![]() Tender, too - over the irresistible oil city riff of “Paradise”, he refers to his late wife Irene who “turned him upside down” aged 17 and could “see me through my darkest hour.” Irene seemed to be an unexpected presence of the night. He still seems almost to have the same ferocious energy, duckwalking around the stage as he sprays the audience with bullets from his Telecaster.ĭr Feelgood’s stage persona was fairly macho and tough, but Wilko, who loves medieval literature and reads Icelandic sagas in the original, always had a more melancholic and Blakean element in his make-up, more airy compared to Brilleaux’s earthiness. Lee Brilleaux was the charismatic singer, but Wilko looked like he was plugged directly into the mains. Dr Feelgood made a mythology of Canvey Island and arrived looking like down-at-heel bookies. Wilko, with only slight exaggeration, can be said to have saved rock music in the early Seventies by bringing it back to the essentials (just as at the same time Steve Reich, a fellow minimalist I saw last week, you coul d argue saved classical music). He was on top, sparkling form for his farewell. ![]() But Wilko’s terminal diagnosis seems to have pepped him up (he’s given some inspiring interviews about how alive, even euphoric his diagnosis has made him feel), and that vital sense of living in the moment came through in his passionate performance. Most bands playing material from 40 years ago are going through the motions and are basically karaoke versions of their younger selves. We came to pay affectionate tribute to one of the great guitar stylists, who announced a couple of months ago that he had terminal cancer. ![]()
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