![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/mcbride6.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/morse3.jpg)
2024-04-06 – Nick Simper + Nasty Habits – Wien
| Who | Nick Simper + Nasty Habits |
| When |
Saturday, April 6, 2024
20:00
-
Age restrictions unknown
|
| Where |
Hadikgasse 62
Wien, Austria 1140 |
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
[Oops, I meant Wien on Saturday/tomorrow, not Klagenfurt today!]
I’ve just decided on a whim to go there tomorrow. Along with Rod Evans and Tommy Bolin, Nick is the one ex-member of Purple I haven’t seen yet. Making amends now, it’s about time!
This will be an approx. 1.400 km round trip with my Harley-Davidson Fat Bob, but it’s supposed to be sunny! Will report on the gig.
Getcha motor runnin’, head out on the highway … 🏍
April 5th, 2024 at 13:19I was there und it sure was worth it! It was an Mk I trip down memory lane: Fault Line, Painter, Bird Has Flown, Why Didn’t Rosemary, Emaretta, Lalena, I’m So Glad, Mandrake Root, Kentucky Woman, Hush, a few songs from the Nasty Habits, Ritual from Warhorse, Shakin’ All Over from Johnny Kidd & the Piraten, Roadhouse Blues …
I’ll write a more comprehensive review once I’m back home from my impromptu 1.400 km round trip.
April 7th, 2024 at 01:45How could I have possibly forgotten Chasing Shadows?! I am not worthy.
April 7th, 2024 at 08:24Almost like you were there, enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evh5Z7FGIrk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w5-qlT5CSs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLElAcXJGN4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlIiijScBuM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo5KUKC3TZc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7MbiOC5pH4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yYGewE6ntM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1qUtgT_ouk
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jj8qQVECV04
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfVpmBuBYHs
April 9th, 2024 at 16:56Thanks for sharing, Uwe! Nice to get an impression of Nick Simper and the band on stage. Thought of attending myself but couldn’t make it. Lack of Harley here.
April 10th, 2024 at 06:30Thanks Uwe for those clips. A good sounding band indeed, even sideways on, he he he. Love those MK I DP songs.
April 10th, 2024 at 08:22Did you get a chance to have a chat with Nick? Cheers.
“even sideways on”
🙃🥴
I’m so incredibly hopeless at this stuff, Tasmanian! Would you believe that “Lalena” was my first upload to YouTube ever – and you can tell!! 🤣 But you can’t correct that retroactively, so apologies to everyone. I grew up with an “IT Department” that did all that stuff for me. 🙄
Yes, I exchanged a few words with Nick during the signing session. I told him that he had been on my “bucket list”, the last remaining living Purple (with the exception of Rod Evans) I hadn’t seen yet, he laughed at that. During the signing session I also noticed that he is a lefty though he plays bass righty. Which makes DP’s original rhythm section entirely left-handed. We got into talking about Fandango too (I prefer them to Warhorse), his memories are faint, he had to think when I told him that I would love to hear “Candice Larene”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ky0mNz8N9Mg
one day live, but hey that album was 45 years ago! He told me that Peter Parks, his guitar buddy from Warhorse/Dynamite/Fandango/Good Old Boys is doing fine though retired. Judging from the number of Warhorse albums Nick had to sign that evening, Austria must be the heart of worldwide Warhorse fandom!
Look, I wasn’t expecting much from this gig, previous stuff I’ve heard from the Nasty Habits suffered both instrumentally and vocally in my ears. But they have a new’ish singer and a (very good and lively) new keyboardsmith (who was cheeky and knew his Purple, sprinkling the organ riffs of Highway Star and Might Just Take Your Live into Mk I material!) and they make all the difference. They really performed that Mk I stuff – let’s face it, this is 60ies, not even 70ies music – extremely well, you could close your eyes and just about imagine an Mk I gig in 1969.
As a bassist, Nick is not as nimble/fluid as Roger nor does he have Glenn’s “knack of attack” and dominant funk groove, but he has his own individual style, similar to Bill Wyman really (who is underestimated as a bassist and for his contribution how the Stones used to sound). Like Bill, he plays very close to the neck with his pick (Roger and Glenn are both close to the bridge pick players), thereby creating that double bass’ish sound. The band wasn’t perfectly tight (Nick doesn’t always play with them, but is flown in for the odd gig), but tighter than I had reasonably hoped for and made up for it with unbridled enthusiasm, the audience lapping the Mk I material eagerly up. Nick was the conferencier of the evening in his very good-natured way.
What else is there to report? Oh, yes, Nick got to intentionally scratch a bass for free! How so? One guy brought – it get’s technical here – his tobacco burst Gibson Les Paul Standard Bass (aka LPB-3)
https://www.vintageandrare.com/uploads/products/92080/8808870/big.jpg
for Nick to ‘sign”/scratch with a screwdriver 😖, Nick’s carving joining the previous ones of – wait for it! – Roger Glover and Glenn Hughes on the back of the bass! Three’s the charm and the guy was happy, though Nick was slightly bewildered and had to visibly force himself to bring that screwdriver to the finish surface of that poor bass (which is regularly played by the owner, I asked – the LPB-3 Basses are btw excellent sounding instruments though they were never really accepted by the bass world – too guitarish-looking – like most Gibson basses).
Finally, two more snippets from the gig.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Lq2KUfsdZl0
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VeLUVMiEtas
I’m very glad I went.
*********************
PS: I used the return trip on the next day to visit the Mauthausen Memorial (an especially awful concentration camp where a great number of Russian POWs and resistance fighters from all over Europe were murdered and slaved to death from 1938 to 45)
https://www.mauthausen-memorial.org/en
– a very sobering view of another part of Germany’s awful history, but that’s another story.
April 10th, 2024 at 15:09