Penetration & Essential Logic O2 Birmingham 15.11.24
Celebration Not Nostalgia
And so the two bands Penetration and Essential Logic rolled into Birmingham on a short tour. Both bands are legends in their own right from punkier times in the late seventies.
Essential Logic
The band with Lora Logic at the helm were a revelation. Punky, funky’ dubby and always with a groove. It took me a while to realise they didn’t have a drummer but that didn’t matter at all. With Lora is her daughter Malina on vocals and occasional synth doodle, a second (equal first|) sax player who doubles on second guitar and a guitar and bass. Laura has an excellent delivery voice that sometimes reminds me of Grace Jones in her deadpan delivery but at other times really expressive
They started as they meant to continue with their first single Aerosol Burns’ and there were tracks from all of her career including ‘Alien Boy’ from her last album.
Two surprises – an excellent jazzy ‘Identity’ which took me a few seconds to realise what it was and a full pelt ‘Oh Bondage Up Yours’. There’s obviously a major part of X Ray Spex that belongs to Lora as it was her sax sound and her arrangements that were copied when she was removed from the band. Seeing her doing ‘Oh Bondage’ it’s easy to transport back and see her as a fresh faced 15 year old in the Roxy Club with her sax in that iconic pose next to Poly.
The fact that I’m not acquainted too much with their back catalogue but enjoyed the whole set means I’ll be taking a plunge into it.
Penetration
So some 46 years after Penetration first released ‘Moving Targets’ here they are on a short tour playing the album and more. I have to be honest I wasn’t blown away by the album when it first came out all those years ago but over the last few months I’ve been playing it more and more and I’ve come to really like and appreciate it. Hearing it live tonight was the icing on the cake. It was no stale run-through, but a fizzing, powerful celebration of a great album.
In short, the gig was absolutely amazing. Pauline is a bundle of energy who never stands still and would definitely have achieved her 10,000 steps and more this gig! Robert Blamire the other original on bass is also great – solid, really good but never seems to take the limelight.
The guitars are also incredibly tight and you just realise how far Penetration had moved from punk by this album and were mixing genres well ahead of time. You can wonder what if about if they had got in keyboards instead of Fred Purser but they didn’t. What they got was a very distinctive rock edge and a palette of guitar effects that was courtesy of Fred Purser and Neale Floyd that moved them light years from ‘Don’t Dictate’.
You also realise that they didn’t really have any hit single material – ‘Danger Signs’ would have been the one that should have been but they had really strong album tracks – the picks here are the closers on the album ‘Reunion’ (my favourite – almost Psych folk punk), ‘Nostalgia’ and ‘Free Money’. Pauline’s voice is as strong as ever and these 3 showcase her range and how distinctive she was as a vocalist.
One moment I thought was brilliant – at the end of ‘Reunion’ she walks to the back where it looks like a synth and with one finger triggers the bell sound 6 times. It’s the only time it’s used. They really have put in the effort to play this album back exactly as they recorded it.
After a short break, it’s a run through the singles and selected cuts from the next two albums. Again I’m surprised at how fresh songs ‘Don’t Dictate’ sound.
‘Shake Some Action’ started and sounded odd and Pauline who has that pure singing voice stopped the song and with her Northeast accent said to the guitarist ‘What’s happened here? That sounded fookin shite!’
Another pick was ‘The Beat Goes On’ from the 2016 ‘Resolution’ album sounds like they had just continued from 1979 and if it had been that would surely have been the single that broke them.
So ‘Moving Targets Recalibrated’ is out and there’s the promise of new stuff as well as they head at some time into the studio to throw ideas around.
What a night – Essential Logic and Penetration delivering the goods – a celebration not nostalgia.
TalkPunk
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