The Chapman Family, The Georgian Theatre, Stockton, 26 July 2013
 |
| Cracking sea air. |
Born in Stockton on Tees,
fetched up in Hartlepool , I’ll be first in the
line to say it can be a nightmare. A few steps in the wrong direction on West
View, and you’re in a race to get out before your wheels are sold
for scrap. The headlines write themselves - at least one of the towns will be
held up every year for having the worst teenage pregnancy, the highest amount
of drug use, the worst life expectancy, the worst/best binge drinkers, the lowest employment rate, the highest
amount of council tax dodgers and state funders, the highest illiteracy rates
or even the town that voted the monkey mascot as mayor.
Beneath it all though, what really lies at the heart of
Teesside? Is there anything going for it? Has anyone got any hope left for the
fallout landscape? Is there anything worth salvaging that hasn’t already been
stolen and sold for scrap?
 |
| L-R Owen, Pop, Charlie from TOWIE, Kingsley and Scott |
Step forward The Chapman Family. A quintet of Teessiders,
who turned all the rage that is living in a place where everyone and it’s wife
thinks it’s a shit-hole, where everything is closed or closing, with no lifeblood
and seemingly no hope and turned it into something colossul. Their music is
white-noise, it’s angry, it’s bitter, it’s envious of all the has-beens and
hangers on who’ve made it, it’s determined, it’s beautiful, it makes you listen
and want to do something. It’s class.
On stage, the songs turned into something else. At the four Chapman Family gigs I’ve been to, each was played with a ferocity that was inspiring, the band
playing with huge intensity whether it was to fifty people or hundreds. In the
middle of it all stood Kingsley, who was like some sort of dark alchemist,
relaying the lyrics in theatrical performance, mime, suffocation and
strangulation before screaming the words. It made you afraid, morbidly curious
and eurphoic all at the same time, songs soaring against a background of awesome
music. And that’s awesome in the literal sense, it inspired awe.
So what happened? The Chapman Family split up. In typical
North East fashion, you can’t have your stotty cake and eat it all. The final
gig was at the Georgian Theatre, Stockton
on the first day of the Stockton Weekender. That’s proper Stockton for anyone not familiar. It was
fitting for a band that started out in the Tees ,
that they were calling it a day back where it all began. And so too did I,
having long since left Teeside, it was time to pay my respects and see it end.
A couple of trivia points before we get going – the gig took
place in a furnace. Walking into a raging pyre would have been cooler. The
first and only time I’ve had to leave a gig for two minutes just to a) get air
and b) check I wasn’t on actual fire. The gig was also packed. Like properly
packed, you had everyone there from Sound It Out Records staff to students,
from stag nights to old timers enjoying a noisy gig, the original guitarist
for The Chapman Family along with other bands…even a gig goer wearing an
original pilot helmet complete with radio. It was a real moment of pride to see
the music scene in Teesside is far from dormant.
We, the baying crowds, were treated to a huge set list,
songs from the debut album were blasted out with poisonous fury. The ‘Cruel
Britannia’ EP had an airing, with mass shout-a-longs for the chorus to the namesake song. The original line-up even came on, Pop swapping to bass while Paul
returned on guitar for one final time. Crushingly, the new stuff sounded
incredible – ‘This One’s for Love’ making a huge impact on the audience, whilst
‘Stick Together’ with a pop-punk hook is still bouncing around my head now.
Amidst it all, the perfected sound, the mock strangulation, the
fury, the sheer musicianship of everyone involved, the sheer bloody heat, the
whole thing took on a new purpose. This was it, The Chapman Family’s final gig.
Lyrics took on new meanings, whether it was the occasion dominating thoughts
but hearing Kingsley scream ‘they say your best isn’t good enough’ took on new
purpose. The Chapman Family's best should be enough for anyone, in any industry. Nothing was being left behind, everything was out there, for the
crowds, for the people who came, for the people that didn’t, for those that
believed and those that never gave them a second thought. For anyone who never appreciated them until their final curtain call - well, it's never too late to be grateful.
It was an incredible gig, spanning 1 hour 40 of pure
unbridled noise. It was a career spanning hit-list, delivered with huge
commitment and huge heart. The fact the band never sounded better, that their
back catalogue of songs was so big that nigh on two hours just slipped by, the
fact new songs stood side by side with old and deservedly so was both fantastic
and haunting. They are simply too good not to exist.
Few bands get to call time on their grounds, at their
hometown, and fewer still play their gig as brilliantly as the Chapman Family. They
can hang up their braces, and let the sequins gather dust – they came, they
saw, they conquered. They dragged Stockton
into the annals of NME, they rejuvenated the music scene, revived the local
town. They gave us new stage technique, the art of feedback, mass videos and reintroduced
glam rock. They leave us with a back catalogue of music that can inspire a
riot, change the world we live in and crucially can be blasted at volume 20 on
a summers day startling passers by.
They gave us hope. And for that, on their legacy shall live.
 |
| North Eastern till the end - Copyright © Jazzy Lemon. |
The Chapman Family played:
A Certain Degree
Summer Song
Cruel Britannia
No More Tears
This English Life
This One's For Love
Into Arms
This Is England
Every Day Is Like Sunday
Anxiety
Side By Side
Adult
We Stick Together
The Party's Over
Something I Can't Get Out
Into The Breach
Sound Of The Radio
Photographs
All Fall
Lies
A Million Dollars
Comments
Post a Comment