Mr Chief  Rocks the Polish Club

We had been promising to go see the popular West Yorkshire band Mr Chief for a while. In fact we had previously visited the band's "Spiritual Home" The Crown in Scissett but couldn't get in the place as it was so packed when we got there, we had to go home!

An invite from the bands excellent PR lady Julie couldn't be turned down and so we thought we'd kill two birds with one stone and see them at The Polish Club in Barnsley, as we'd never previously visited the venue.

So we did make the journey down the windswept M1 and we are so pleased we did as both aspects of our mission exceeded our expectations.

Bob and Andy run the Rock and Blues Club within the Polish Club on Summer Lane and they've done a brilliant job of keeping the gig going on such a tight budget. The physical dimensions of the club are medium sized and in very good order and the stage is spacious, raised and the acoustics of the room are also very good, although the soundman will probably give us a more learned opinion .It sounded superb to me! I felt comfortable  within the venue and the clientele seemed to be enthusiastic about the music.

So to the band who were into their 5th song of the first set, Hotel California. Julie had saved us seats and we sat down with her party which included Barnsley Entertainments web master (mistress?) Lynne Watkin. As the solo to "California" continued, glances of appreciation were exchanged between us all, basically because it was bloody fantastic!

Marcus sang a rare song and that was Hootie and The Blow Fish, Let Her Be. I have heard it before but it wasn't very familiar to me. It's a real chillout zone kind of song and was very nicely delivered. Also in this set I was delighted to hear a very good rendition of Fool For Your Lovin' and Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive went down well too. Then Marcus struck the intro chords to Freebird...wow, what a fantastic version this was, with three guitars taking us through this timeless classic. As always the song gets to fever pitch and Stevie and Johnny played either harmony or twin guitars towards the end of the song. I can't remember which, even though I was peering through my specs at the fret positions as they played simultaneously. It really was brilliant and a great finale to the first set.

The break gave us all a chance to talk and Marcus proved to be a level headed ,friendly and informative fellah, explaining the equipment he had at his disposal which included a Roland guitar synthesiser. Very nice.

Then back to the music and Mr Chief continued with Crazy Train, a fine rendition, and then a song I'm not normally keen on ,and that's American Idiot. Mr Chief made a great job of it with unusual harmony vocals. Then a very unusual song surfaced. Most people know this as the Diet Coke song, but it's an Etta James blues, I Just Wanna Make Love to You. Mr Chief do an absolutely brilliant arrangement of this classic blues with a twin guitar solo and harmony vocals. The song was very well received, especially by yours truly! Keeping the momentum the band played a cracking version of Radar Love with a nice bass line from Beef, well timed drumming from Phil, and brilliant guitar work from Johnny and Stevie. This song has a superb driving beat and Mr Chief exploit it to the max and so nicely sang by Marcus.

As the superb bass chops and slide guitar of Ozzy's No More Tears  progressed, I thought I heard Marcus use the Roland synth  on the chords throughout this song. What a great song and so well played. Next up and the very familiar guitar intro to Sweet Child of Mine struck up. As much a club staple as Tie a Yellow Ribbon was in the seventies, I think club and pub bands could "modernise" and perhaps replace this with Slash's superb Velvet Revolver song Slither for instance. This is no criticism of the band though, it's just a generalisation and Mr Chief played it every bit as good as any other band on the circuit, probably better come to think of it.

More "staples" followed such as Word Up....superb, AC/DC's Highway to Hell, and Metallica's Enter Sandman complete with heavy use of the whammy bar and volume pot which was excellent. Marcus did really well with a rendition of U2's Vertigo, reaching the vocal high's with plenty in reserve before the band took a three guitar salvo of Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll to finish the second set. The crowd were clapping ,cheering and banging glasses on the table shouting for more. They got more as the band assembled on the stage for a two song encore starting with an old favourite of mine, Whitesnake's Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City! I was well pleased as it's one of my all time favourites, followed by Pink Floyd's brilliant Comfortably Numb! What a great job Mr Chief do with this fabulous song. The second solo in this song is like nobody else does it. It was utterly superb and I take my hat off to Johnny and the lads for a very special rendition. The band retired from the stage to huge applause and well deserved it was too.