Spizzenergi have announced that they will be performing live in Brighton at the popular Concorde 2 on 29th May 2022. They will be playing live at ‘The Official Jordan Mooney Memorial Charity Concert’ in order to celebrate the life of the famous punk rock and fashion icon that sadly passed away last month.
The Charity Concert will run from 2pm until 11pm and will feature no less than 12 specially selected music groups who were either friends of Jordan’s or were bands that produced music that she loved. The proceeds from ticket sales will be going to Cats Protection and the Music Venue Trust.
Already confirmed for this event in addition to Spizzenergi are The Monochrome Set, Gaye Bykers On Acid, Johnny Moped, Peter Perrett, Jamie Perrett, DITZ, Bootleg Blondie, AK/DK, The Pink Diamond Revue, Monakis, and Fruity Water.
Purchase your tickets from the Concorde 2 website HERE.
Sadly, Jordan had passed away a week prior to the last Spizzenergi Brighton concert, which you can read all about below. She was however in attendance at the special ‘Spizzenergi Midsummer Punk Party’ held at the Dublin Castle in Camden Town on 22nd June 2019. This was a terrific event as both Spizz and Jordan were participating and there was a special Mr Spock cake made especially for Jordan, who was being interviewed about her book ‘Defying Gravity: Jordan’s Story’, after which Spizzenegi played live. Below are some photos of that event taken by Steve Hambleton.
There was also a lovely photo taken outside of the venue featuring Jordan, Spizz and Spizzenergi band member Luca. That photo is shown below.
Here is the concert report on the recent Spizzenergi Brighton concert……
SPIZZENERGI – PRINCE ALBERT, BRIGHTON 10.4.22
At last! The day has finally arrived for uber Star Trek fan Spizz to beam his band Spizzenergi into The Prince Albert to play live for us this evening.
It seems like eons since this gig was announced and now finally myself, my mates and the lucky crew from the Starship Spizz get to witness an evening of mighty fine entertainment that beams smiles across everyone’s faces.
I was fortunate to catch Spizz and his eclectic Sputnik-esque crew (Luca Comencini – guitar, Ben Lawson – bass, Phil Ross – guitar and Alan Galaxy – drums) at the Undercover Festival at Brighton Racecourse a few years ago, and then they performed here at The Prince Albert a while after that. Both performances were most entertaining indeed. They were masterclasses of rock ‘n’ roll pomp and energi that few acts would be able to match!
Spizz himself is exactly what the music industry needs – a real eccentric but truly loveable character! There’s just something very British about Spizz’s psyche. Battling on in his own inimitable style and not taking a blind bit of notice of what anyone else thinks. His amount of eccentricity within our British society overall is equally balanced in proportion with his vast courage, his mental vigour and his genius. I can’t understand why he isn’t based in bohemian Brighton, where he would no doubt reside within a folly or something similar. But be rest assured that Spizz is one of the nicest people you will ever meet!
Back in the day, Spizz would change the band name each year, but alas the Guinness Book of Records failed to recognise Spizz’s claim that he has recorded and released the greatest number of recordings under different names – SPIZZ’77, SPIZZOIL, SPIZZENERGI, ATHLETICO SPIZZ 80, SPIZZLES, SPIZZOLOGY and SPIZZITALIA!
The famous ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’ was released in December 1979 and received critical acclaim – ‘Soldier Soldier’ was named Single of The Week by the NME and not to be outdone ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’ was named Single of The Week by the Melody Maker. ‘Soldier Soldier’ was championed at the time by Paul Weller and Frank Zappa. ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’ has been recorded by a number of artists, most notably R.E.M and Space, Oasis, Pulp and Green Day have acknowledged the influence of the band. ‘No Room’ followed and was released in June 1980.
‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’ was also the first ever No.1 on the Independent Singles Chart and the song spent seven weeks on the top spot and reportedly sold more than 60,000 copies by July that year. Inspired by Star Trek’s captain James T. Kirk, the single’s success spurred Spizzenergi to release two more Star Trek-themed songs, ‘Spock’s Missing’ and ‘Five Year Mission’.
Tonight, the Prince Albert punters were treated to a sixteen song set that commenced at 10:01pm until 10:57pm and was mainly made up of original material as well as a trio of cover versions. These cover versions are performed in homage to other acts that Spizz has found inspirational down the years.
The first cover was ‘Valentine’s Day’ taken from the 2013 David Bowie album ‘The Next Day’. This is far from an obvious choice of Bowie track to cover. One might have thought something like ‘Rebel Rebel’ would more sum up Spizz. The second cover was Roxy Music’s classic ‘Virginia Plain’, which was enjoyable to see Ben’s fingers sliding up and down his bass in emulation of Brian Eno’s keyboard work. It’s my fave Roxy track, so great choice my good man.
The final choice of cover was given out to the punters to decide. Thus the almost unanimous winner was ‘The Model’ by legendary German synth pioneers Kraftwerk. Although this speeded-up version is vastly different in instruments used to the original composition, it was most enjoyable and the punters joined in with all the guys on backing vocals (except Alan who didn’t have a mic) for their chorus “la la la la la’s….”. For the record, the other option was ‘I Fought The Law’ which was originally penned by The Crickets, however we all know The Clash version.
Spizz is such a likeable fellow and this shines through all the way through tonight’s set. He really tries to entertain the crowd. He’s got his eight Spizz light rings on each of his fingers (no thumb rings), which he eventually offers to crowd members as souvenirs of a great evening. He has his LED belt that scrolls with the word “Spizzenergi ” in green and his political point was made half way through the set during ‘Soldier Soldier’ when he miraculously started pulling at this material slightly hanging outside the top of his trouser flies. He kept pulling and pulling on the material and eventually he produced two large flags, one of the USA’s ‘Stars and Stripes’ and one of the Russian flag. We even had two lots of Spizz confetti this evening too.
I noted that during the performance, Ben had an unusual Japanese manufactured bass that he informed me that he has had for the past 25 years and that he had done some work on it and brought it back to life – good man! Whilst we are talking instruments, Phil’s guitar was a Gibson Les Paul Studio. He had his face painted as well as ‘The Joker’ from Batman and he looked not unlike Cesar Romero which was impressive as he threw his poses around the stage. Italian band member Luca was in charge of his Gibson guitar and Alan was bashing away on his drums.
Tonight the band were most definitely in sync, Spizz was having fun and some banter with the crowd. Highlights of the night for me were Ben’s rumbly bass at the beginning of ‘City Of Eyes’; Spizz changing the words in ‘European Heroes’ to say Ukraine; ‘No Room’ was a corker; Spizz letting off the confetti cannon during ‘Central Park’ as we sang “You want to see me tomorrow, but I saw you yesterday”. He also showered us with confetti during ‘Virginia Plain’. Best of all was ‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’. I was enjoying myself so much that I had my hand on the speaker in order to feel the music too. A great night out!
Spizzenergi are:
Spizz – vocals
Luca Comencini – guitar
Ben Lawson – bass
Phil Ross – guitar
Alan Galaxy – drums
Spizzenergi setlist:
‘6000 Crazy’
‘Shallow End’
‘City Of Eyes’
‘European Heroes’
‘Mega City 3’
‘Valentine’s Day’ (David Bowie cover)
‘Here Come The Machines’
‘No Room’
‘Central Park’
‘Amnesia’
‘Red & Black’
‘Soldier Soldier’
‘Virginia Plain’ (Roxy Music cover)
‘Clocks Are Big’
‘Where’s Captain Kirk?’
‘The Model’ (Kraftwerk cover)
For more delights from Spizzenergi, visit www.spizzenergi.com
