Jeffing Marvellous

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am not at all sure that the world is ready for the next act…”

 

Photo: nigeldick.com

In some ways, not a lot has changed for John Otway and ‘Wild’ Willy Barrett since Dave Lee Travis unleashed the ‘incompatible’ duo on Top of the Pops back in 1977. The bright lights of the BBC studios were of course a distant memory as they took to the cramped stage of the minuscule Cellars venue in Eastney. But much like the bemused studio audience who found themselves unable to sway along to the pair’s rollicking performance of (Cor Baby, That’s) Really Free, as an Otway ‘virgin’ I wasn’t entirely sure how to react either.

“You’re in for a real treat tonight, mate” said the doorman as he handed me my ticket, and from the moment I walked into the bar I just knew he was right. Fans of ‘The Otway’ are a unique species; hairy where hair is still possible, fiercely loyal (their dedication saw Otway reenter the UK singles charts in 2002 with Bunsen Burner) and with a punk sensibility that refuses to wither. The task of opening for this crowd was perhaps unenviable, but the responsibility fell squarely on the not yet fully-developed shoulders of 13-year-old Huw Olesker, armed with little more than a deerstalker, a ukulele and a warped imagination.

Performing songs about perverted reptiles and physical attractions to condiments is always something of a gamble. But with the Otway and Barrett crowd famously well in-tune with the unconventional, Olesker’s plucky set was a near perfect warm-up. It can’t be easy to make a room full of hardened regulars and ageing rockers laugh, but he excelled from start to finish, even getting the crowd to shout “purl one!” in riposte to his “knit one!” as he sang about the anguish of a sewing-obsessed schoolboy.

Photo: facebook.com

As he left the stage, a strange thing occurred to me: I was starting to get excited. A sudden sense of anticipation had me gripped and I began looking around the room in search of Otway and Barrett. All I had to go on was a mental image of the TOTP performance: Otway tall and skinny with curly brown locks, close-fitting jeans and white shirt; Barrett with shoulder-length hair, sleeveless vest and a slim, muscular frame. I quickly realised that they had in fact been sitting opposite me for the whole evening, and that I was an idiot for thinking they’d look anything like they did three decades ago.

Otway – now with a shiny bald runway where his proud forest of a fringe once stood – looked shy and awkward, eyes darting around as he sipped his pint. At the other end of the table, ‘wild’ Willy looked positively sensible in his white trilby and waistcoat, looking more like a BBC antiques expert than a chart-busting rock star. And yet, as the pair stood up and mounted the stage to warm applause, I could see that the fire was still there and burning very bright indeed. Otway’s slacks have never been snugger, while Barrett’s hat concealed a waist-long, intricately plaited ponytail that instantly demanded respect. Otway still refuses to put a strap on his battered old acoustic, and from his trademark hunched position, he gave four bounces before launching into an energetic version of Louisa Riding on a Horse

Much like Otway’s trousers, the duo’s performance was astonishingly tight. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, because behind the outrageous onstage behaviour and savagely self-deprecating humour are two talented and vastly underrated musicians. Barrett switched seamlessly between guitar, fiddle and banjo throughout the set, with his impressive soloing and mastery of various styles providing the perfect foil for Otway’s simple, strummed melodies and offbeat lyrical delivery. Something else that strikes you is how fantastically catchy many of their tunes are, as well as the touching honesty of Otway’s lyrics.

Before laying into the brilliant Beware of the Flowers, he was quick to remind us how the song achieved 7^th place in a BBC poll of the greatest lyrics of all time, sandwiched between Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney. Otway is adamant that his lack of commercial success was down to poor timing, but Barrett brings him back down to earth by dryly remarking that for every hit, there was a bumper crop of ‘turds’.

The duo’s live show is nothing if not surreal. At one point, Otway stuffed electric pads down his trousers and turned himself into a human drum kit, pogoing around the stage as Barrett sat straight-faced, stoically focused on his playing. Otway’s introduction before Really Free raised a roar of laughter, as he warned that the rest of the show was guaranteed to be “crap” from there on in. How wrong he was. The whole performance was a hugely entertaining riot, and culminated in a chaotic finale which saw Barrett wheel out a set of bagpipes and a hacksaw, which he used to – quite literally – cut his guitar in half as the huge sack of air blared out. The sight of Otway, singing on through the pinging of strings and a rising cloud of sawdust, is an image that will stay with me for quite some time.

There are two ways of looking at John Otway and Wild Willy Barrett. One is the sneering idea of a couple of sad gits desperately clinging to past glories, relentlessly touring themselves into oblivion in front of ever-shrinking crowds. The other consists of two gifted but forgotten musicians who come alive on stage, with a boundless enthusiasm that many new artists will simply never possess. In a cruelly fickle industry where fame comes fast and success is fleeting, Otway and Barrett are not only living case-studies, but self-effacing models of how to survive obscurity and keep on rocking long after the cameras have gone.