With support from

Electric Ballroom, London - Monday 12th November 2001

As usual the buzz surrounding any gig involving Ginger in the capital is palpable, and the fans descent on the pubs of Camden is a sight to be seen. (Bloody listees get everywhere don't they?) After the usual bollocks with the knuckle-dragger security at the Ballroom, and the greeting of familar faces, we get in position to welcome back old friends The Jellys.

After an over-long hiatus, CJ and the boys return to the stage looking very dapper in black suits and red ties. Bursting straight into 'Just A Love Song', this is clearly a band on form, and loving every second of being back. A set concentrating on debut album material such as 'Lemonade Girl', 'Up To Me' and 'Messed Up', the smiles on the band are only matched by the smiles in the front row. A superb 'Doctored For Supersound' caps a marvellous set without a fault to be noticed. Welcome back boys, we had a real good time.

I don't know what was up with SG5 tonight, but something just was not right. 'Sonic Shake', SG5's best song, opens up the set as usual with the rizla bombs and the pyrotechnics going off and the turd-eating grins are back on the faces of the crowd. The band however, do seem to be going through the motions, with little sign of the magic of the earlier London shows.

The set consists of a mix of SG5, Wildhearts, and singles club songs, with a little Electric Boys thrown in for good measure. The performance from the band was little more than perfunctory, simply doing the job, although if any other band had played like this, it would have been a great show. Silver Ginger 5 are hampered by the fact when they don't perform at 150% its a bit of a disappointment. There were nothing bad about the set.

'Inglorious', a staple from previous shows, has been replaced with 'Do The Channel Bop' and tonight it's played too hard and too loud to work properly. The worst moment came with Cheap Trick cover 'California Man' which was played ridiculously fast. CT got the tempo spot on first time, it didn't need fucking with.

As I said, it was a bit of a disappointment for me personally (although 99.9% of the crowd were ecstatic), cos' I know SG5 can be a hell of a lot better, but it wasn't a bad gig. Conny's beer bottle solo is still impressive, Random's still worrying the audience and the Kerrang! cameraman with his genitalia. Tom's as dependable as ever, and Ginger's, well, Ginger. But the magic simply was not there tonight, except for the final numbers of the night, when CJ joined the band on stage for '29 x The Pain', and for 'Motorvate'.

Hopefully just a blip. .

Joe Dimmer