer there.
Before they played, there was a bloke wandering around with a T Shirt of the Byrds' country album Sweethearts Of The Rodeo. As a tenuous coincidence the Shouties later played a cover of Cowgirl In The Sand, a song the Byrds covered in country style (quite creditably, albeit rather different to Neil Young's original). Anyway, the Shouties' version was lengthy and blistering: Bernie just wasn't doing that sort of lead guitar 20 years ago.
Just before midnight, they played Only For Sheep*. Just after the new year, they played Freda Payne's Band Of Gold, a song about a marriage that failed on the wedding night. One had to wonder if there was a message in either of those choices.
Nice to see them again. Almost like reliving...
*An obscure song by The Bureau, a Dexys Midnight Runners offshoot. I thought I was clever to recognise it, but it had actually been a hit in Australia.
