Jackie Lynton - Saturday 19th November - Scratchers, Farncombe

Brief review:  Last minute decision to go and see Jack and I'm glad I did. He may not be in the best of health, but this was a fun show, mixed in with the usual array of stories and jokes. I bought his new CD and book afterwards and had a nice chat. And as he said in the show, of course there is no B&Q in Woking. Boom Boom.

Venue and View:  Seated in the lower section, a few yards from the stage

Setlist
[Set 1]
Call Me The Breeze
A Mess Of The Blues / Lawdy Miss Clawdy
Rock And Roll Whiskey Blues
Drift Away
Sea Cruise
I Hear You Knocking
You Can't Always Get What You Want
+
[Set 2]
I'm Ready
Unchain My Heart
Promised Land [Guest Eric on vocals]
The Wheels on The Bus / Run Rabbit Run / The Sun Has Got His Hat On
Run Run Rudolph
??? / You Keep a Knockin' / You Wanna Rock n Roll (Like Status Quo) / Down Down / Caroline

Jackie Lynton - Saturday 30th June - Scratchers, Farncombe

Hadn't seen Jackie for a while, so took took the train out to the country for a free pub show. Standard affair of rock, blues and Quo references, although Jack was feeling the heat a bit and was struggling to breath on occasions, meaning a shorter than normal set. Good to see "Tulsa Time" remains a staple on the set!

Seriously hot in the pub (who don't open the doors when there is live music on!), but well worth the notes put into the collection bucket at the end and the gamble of the last train home.

Jackie Lynton - Saturday 28th November - The Wheatsheaf, Parsons Green

Back to back gigs and off to Fulham for a couple of beers and a gig. Some nice German Pilsner in the Octoberfest Pub was followed by and outrageous £4.60 for a pint of Pilsner Urquell in the "Fulham Mitre" - that cannot be justified!

The Wheatsheaf had Estrella on draft - very nice and a comparative bargain (yeah, right) at £4. Luckily, the gig was free and Jackie and his band romped through 3 sets over a 2.5 hour period, playing their normal mix of rock and roll covers, blues, originals (Rock and Roll Whiskey Blues) and some old favourites (Rockin' All Over The World / Caroline / Again and Again). Loved Jackie's comment during the Again and Again snippet - "I wrote this one.....").

Still not too sure why they were so far from "home turf" in Mid-Surrey, but a nice evening in a decent pub with good music. Rather scary that it's nearly 24 years since I first saw him in the Kings Head in Putney!

Jackie Lynton - Sunday 27th January - Scratchers, Farncombe

A Sunday evening jaunt to Farncombe in Surrey for a free pub gig by Jackie Lynton. He specialises in blues based rock and the small pub hosting the venue is one of my favourites - a friendly country local with Oranjeboom on draft. Farncombe would appear to be the worst-lit village in Surrey, so we stumbled through the dark to a couple of other pubs on the way to the venue. The first - The Cricketers seemed a pleasant enough place, but was so tucked away it was no surprise to find only half a dozen people inside.

The next, The Freeholders, was a strange old place. It was full of very drunk patrons and was arranged in such a way that even with only 20 people in the pub, it was almost impossible to sit or stand anywhere without intruding on others. At this juncture, I should point out that Godalming/Farncombe run a "name and shame" policy whereby they display names and pictures of people banned from the pubs and they tend to get banned from all the pubs in the vicinity. With this in mind, maybe we shouldn't have been surprised when the landlady announced to the whole pub that "for the sake of quelling malicious gossip", that she had banned a girl the week before for "completely inappropriate" behaviour. We didn't get to find out what she'd done! Certainly one of the patrons playing pool seemed to have a "completely inappropriate" low cut top for playing pool! Before we left, an elderly gentleman came in, caught my eye and tipped his hat with an "Evenin' Guv" greeting. Classic - I haven't had that happen to me for 20 years or so! What a bizarre place. 

Anyway - the gig. Standard fare from Mr Lynton. He's now in his late 60's, but delivers a quality show with his excellent band. Lots of Blues and Rock covers in the style of Chuck Berry and contemporaries and a few of the bands own gems. Throw in a couple of amusing anecdotes and it makes for a fun evening, although the 2hr journey home wasn't much fun. Just resisted the temptation to lock-in the female smoker who was in the train toilet for 45 mins - I was deterred by the overhead camera.

http://www.thescratchers.net/ http://www.onlineonair.com/jl/ http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/12/12244/Freeholders/Farncombe http://www.beerintheevening.com/pubs/s/59/5955/Cricketers/Farncombe