NINE BELOW ZERO on December 18th 2010

Oh Andy... Your wife thinks you're so handy...

It was that time of the year - the Nine Below Zero Christmas gig. I make that their 12th in a row which must be some kind of a record!

The weather was bad last year - this time it was even colder... Yet none of that stopped the band showing up and playing a storm. It was a sell-out gig to a highly appreciative audience.

Dan Burnett set the mood with a nice set, accompanied by Martin on bass. The songs were a mix of old and new, slow and upbeat. The subject matter mostly concerned love... either gained, lost or withheld.

I found the music flowing over me and felt quite mellow. A nice set which was well received.

Santa was in the house and although he was too late to catch the opening set, he was able to take to the stage during the interval for the Ripley Raffle. Dressed in red, lights flashing - I got the impression he looked a little thinner than the usual Santa - if so, he did well not to eat the Famous Ripley Chicken himself!

Another thing that struck me when Nine Below Zero took to the stage was the colour co-ordination between Santa's costume and Dennis Greaves guitar and capo.

The anticipation was high as the band launched into their first song and what a set it turned out to be - there must have been close to 30 songs in there, with snippets of others thrown in for good measure. I got the impression there was more of the older material in there - just great.

Now normally I write my reviews up fairly quickly, but this time I didn't. The drawback is that when I come to read my notes now, I find them totally unintelligible.

This is not a good thing in a reviewer, but it does re-inforce to me what an exciting gig it was as not only could I not concentrate on my writing but there was just so much of it as well.

Dennis Greaves is a gent - after only 3 numbers he asked for a round of applause for the doormen. I second that... they're a great bunch of blokes who make everyone feel welcome and special - all done while they relieve you of your raffle money.

Later on he got side-tracked with a "Georgian" house picture close by the stage and went on to tell us about his "William" house.

In the second half his son took a turn on drums - what a wonderful education he must have gigging with his Dad and the band! Music is already in his genes and you can tell that by the confident way he already plays.

Close to the end Dennis went on to pay a tribute to Andy and the many years NBZ have been doing the Ripley gig... composing a little tribute song on the cuff...

Oh, Andy...
Your wife says you're so handy...
But she wishes you were...

I didn't catch the last part of the song - I know it featured the word "randy", but unfortunately I can't definitely say whether it was "more" or "less"!

I think Three Times Enough was the closer but rapturous applause brought them back for an encore which featured Woolly Bully.

Although I've not really reviewed the music that was played, these two excellent videos will give a flavour of the excitement that the band generated.

What I do know though is that Nine Below Zero are booked in for Christmas 2011 and that 2010 was another ace gig - a match made in heaven... Ripley Blues and Nine Below Zero.

Review by Barry Travena and videos by Dennis McPeake