Simon Townshend - Friday 29th January - Half Moon, Putney

Second show of the week for me. Now on this date I was meant to be at the Hammersmith Apollo to see Motörhead, but sadly Lemmy's passing at the end of last year meant that wasn't to be.

A bit of class though from the venue organisers to pay tribute in the way they did though:-

So, instead it was off to the somewhat more intimate Half Moon in Putney for the launch of Simon Townshend's new "Stir Records" label. A full band set - Simon and the boys romped through a varied set of past favourites and current tunes in front a decent crowd.

The last time I'd seen Phil Spalding was with Johnny Warman where his excellent (and bl***y loud) guitar had deafened us with some great Who songs. Here, he played bass - apparently his normal day job - and was good as well. In fact the band had learnt all the songs well considering only a couple of days practice - there were only a very few minor errors from what I could tell.

Highlights for me included the relatively new "Time Bomb" and the evergreen "The Way It Is".

At the end of the show, the Limited Edition EP was added to my collection too as a nice souvenir of a good evening.

Simon Townshend - Stir Records

Thunder - Wednesday 27th January - 100 Club, London

3/5 of Thunder at the 100 Club

A bit of a bonus show for January. Thunder announce a short notice show at the small 100 Club on Oxford Street in aid of the Childline Charity. It sold out quickly (as Danny said, "you snooze, you lose"), but we got lucky with tickets. I would imagine this was a handy run through of the set that will be performed at Wembley in a few weeks - and very good it was too.

As always at this venue, if you are in front of the stage, a large pillar splits it in two, meaning only half the stage is really visible at a time. Despite that restriction, the sound quality was good and the crowd had enough space so as not to be uncomfortable. From what we could see, Ben was looking in good health also.

Particular current favourites include Wonder Days, Black Water and Resurrection Day and these came across well.

There had also been a charity acoustic show earlier in the evening (available by donation and lottery) - unfortunately we missed out on that (by not knowing about it in time), but this was enough to make a great evening on its own. Bring on Wembley.

Setlist
Wonder Days
Black Water
River Of Pain
Chasing Shadows
Broken
The Devil Made Me Do It
Backstreet Symphony
I'll Be Waiting
Resurrection Day
The Thing I Want
Love Walked In
I Love You More Than Rock 'N' Roll
+
The Rocker 
Dirty Love / (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

https://www.childline.org.uk/pages/about.aspx

Jackaman - Wednesday 20th January - Borderline

Lynne Jackaman at the Borderline

My first show of 2016 is at the Borderline to see Jackaman - the collective backing the eponymous singer Lynne Jackaman which includes Quireboys Guy Griffin & Nick Malling.

The evening started with a very thorough frisk and electronic wand search on the door - just as well we were in plenty of time as the queue grew noticeably due to the slow progress. Once inside we were able to enjoy a brief set from Pete Shoulder. The "Union" frontman was on his own here, performing an acoustic selection from his previous album and forthcoming one. Pete was in good form and seemed popular with the expanding crowd. A limited sampler EP was available and duly purchased.

Jackaman was always going to be louder, but we stayed in our position under the main speaker at the front. I had not seen the band before (but did have the "No Halo" EP) so sort of knew what to expect. And very impressive it was too. In terms of bluesy Rock and Soul, it's probably not too much of a stretch to compare Lynne Jackaman's terrific vocals to a young Tina Turner. Backed by a stella line-up of musicians, the result was very pleasing. A couple of the songs themselves maybe could have been stronger, but for an artist early in her career, this was very good indeed. The ex-St Jude singer also interacted well with the crowd.

Looking forward to next time.