Scouting For Girls - Saturday 23rd May - Leestock

A longer-than-anticipated family trip to deepest Suffolk for the 2015 Leestock festival. We were attending primarily to see "Scouting For Girls", but we were in time to add another chart act to our list by seeing "Dodgy" as well. Earlier bands in the day were mainly of the local variety and with children in tow, we thought that attention spans may be tested too far with lots of unknown music.

Dodgy were OK - they saved their 2 hits until the end, which got people up on their feet. Their drummer added a bit of chat between songs, some of which wasn't entirely appropriate for the youngsters in the crowd.

Scouting for Girls were excellent - choosing a festival friendly set of hits (largely from their excellent first album) and a couple of choice covers - "Live and Let Die" and a surprise of "Livin' On A Prayer" in the encore. The set was only just over an hour which was a shame, but from the crowd reaction, everyone seemed happy. A swift exit during the last song ensured we were out of the car park and on the long journey home just before 11pm.

Read all about the Leestock festival here.

Setlist 
Heartbeat

Famous

It's Not About You

Gotta Keep Smiling

I Wish I Was James Bond

Live and Let Die

Love How It Hurts

Elvis Ain't Dead

Posh Girls

Keep On Walking

This Ain't a Love Song

Livin' on a Prayer

Michaela Strachan

She's So Lovely

Johnny Warman - Monday18th May - Bull's Head, Barnes

This "Total Who Show" to celebrate 50 years of the Who was billed as "unplugged". The venue is the rear stable-type room at the rear of the excellent Bull's Head in Barnes. When seated, the capacity looks to be less than a hundred and the usual Monday evening events are of the blues and jazz variety.

The evening started with a young female singer - songwriter (sorry I can't remember her name) who, armed with an acoustic guitar, sang some of her own material interspersed with some covers including a very nice version of Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time". All very pleasant.

Caught out by the very quick turn-a-round, I was at the bar when the band opened with Baba O'Riley. Acoustic it was not. Returning to our front table seat, we then enjoyed 100 odd minutes of classic, ear shattering versions of Who classics. Phil Spalding was guesting on lead guitar and his effortless playing was spot on. Bass, Drum & Keyboard duties were more than competently filled too and Johnny Warman's usual excellence enthralled the small crowd, some of whom politely heckled about "when is the unplugged bit?".

Actually, that does raise a semi-serious point. I was looking forward to hearing the Who songs in an acoustic setting and had bought tickets and travel on that basis. I really enjoyed the evening as it was played, but what if I hadn't? The show had been especially billed to highlight the unplugged aspect.

Anyway, a moot point for me as it was excellent anyway. I shall be back for more - with volume or without.

Elio Pace - Thursday 7th May - Epsom Playhouse

Having seen Elio previously in Sutton, we knew that Richard would enjoy his "Billy Joel Songbook" show and dragged him along to this. The show is a fine run-though of classic Billy Joel material, interspersed with stories about the songs and the musical make up of them. The band had changed a bit since our last viewing, but provided excellent backing to Elio's piano skills and fine voice.

We had decent seats and the only disappointment was that the venue wasn't fuller. Maybe the fact it was Election Night put people off?

If you are a fan of the Piano Man, you should do yourself a favour and check this out in a theatre near you.

http://www.eliopace.com/