Dr Feelgood

Oil City Confidential: 10th Anniversary Special Edition

CADIZ MUSIC Julien Temple’s classic, if you will, rockumentary, plus extras.

The cautionary tale of how Dr Feelgood broke out of their Canvey Island lair without emotionally leaving it is set against the Oil City itself, literally when 70s footage is projected onto refinery walls. Wisely, although there’s input from Lee Brilleaux’s wife, later Feelgoods and assorted rum characters, Julien Temple letting the major players speak for themselves. Wilko Johnson is manic, Brilleaux genteel, The Big Figure and John B Sparks are patently decent and, along the way, there’s footage as remarkable as a long-haired Johnson speaking on regional television against more Canvey refineries, as daft as Jimmy Edwards in Whack-O!. It’s a mischievous delight, as poignant as it is funny.

This time around, there’s an added disc culled from Johnson’s pair of sizzling Koko concerts of 2013. At the time, it was widely assumed that pancreatic cancer meant the shows were among Johnson’s last, but he’s oblivious to sentiment. There’s a gloriously fierce cameo from Essex girl Alison Moyet and the sense that he was bowing out as he wanted, even if it wouldn’t prove to be the case.

Among the extras spread across the discs is a feelgood, er, Feelgood chapter from one of Mark Radcliffe’s autobiographies and a lengthy Brilleaux interview where he sups Guinness and his onstage roar is transformed into something altogether more softly spoken. ■■■■■■■■■■