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The bigger and heavily publicised gig at the Metro in Chicago was part of a week long series of gigs put on by Flower Booking to celebrate 15 years in the business, and also to raise money for needy charities. I had found out about this gig while visiting Chicago a couple of months before when meeting up with Steve Sostak. So I flew into Midway during the afternoon, hung around in a diner for a few hours before meeting the band at 5PM for the load-in a sound check. Shit – the sound check sounded great, even though John’s bass cab was buzzing the whole way through. This was found to just be a dodgy lead, luckily enough. Axe murderer Chris Daly was to play twice this evening - first up with the affable Fred Erskine, who I first bumped into during a wall busting gig at the Water Rats in London in November 1999, while helping out Geiger Counter with their equipment. I had witnessed Just A Fire about a year before when they passed through Denver, and the stuff they play now is far from what they played then - much more upbeat, faster and more noise. As Fred mentioned to me before the show, the worst of our new stuff is better than the best of our old stuff. Just before Sweep can on to the stage the crowd surged towards the front, making taking photos impossible, so I had to be content with taking photos from the side of the stage. For the Sweep show we had both the old and the new line-ups playing. Mitch Cheney came on for the last song, Rest Stop, to add even more intensity to the gig. One of our friends, Ali, was in the crowd during the show, and was standing next to a couple who chatted the whole way through the set. Just before the last song, Steve thanked Flower, the bands and everyone else involved, before saying that this would be the last song. The girl turned to her friend and said "hope it’s a short one", which prompted Ali to turn to her as just say the words "16 minutes" – classic! As for the actual show? Shit, it didn’t sound like they’d been away at all. All the intensity and stage presence was there from years ago – it was like they’d never been away. They all agreed that they’d have preferred a smaller venue and stage, but from an audience’s point of view, it was the same good old Sweep that we come to expect.They may stage one further show early next year, before Steve moves to Peru to teach – we can only hope and pray that that comes off! Sweep The Leg Johnny set-list: Bloodlines / The Fine Wrinkles; We Have All Of Them / Walking Home On The Emergency Bed / Please Give Me Roses Before I Am Dead / The Blizzard of 1999 / Rest Stop |
Sweep The Leg Johnny Flower Booking |