A Shirt on Sunday: Molly Hatchet – 07/12/18 – Dingwalls

Firstly: those sleeves have got to go. I’ve only been wearing this shirt for an hour and the sleeves are annoying the hell out of me. This is a ‘baseball-fit’ or something where the sleeves are baggy at the elbow but tight at the wrist. It’s all wrong. I’ll have to take it back to the parents and borrow the sewing machine. You’re asking “Well, why did you buy it then?” Because the only t-shirt design was a straight logo, and that was in last year’s pile.

This Frank Frazetta painting was the cover of the first Molly Hatchet album, and is both utterly fab and totally unrepresentative of their music. They used Frazetta paintings for the first three album covers and then a Vallejo painting. Along with the logo it gave the band a brand that has served them well, and makes for damn fine t-shirts.
Dingwalls is a comedy club and night-spot; they don’t host many gigs. On the plus side it is tiered quite well so sightlines are probably pretty good all the way back. However, I was up the front and the speaker stacks were level with me so I got most of my sound from the monitors and the guitar amps. This meant the vocals and keyboards were a bit muffled, but otherwise was fine.

The support act was ‘Federal Charm’ – A Tom Petty-influenced band who were okay, with one killer song: “Choke”. They had a fair bit of support among the audience as well, so gave a good gig.

Quick diversion – when the tour was announced I visited the Hatchet Facebook page and was troubled to see images of the band posing with Oliver North when they played an NRA gig, and then with some of the more noxious Republican senators during a fund-raiser. I thought about not going to the gig then decided that was the wrong attitude and put a note on the tour-dates post saying so. I said that instead I’d be down the front wearing a ‘Vote Obama’ t-shirt. Predictably, I got a bit of flack! However, with the first guy I reached an understanding and said if he ever visited the UK to contact me and we’d have a beer.

So I’m down the front wearing my ‘Vote Obama’ t-shirt. The band came on and launched into ‘Whiskey Man’, followed by ‘Bounty Hunter’ and I’m singing along like a loon. It was in the second song that the singer Phil McCormack saw my shirt and did a beautiful double-take. Then he realised I was singing so beckoned me forward and I got to sing a couple of lines into the mic with him! Little things like that make me happy.

That's me!!! You can't see me, but you can hear the off-key singing at one point

Back in the day, Hatchet had three guitarists, but that didn’t last and after founding guiitarist Dave Hlubeck died last year, they only have the one – Bobby Ingram does a good job, but there are times you miss the depth of multiple guitars. The bass payer Tim Lindsey is new since I saw the band in 2000 (so that’s quite a stretch for ‘new’) and is bloody good – keeps it solid while filling in the sound. He also looks like a confederate general, which works rather well. The keyboard player has been in the band since the early 80s and just plugs away, while the drummer is a madman who looks like Fabio and has a fan blowing on him constantly, so his hair fans out for extra Fabio-ness. He’s also very pernickety about his drums and spent ages resetting them after the support guy used them, so that they were just so.

Gator Country from the first album

The set was short, but perfectly formed. They played pretty much everything I could have asked for and played with conviction. Molly Hatchet are back next year for HRH CROWS and I’m looking forward to being at the front for that too. Maybe in a different t-shirt.

Videos

Given the duff sound from those videos, here's what they should sound like. Double Trouble is one of my favourite ever live albums...