PHIL X AND THE DRILLS, COLLATERAL, WESTERN SAND, REBELLION, MANCHESTER, 2020

Written by Dawn Osborne on March 8, 2020

Western Sand hail from Bournemouth, but as the vocalist points out
they have their minds much further south, the Deep South, as their decent cover of Mississippi Queen illustrates. They put a lot of passion and attitude into their performance and, although it’s a pretty short set, they have a go at livening up the early doors crowd. It’s mostly Southern Rock, but last track ‘Nothin To Lose’ is harder and definitely a more metal end as they race to the crescendo in a frenzy of finger tapping and guitar solos complete with strobe.

Collateral are very familiar to me as is their current set, full of the singles from their debut album which made it to no 5 in the rock charts recently. As usual vocalist Angelo Tristan is full of energy and charisma setting the visual performance bar high. Unless my ears are failing tonight, however, he has a cold or is starting to lose his voice in the face of quite a lot of gigs lately. However, passing the true test of star quality he does not apologise or explain to the audience he just fronts it large, relying on a big performance to carry him through and does pretty well even though having seen him before I could tell he was struggling slightly. As I have experienced with Mike Monroe who once did a whole gig without a voice at all, when suffering with laryngitis, if you give them enough of a rock show experience and put the effort in to look like a rock star you will usually get through and Angelo does, just. Hoping he gets a chance to rest and recuperate his voice soon though.

Phil X has to take a bit of a back seat, of course, at a Bon Jovi gig, but at his solo gigs his quirky personality shines right through. Never let it be said the Greeks have form as good storytellers, of course, but he takes the opportunity to tell jokes and little anecdotes throughout the show that makes the show a very personal thing, including a reference to his forthcoming birthday while on tour, although he is at pains to make a fuss of his bassist Dan and drummer Andy, so it never feels like an ‘all about me’ thing. He comes across as a people kind of a person with his encouragement of singing for ‘I wish my beer was as cold as your heart’ and his use of a mimed cheer-o-meter to increase and bring crowd noise to a close. He even invites a female fan on stage to play the part in a mini play about how a particularly intelligent waitress helped them to come up with the title of their album ‘We Play Instruments and Shit’. A bit like Slash he is determined not to take himself too seriously as the little action figures in the pick up cavities of his guitars attest.

By the look of the die hard fans here, some of which were discussing how many gigs on this tour they have made on the way in, he probably could have got away with all originals, but with an introduction of ‘let’s have some fun’ he does a medley of Led Zep and AC/DC songs that demonstrate his skill on guitar, sticking in more notes than seemingly possible into super fast solos, making said axe literally weep and squeal and demonstrating a decent high pitch vocal scream carrying material that you really need to do well to satisfy a crowd, seemingly without very much effort. He also does a quirky metallised version of Hotel California which I probably prefer to the original. Sticking in a quick reference to Hall and Oates for the crowd to sing ‘Maneater’ was probably a little on the idiosyncratic side, although I think little digressions to play stuff like the Flintstones or circus clown themes and to explain the origin of stupid riffs ‘behind the nut’ is just to amuse and maybe to lighten up the serious classical stanzas he’s also throwing into the same mix. By the same token a song about a ‘Beautiful Apartment’ which might be thought to be a bit soft has its sentimental edge completely stripped away by a story about a landlord in a filthy stained t shirt who only knew the title of that song as his only two words of English when trying to let out a rat infested den in LA.

Despite all the light hearted silliness and demonstration of the feedback in the venue due to the train station right next door, Phil X sings with a passion that reminded me of Autograph singer Simon Daniels. One wonders if being so talented he uses the goofiness as a cover to stop people disliking him out of envy. Indeed it would be impossible to dislike this goofy amiable persona and his warmth shines though making the show possibly worth watching even if he wasn’t impossibly good at guitar.I did think his winging it solo was possibly a little too
messy and a little too made up on the spot. However he followed it by such a classy Bluesy solo that reminded me of George Lynch that I forgot all the goofiness immediately. With Zep influenced guitar and a few Gillan style screams and a bit of raucous rock n roll involving the crowd in random shouts of ‘Olé’ in the absence of any Spanish connection whatsoever, the main set came to an end. Phil took the time to thank a fan who was attending the gig in a pink wig during her chemo which seemed genuine and heart-feltedly big hearted.

Rounding out the show with an encore of ‘Highway to Hell’ the show came to a close. It was definitely a win, even though the show had a spontaneous anything might happen feel which I guess is appropriately rock n roll. Certainly this informality and go with the flow feel is a million miles away from a super slick big budget Bon Jovi set and despite a few notes of ‘Living on a Prayer’ as a tease accompanying a story of how he always has a few deers in headlights (or should that be dears) squinting at him throughout when he knows they’re thinking, ‘That’s not Bon Jovi’, there’s not a single Bon Jovi track to be found in the set. Actually from the look of this crowd I think they knew exactly what they were gonna get and it’s another self deprecating reference which is likely to make him a popular guy. Apart from possibly the super messy improv in the solo I really enjoyed this gig though. Talent by the seat of its pants and it’s his show so if he doesn’t ever wanna be too serious, who’s gong to tell him he must?