$IGN OF 4 at Dudley, 17th November 2002

Well, decided to take the wife out for once and we went to Dudley, epicentre of recent earthquakes, would dudley rock again tonight, SURE DID ! my first impressions on arriving at JB;s were being greeted by the management, a lady who insisted on giving me a guided tour of her club and with the grim news that Mr Mogg did not turn up for the sound check and missed a curry she had specially cooked for the band in her very own kitchen, i assured her since schenker was not party to "sign of 4" the gig would happen, anyway halfway through support act i went to the loo to see phil himself at the front entrance door trying to convince the ticket guy he was who he was and he picked up a flyer from the counter pointing to a picture of himself. 100 people there at the most but on they came and WOW did Kollman really work that guitar pulling out all the sounds and Phil in usual fine voice enjoying some between crowd banter between songs, ok there was a coulpe of false starts where phil did the solo voice intro to "to close to the sun" one song into the set too early confusing shane on skins and another mid song wander but heh this is live music here, no backing tracks to rely on unlike todays so called popstars. My only dissapointments of the night was the drunk climbing on stage, no "CLAP HANDS" and the crowd cheering UFO UFO UFO between encores, here was the excellent "sign of 4" not UFO, i wonder how Jeff and Shane felt not getting deserved recognition for playing their own composed work with a few UFO tracks thrown in. I am planning on being at Oxford for the last show on saturday and hope for the future, if only MOGG and co could get a break on mainstream TV the whole world might realise ROCKSTARS not POPSTARS. Thanks Phil and co for yet another great night to remember and long may it continue.

Martyn Phillips 2002

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