Is There Still A Place In The World For The Wildhearts?

[Chris DLS]

Those were Ginger's parting words last night. Yes the sound was shit, and yes he had a bad night.

However, after listening to some of the shit on the radio on the way back home, there is definately still a place for the Wildhearts.

After seeing the boys take on all comers at Download and Hard Rock Hell this year, and come out on top, there is definately still a place for the Wildhearts.

For being the best party, singalong, energetic band I've ever seen, there is definately still a place for the Wildhearts.

C'mon guys, we all have bad nights, the thing is to get up, dust yourself down and come out fighting. We'll still be here.

[sonicadz]

Amen to that brother!

[EMMO]

it wouldnt be a wildhearts gig without sound problems.

i see what Ginger means though - for all their great songs when it comes to being where they should be in the music world they are a million miles away.

Radio hardly ever plays them and other media ignore them.

They may be interviewed by Rocksound tv station but about 5 people watch it. (is it me of have the same 5 concerts on there of late been the same for the last month? sh1t channel)

For a singer/songwritter who is up there with Lennon and McCartney Ginger is no where to be seen in a list of great song writters as the average joe public has never heard of him.
Radio still dictates what people buy. I mean, how can Keane, snow patrol, coldplay, razorlight, kaiser chiefs sell more records than the wildhearts? they are not even in the same league.

After 15 years its probably starting to get to ginger that they will never be as big as they should. Also its dishearting when the venue gets changed from the Apollo to the Forum and then to just the downstairs of the forum.

for all the wildhearts class they are still relativlevy unkown ouside of their fanbase.

i hope they are around forever but i got the feeiling last night that Ginger had lost some of his sparkle. Maybe it was the sound? but he wasnt himself.

[Assmask]

Well he's up and down isn't he?

So I'd not worry.

I think that the bands relative obscurity is somewhat self inflicted.

[blundellfamily]

On Sunday in Manchester he seemed happier than ever. Perhaps it was the Ian McNabb factor?

Also worth noting that us Northerners always hate going down South......

[DangerousBeans]

it wouldnt be a wildhearts gig without sound problems.
Also its dishearting when the venue gets changed from the Apollo to the Forum and then to just the downstairs of the forum.

I also post on the Levellers message board and a lot of the folk on there are saying the audiences for their tour so far have been much smaller than usual.

The night they played Barrowlands and it was half full they were competing with Simple Minds at the SECC(hometown gig for them)Hawkwind at the Carling and another band was playing the Cathouse(can't remember who but they had a big tour bus).
Couple this with the other sheer amount of gigs in Glasgow in the coming weeks(Primal Scream,Alabama 3 and Levellers are 3 i wanted to go to,Warrior Soul is another)the fact that loads of folk are losing their jobs and it's the run up to Xmas all contributed to less people going to see a show.
Then you could add a lack of local promotion for the shows.Like i said elsewhere i didn't see any promotion at all as i haven't looked at the music press in a while.

No fault of the band at all and i don't think it's down to dwindling popularity.Just alot of factors working aginst them at the same time.

The audience is still there.In fact there was a fair old mix of ages at the Barras judging by some girls wearing Simple Plan t shirts etc and my 18 yr old cousin totally loves The Wildhearts.
Good time singalong music never goes out of fashion all it needs is exposure(in fact Britain could do with the Wildhearts to cheer everyone the fuck up just now).Which is the difficult part.I'm sure if the band release a new album and possibly do a summer tour to avoid the now familar glut of December tours that everyone does now they'll do way better.

If it's true TOTP is coming back then maybe it'll be worth releasing singles again as more folk will see the band.It certainly helped them before when they were on it quite a lot.

[dazza]

Totally still a place.

The first 6-8 songs Ginger was on fire and the sound outfront was pretty good. I hope it's not the end, but he wasn't a happy bunny was he?

[mindslide]

I don't think I'd be a happy bunny if I was on fire either!

[Burkey]

The Wildhearts were awesome last night. There is always room for the wildhearts maybe not on mainstream radio or mtv but as they proved last night when it comes to live performance you can not beat them.

[PeeCee]

London has a bad effect on Gingers soul he is always happy playing elsewhere.

[DQuinlan]

I really hope he doesn't give it away (again). The Sydney gig was a stormer!

[Pudu]

Surely their place should be on 'Top of The World'!!!

(sorry couldnt help it)

[Ilsa]

Surely their place should be on 'Top of The World'!!!

(sorry couldnt help it)

[gar971y]

ginger sounds as if he is well fed up,,and so do some of the fans,,when the band puts out a new album and then they tour they play 90% old music 10% new album stuff,,so you have a band playing the same old songs year after year(dont get me wrong all wildheart tunes are classics)and 90%of the fans going to the gigs get maybe two new songs from the latest album,,i think when they put out a new album they should be mostly playing from this and then a couple of classics just to make it more fresh ,they done the same thing when they toured "must be destroyed"about two songs of it,,if you think about it so many bands play this way,metallica do this one or two new album songs and the rest you have heard hundreds of times(i know you need the classic songs in sets but not them all) just think if the wildhearts went out to tour a new album and the not knowing was what couple classics are they going to include in the set fans and the band might be more exicited in whats going on,,on the self titled album tour last year i was so looking forward to hearing it and i think we got two songs from it ,i was thinking maybe these guys cant pull all the new songs live but then they go and release a dvd of the new songs and how good it was to watch love to see them all live,,i hope i got my idea across,i know i used the word "classic" plenty of times but its the wildhearts that we are talking about,,,,

[my3dtvtan]

The press have picked up on Gingers comments (Well, Metal Hammer anyway) and posted this

http://www.metalhammer.co.uk/news/wildh ... bad-night/

Pretty strange it being on the front page but surely that shows that people care enough about the band to take notice of what was said

The rest of Dave Lings review is here

http://www.daveling.co.uk/diary.htm

btw Jamie from Reuben said something similar when I saw them in Manchester in April and 3 weeks later they split up. Not saying for a moment this will happen (again) but it just makes me sad that this mentality exists in such incredible bands.

Give Ginge a few more months for the new album to come out and Im sure he'll be back on form despite the ocasional bad day.