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The Adverts Through LA’s Eyes: It’s one of those things, isn’t it. This band is being billed as T.V. Smith’s Adverts, due to the fact that Smith is the one Advert left and his band is filled with “a crack team of Houston musicians especially formed for this project.”

That’s drawn some criticism, but it’s not really his fault. Beloved former bass player Gaye Advert is an artist now, creating wonderful stained glass amongst other things. The rest of the band switched around between their two albums anyway, and Howard Pickup sand Tim Cross are sadly no longer with us.

So this version of the Adverts, touring the States for the first time and playing songs from those two classic albums — Crossing the Red Sea with the Adverts and Cast of Thousands — is as good as we can hope for in 2023. As it turns out, it’s more than good enough.

At Zebulon, a wonderful place to see a show with its large corner stage, the band was phenomenal. The turnout looked worrying for a minute; the crowd was sparse for opening act the Shadow, but everyone filed in from the beer garden and other bar in time for the headliner (this may be the one time in history when people tune in for the adverts).

As advertised, the band blasted through tunes from the two Adverts albums. We got “On the Roof,” “Bombsite Boy” and “Great British Mistake” from the debut, and the title track and “Television’s Over from Cast of Thousands, among others.

Smith performed like a man possessed. He did a great job of picking an energetic band (noting that both the bassist and drummer are named Dakota), and they seemed to push him. At 67, he could be forgiven for calming down a bit but if he ever wanted to, he doesn’t seem to want to now.

The triple-whammy of “Bored Teenagers,” “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” and “One Chord Wonders” served as a reminder that the Adverts were up there with the best when it came to punk rock anthems. The fact that they were only around for three years from 1976 and there were young people at Zebulon on Friday singing along is evidence that they burned bright and never faded away.

The Adverts Through LA’s Eyes: Go to zebulon.la for more info.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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