THE SCARAMANGA SIX
Royal Park, January 26th 2002
Written by Steve Kind

I try never to fall into the nonsense of saying that any individual musician or band is the "best" but "Widdley" Graham Young is certainly one of the best guitarists I have ever heard, anywhere. Originally scheduled to do a one-off opening set with singer/guitarist Kenny Jenkins, Graham was left high and dry when Kenny suffered a hand injury the day before the show. So - we open the show with twenty minutes of solo jazz guitar - and hey - it worked! The sheer virtuosity of Graham's playing captivated and impressed the entire audience. Terry's admiration for Graham's talent and commitment was well known to us all, and this was a fine opening to the evening session of his Memorial Gig.

RIK LEE injected some more up-front energy with his solo-acoustic-and vocals Braggish set of committed socio-political songs. Rik is often described as being like The Levellers with bollocks! Much as Leeds benefits from his talents as a sound engineer, we would benefit more if he came out from behind the sound desk a bit more often. Terry had worked with Rik in both his capacities and looked forward to both.

FOUR DAY HOMBRE deliver more energy in what is referred to as their acoustic set than many bands can deliver with a full electric line-up. Terry's admiration for them can be measured by the fact that only a few weeks before he died, already extremely ill, he made it down to the venue one last time to run the lighting desk at their previous show. Tonight, with Jason's bass overdrive augmenting Rich and Si's acoustic guitars and the unscheduled addition of Ash "hey there's a drumkit, why don't I hit it?" they turn in a set that leaves the capacity audience breathless - and not only because of the heat in the Cellars, which is by now considerable. This set was like having a musical steamroller driven over you and enjoying it. It would not be surprising if their return to the Cellars on Saturday February 16th with their full line-up were the occasion of an unscheduled expansion to the venue when they blow the back wall off. Hombre took it to eleven for Terry - no one who experienced their performance will quickly forget it.

Not an easy act for THE SCARAMANGA SIX to follow - but follow it they did with classic Scazza commitment and style. The Six were one of the first contemporary local bands that Terry saw when we started work on Panama shows four years ago - he was so impressed then that he bought their CD on the spot and has not missed one of their Panama shows since. There was so much mutual respect between them that I suspect, had I not asked The Six to play Terry's Memorial, they would have sent the boys round to sort me out. What this band do, and do well, is not just music - it is theatre, and bloody impressive theatre at that.

What Xi do well is ROCK. Despite the fact that they were easily the youngest group of performers to take the stage in this show, there was no doubt that they should be last on. Terry believed in this young band with a passion that we only fully appreciated after his death - when people who we had never met started telling us how he had raved about them in letters and 'phone calls. This was possibly the hardest set of their lives - they were closing a show with one of the most wide ranging and impressive collections of local talent a Leeds venue has ever seen and they were doing it in memory of their sound engineer/technician who was also their close friend. A little uncertainty would have been understandable, but if it was present it didn't show as they roared through their set from the anthemic "LEARNING" to the closing number "COLD WORLD" - a song which was in progress when Terry died and was subsequently partly re-written to become a tribute to him. They not only held, but impressed an audience many of whom would not normally have turned out for such an uncompromising rock act. A highlight of their set was their performance of Scaramanga Six song "THE COWARD" as a tribute not only the Scazzas, but all the acts that had joined with Xi to celebrate the life and music of Terry Airth.

At the end of Xi's set - a total surprise when Geoff Garrick of The Dicemen publicly presented Terry's Gibson Les Paul Custom to Xi front-man Daz. "I could keep it at home and plink about on it" he said (Geoff - you could never plink!) - "But Terry's Gibson should be out gigging".

And so to the final, one song performance - but here I must draw the line, as reviewing ones own show is one thing - but reviewing my own performance would be far too much. If you want to know - ask someone who was there!