Time: 8.30 PM
Venue: The Spinning Top
Country: United Kingdom
Gerard Starkie – The Blue Aeroplanes / The Jesus Bolt
Best known for his work with The Witness and The Blue Aeroplanes and current project The Jesus Bolt.
Gerard is playing a solo show here this eve.
Gerard is playing a solo show here this eve.
Bristol art rock band The Blue Aeroplanes emerged in 1981 and haven’t stopped plugging away, driven by an uncompromisingly eclectic style and the songwriting sensibility of group leader Gerard Langley, who also finds time to teach the discipline at the local BIMM music college. Combining banjos and mandolins with scratchy post-punk guitars, and joined by a DJ and male dancer onstage, the Aeroplanes were always considered a maverick band. And yet, with Courtney Barnett, Kate Tempest and George The Poet breaking through in recent years, Gerard’s trademark speak-singing is now part of the mainstream.
In fact, Michael Stipe wrote that he only decided to deliver the spoken singing-style vocals on E-Bow The Letter after watching Gerard on tour. And the R.E.M frontman wasn’t the only highly regarded musician to be influenced by the Bristol band: Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield revealed that the Aeroplanes were the best live band he had ever seen and the reason the Manics decided to move around on stage.
