Twelve months to the week since his last show here in Wolverhampton, Francis Dunnery returned to KK’S Steel Mill for another show that celebrated the first three It Bites albums and also included some new material from the just released Return to Natural. Once again backed by an excellent band, Dunnery wowed the audience with his voice seemingly untouched by age, and as he proudly pointed out, even at the age of 61 he is yet to drop the key for any of the songs he wrote when still in his 20’s.
The band has been revamped since the last time around and now includes the incredible Chad Wackerman on the drums and sometime Fish collaborator Tony Turrell on the keyboards, together with longtime bassist Paul Brown and “Just Todd” on additional guitars. But it was not just the line-up that has changed as the set list dug even deeper into the It Bites catalogue, with just one song played tonight that was also performed at the 2023 shows. This meant that some of the more familiar singles were absent, although no one in the audience seemed to mind as Dunnery led the band through the likes of ‘Black December’ , ‘Till the End of Time’ and ‘Midnight’. Elsewhere, new songs ‘Magdalena’ and ‘Out of Order’ are straight out of the It Bites playbook and fit right in, capturing the essence of what made the original band so unique.
The half way point of the set saw Chad leave the stage and Francis and Todd switch to acoustic guitars for what the singer described as the “sing-a-long” part of the evening, and the crowd were happy to oblige on ‘Whole New World’ and ‘Cold, Tired and Hungry’. Dunnery remains an engaging performer with his between song banter detailing the audition process for the new band, and his need for everyone to visit the merch table to ensure he can meet his child support. 1989’s Eat Me In St Louis, the album that should have been the launchpad to propel It Bites into arenas, was revisited for the brooding epic ‘Ice Melts Into Water’ and energetic, hard-edged rocker ‘Murder of the Planet Earth’. A single encore, the mesmerising ‘Yellow Christian’, meant an earlier than expected finish to the night and there was no doubt everyone would have welcomed another song or two. Now something of an annual event, we look forward to witnessing Francis and co again in twelve months time to do it all again.
Setlist: –
Black December
Till the End of Time
Magdalena
Midnight
Out of Order
Whole New World
Cold, Tired and Hungry
The Ice Melts Into Water
Rose Marie
Vampires
Murder of the Planet Earth
Encore: –
Yellow Christian
