Doodah Farm, Gig Review. Zanzibar Club, Liverpool.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

The turning of the year, perhaps in some ways even more important, more evocative to those who live by the natural setting of the Sun than the human construct of December 31st and January 1st, the day when for those in the North; the clock starts to slide towards the darkness once more. The minutes start to chip away from both ends until the chaotic beauty of the world becomes shrouded in darkness for a few months.

However to think of it in that way without at least having one last blast of entertainment on the longest day is almost criminal and for those making the most of the daylight in this way for another year, for those who see the sense of placing their attentions and vision upon a band to blow the day apart, then the Zanzibar Club had just the right band in the shape of Doodah Farm with enough energy being displaced around the room to make a mockery of the shrinking daylight hours to come.

Midsummer, the night of light is aptly named for even if you could have found a D.I.Y. store open at that time of night and with an abundance of batteries and torches readily available, it is doubtful that combined they would have shone with any more luminosity than the electric radiance supplied by the members of the Doodah Farm.

A set full of great songs, lyrically demanding in all the right ways and with an ease on stage that was just illuminating, Stevie Myler, Mark Dickinson, Joe Lamb and Jordan Atkins would surely concede that they might always be considered a cult band but what is the problem with the allusion of cult when so many people pack themselves into a venue and immediately shut up, their mouths firmly set to grin and enjoying every single note from a ukulele, every stance and chord from a guitarist who seems to follow the likeable route that the great Carl Hunter played with stunning effect for many years and with a drummer and vocalist so in tune with each other that they were only a cymbal crash away from making a few people in the audience jump on stage and having the finest time possible.

Opening with the track Jimmy, Doodah Farm somehow managed to fit more songs into half an hour than waiters were left standing round at the Last Supper twiddling their thumbs as the disciples watched in awe in how Jesus managed to produce dozens of opened wine bottles from underneath his robes. Tracks such as Round the Clock, the excellent 21 with its great references to age and aging, the live debut of Spiral, Walk the Moon, the wonderful Roadrunner and the set closer 999 were so passionately greeted and cheered for that anybody feeling a slight chill could not have been made to feel more warm and comfortable.

Sometimes the God of gigs, those that give music lovers the small nudge in the right direction of a band to savour don’t just live up to their job description, they excel themselves. A true pleasure, illuminating and musically enlightening, Doodah Farm’s night at Zanzibar carried the day off perfectly.

Ian D. Hall