The Duke – Borderline 2005

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Tonight was the debut live performance for Fozzy/Stuck Mojo guitarist Rich Ward’s new solo band ahead of his album My Kung Fu Is Good released the next day, with a band largely comprising Fozzy members.

Disappointingly only scheduled for an hour’s set (so presumably not adding any songs from previous bands to the setlist) Rich and company were preceded by appalling screamcore outfit Ego, who thankfully only lingered for half an hour. Their CDs were free. No one took one.

The Duke came on fifteen minutes late, which made timing tight as the Borderline tend to stick rigidly to their curfews, regardless of what time the band actually start, and tonight it was set at 22:30. Ward was joined by Fozzy bandmates Frank Fontsere (drums), Mike Martin (guitar) and Sean Delson (bass), plus keyboard player Eric Frampton and nervous-looking backing singer Christie Cook, in front of an audience including members of Head-On, PDHM and The More I See, who have all supported either Fozzy or Stuck Mojo in recent years.

Right from the first song you could tell the amount of energy Rich was going to put into this. Opening with I Give To You, the first track from the new album the band looked a little uncertain, but relaxed. Towards the end of the song, Rich put his guitar down, took the mic off the stand, jumped off the stage and jumped up on the table round the bar platform to sing the rest of the song from.

Immune and Used To Be to followed, probably the three most well known tracks on the album along with the opener, as they were released for download on The Duke’s website long before it came out. Used To Be was available as a demo before that. The band were clearly getting the hang of it now. They visibly seemed to loosen up a bit more, and by the fourth song, Summer, Christie was noticeably enjoying herself more as well. Summer begins with a harmony verse between Rich and Christie (although it’s Allison Irby on the album), which both performed perfectly. Once that was done, it was clear all worries were gone.

A big trio of songs next, Suicide Machine, Running and Show You The Way all executed with maximum audience participation; Show You The Way probably being the musical highlight of the evening. The song sound fantastic and the atmosphere at that point was electric. A couple of covers in Peter Gabriel‘s In Your Eyes and John Waite‘s Change bracketed just two more tracks from the album, Back To You, which saw Mike Martin suddenly realise he’d plugged in the wrong guitar and missed the first couple of bars of the song, and album closer In This Moment.

Back To You was a slightly unfortunate song selection as it really is the only poor song on an otherwise essential album, and “Breathe”, which was the only track from the album not played, would have been a more advisable choice. However, Back To You does contain a loud “Nah-nah-nah nah nah nah” backing vocal which, although pretty irritating on the record, does provide a big crowd participation opportunity. All was rectified with the fantastic At This Moment, which is a wonderfully powerful song with strong vocals and a soaring ending that the crowd really got into.

After the show the various band members were more than happy to sign things for fans and chat for a while before starting to pack up. Mike Martin and of course Rich Ward, in particular, seemed thrilled that people had come down and had enjoyed it. The first ever Duke show was a resounding success, and an excellent performance, especially considering they’d never played the material live before.

“ a resounding success ”

Setlist: I Give To You / Immune / Used To Be / Summer / Suicide Machine / Running / Show You The Way / In Your Eyes / Back To You / At This Moment / Change

Written by Andy Lye
More: Gigs, Rock, The Duke