The Mad, the Bad & the Dangerous

Infobox music DVD
Name = The Mad, The Bad & The Dangerous
Type = Live Music DVD
Artist = The Hamsters, Wilko Johnson, John Otway


Released = 2007
Recorded = 2006
Rating =
Genre = Blues-rock
Region = 0
Length = approx 180 mins
Label =
Director =
Producer = Steve Monti
Reviews =
Last DVD = "To Infirmity, And Beyond!"
This DVD = "The Mad, The Bad & The Dangerous"
Next DVD =

The Mad, The Bad & The Dangerous Tour was a national UK tour by The Hamsters, The Wilko Johnson Band, and John Otway with his guitarist Richard Holgarth. It is also the name of the DVD recording of the tour.

The tour

All three bands are long-standing friends. Their musical styles were sufficiently diverse to give variety, but sufficiently alike to appeal to roughly similar audiences. It started off as a few gigs, then grew into a national tour with dozens of shows.

The format of the show would be that Otway started the show and would do a few numbers, then share the stage for a number or two with the Wilko Johnson Band. Wilko would then do his set, after which Otway would come on to do another short set. This would be followed by an intermission after which Otway would do another small set and then introduce The Hamsters on to the stage. Before they played their set they would do a song with Otway and Holgarth (The Hamsters acting as a backing band to an Otway original song). As Otway has a reputation for boisterous frivolity as part of his act and The Hamsters are well-known for humour as part of their performances it was a given that there would be some laughter involved. This section of the show featured The Hamsters playing Otway's disco #9 chart hit "Bunsen Burner" with Otway supplying the theremin accompaniment.

The Hamsters would then play an hour-long set which was followed by all three bands coming on stage together to take part in a chaotic finale with them all performing a three song encore. This involved three senior acts of the British band circuit performing an Osmonds cover followed by Wilko's band having an ace up their sleeve in the form of Norman Watt-Roy who, in the 80s played bass on the original version of Ian Dury's "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick". He repeated his frenetic performance of 16 notes to the bar. Otway announced, to his chagrin, that his #9 hit had been well and truly beaten by Norman's million seller. [Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick Million seller #1 hit in the UK charts]

The DVD

Although it was never planned to do any recordings of the show (either audio or video) the shows were sufficiently popular that the bands received numerous requests for a DVD. Wilko's drummer, Steve Monti and several friends shot the concert with MiniDV cameras so that multiple viewpoints were recorded. Richard Holgarth, helped in post-production with some of the sound engineering, whilst Monti did the bulk of the sound editing, mixing etc. He also did all of the video editing, DVD mastering, cover design and organised the replication. The artwork on the cover was created and supplied by Kurt Adkins. Photography by Andy Billups. The tour was devised, administered and managed by Snail's-Pace Slim.

Track listing

Otway
# "Intro Banter"
# "Really Free"
# "Beware of the Flowers"
# "Blockbuster"
# "Louise on a Horse"
# "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet"

Wilko Johnson
# "All Right"
# "Barbed Wire Blues"
# "Dr Dupree"
# "She's Good Like That"
# "Sneakin' Suspicion"
# "When I'm Gone"
# "Cairo Blues"
# "Don't Let Your Daddy Know"
# "Back In The Night"
# "She Does It Right"

Otway
# "Otway Banter"
# "Rumplestiltskin"
# "Body Talk"
# "Josephine"
# "Bunsen Burner" (With The Hamsters)

The Hamsters
# "Chevrolet"
# "Lucky In Love"
# "Wouldn't Lay My Guitar Down"
# "Hard Ridin' Papa"
# "Ooh Baby"
# "2 a.m."
# "Rocket In My Pocket"
# "Star-Spangled Banner"
# "All Along the Watchtower"
# "The Walk"
# "Sweet Little Lisa"
# "Sharp-Dressed Man"

Encores: Omnes
# "Crazy Horses"
# "Born to Be Wild"
# "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick"

Personnel

The Hamsters
*Snail's-Pace Slim – lead vocals, guitars.
*Rev Otis Elevator – drums, vocals.
*Ms Zsa Zsa Poltergeist – bass, keyboards, rhythm guitar, vocals.

The Wilko Johnson Band
*Wilko Johnson – lead vocals, guitars.
*Norman Watt-Roy – bass
*Monti - drums, vocals

Otway
*John Otway – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, theremin
*Richard Holgarth – lead guitar, lead vocals, keyboards

Production

* Tour Manager and administrator - Snails-Pace Slim.
* Sound editing - Monti, Richard Holgarth.
* Mastering, mixing – Monti.
* Concert Sound - Nigel Thurston.
* Video editing – Monti.
* Cameras – David Painter, Steve Acton, Paul, Dan, Alan Ireland, Monti.
* DVD authoring – Monti.
* Cover layout – Monti.
* Artwork – Kurt Adkins.
* Photography - Andy Billups.
* Roadies – Doug Stocker, Paul, Dan.

References

External links

* [http://www.madbaddangerous.co.uk Official tour website]
* [http://www.thehamsters.co.uk The Hamsters official website]
* [http://homepage1.nifty.com/wilkojohnson/index_EG.html Wilko Johnson official website]
* [http://www.johnotway.com/ John Otway official website]