Four Wheel Drive, Friday 8th February Railway, Ipswich

It’s been a while since I’ve been to Ipswich (bit strange for a Grapevine writer, I know) but at the Railway on Friday 8^th February a band I quite like were playing. The band was Four Wheel Drive (I’ve reviewed them before) and tonight they were playing a big set of loud covers and a few of their own tracks to a good crowd of rock fans.

I hadn’t been to the Railway before but it seems like a good live venue. The people watching the band on stage were a mix of all ages and, judging from the posters of upcoming events, the place is dedicated to bringing some good quality rock and roll to the people of Ipswich, which was probably one of the reasons the attendees were well up for Four Wheel Drive.

The first set was all covers, including a bit of AC/DC, Guns n’ Roses and Airbourne. No half measures and a fair bit of dancing in the crowd as the drinks flowed.

Plenty of jumping around from the guitarists and the crowd alike greeted the band as they began the second half after a short break. The second half had a few more covers as well as some of the band’s own stuff, including an extended version of High Roller, which I’d say was the highlight of the evening. Even a mistake with the intro to Thunderstruck didn’t stop the crowd from singing along anyway, it was that kind of atmosphere, everybody having a good knees up on a Friday night.

When seeing a band too often it can be hard to write an interesting review that doesn’t read like a copy of an older review, so I thought I’d add a footer to this review to keep things interesting…

On the following Sunday I (along with a lot of other people) was invited to help Four Wheel Drive film their latest video for the booze filled track ‘Hammered Again’. The idea was to get the band, some sexy ladies, beer, dancing, beer, something to do with policemen, more beer and more sexy ladies in The Big Red to make a big old drunken mess and have it filmed. Well, at least that’s what I think was the idea? There was a structure and a plot, but I wasn’t involved in that so I maintained the ‘drunken mess’ idea instead. Nobody seemed to worry about us drinking too much and having fizzy wine poured over our faces! It was great fun, met some great people and may have lost a great bit of dignity, but was it worth it? Well, we’ll find out when the video is released, although I may not want to let anybody at work find out about it!

No doubt the video will be posted on here at some point facebook.com/fourwheeldriverock or maybe here fourwheeldriverock.com