Billy Joel - Friday 7th July - Hyde Park, London

Brief review:  Billy Joel at Hyde Park as part of the British Summertime shows. We naively assumed this would never sell out at the high prices bearing in mind his demographic (70,000 standing tickets at £100 minimum a go? "No chance!") - and of course it did! That meant a late scramble for resale tickets and luckily a mate had a spare!

Despite skipping most of the support acts (I caught the end of Daryl Hall who sounded... errr "rusty"), the headline show was predictably excellent. Joe Jonas joined for Uptown Girl which was slightly underwhelming compared to other guests who occasionally play with Billy, but he performed more than adequately.

Venue and View:  In a slightly different postcode from the stage, but in the front 20% to the left. Apparently impossible to find for those friends bringing back beer!

Setlist
Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)
The Entertainer
Vienna
Zanzibar
Start Me Up (Snippet)
An Innocent Man
The Longest Time
Don't Ask Me Why
New York State of Mind
Allentown
She's Always a Woman
Sometimes a Fantasy
Only the Good Die Young
The River of Dreams (With River Deep Mountain High interlude)
Nessun Dorma 
Scenes From an Italian Restaurant
Piano Man
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We Didn't Start the Fire
Uptown Girl (with Joe Jonas)
It's Still Rock and Roll to Me
Big Shot
A Hard Day's Night 
You May Be Right (with “Rock and Roll” interlude)

My Life (with “Ode to Joy” intro)

Kingdom of Madness - Friday 28th October - 100 Club, London

Brief review:  I'll be upfront and say that I had low expectations for this one and if Rhino's Revenge in Carshalton had not been cancelled then I wouldn't have been here. I've not seen Mark Stanway's new outfit before, but the constant lineup changes and postponements didn't bode well.

I'm pleased to report that it was excellent from start to finish with a decent selection in the 100% "Classic Magnum" set. Vocals, guitar and everything else were excellent. What a pleasant surprise - I shall return.

Venue and View:  Front and central (by centre pillar). 2 yards from the stage.

Setlist
Changes
Back to Earth
Just Like an Arrow
Wild Swan
The Prize
Need a Lot of Love
Les Morts Dansant
Love's a Stranger
Start Talking Love
Rockin' Chair
Soldier Of The Line
The Tall Ships
Only in America
[Micky Barker] Drum Solo
Midnight (You Won't Be Sleeping)
On a Storyteller's Night
Kingdom of Madness
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The Lights Burned Out
Sacred Hour

Warner E Hodges - Wednesday 15th December - Dublin Castle, Camden

Brief review:  Warner was in good form as he and his UK based band romped through a repertoire ranging from country to hard rock. As well as solo material, there was a good choice of covers including Let There Be Rock (AC/DC), I Want You To Want Me (Cheap Trick), Country Roads (John Denver), Fortunate Son (Credence Clearwater Revival) and Merry Xmas Everybody (Slade). A loud and enjoyable evening.

Venue and View:  Left hand side, halfway back. Still only 5 yards from the stage. Comfortable access to the outside bar if you needed to walk through the crowd.

Kenney Jones - Friday 3rd December - 229 Club, Great Portland Street, London

Brief review:  More from Robert Hart and Dave "Bucket" Colwell. Ably support by Pat Davey (Cregan and Co, Paul Young etc) on bass and Steve Smith (keyboards) they join the headliner Kenney Jones (drums) for a run through some highlights of Kenney's long career. As you'd expect, that meant lots of Who & Small Faces stuff with a smattering of Bad Company and Free material and other rock classics. What was interesting for me is that brilliant as Robert Hart is on vocals, he must have a bit of a mental block with some of the lyrics - some of which were either wrong or in the wrong verse order on some songs. Still, it's not like they have been gigging much recently, so I think we can excuse that in the face of how good the other aspects are. Ken is obviously a man of few words - a brief "thanks for coming" was as much as we got from the man himself.

Venue and View:  Front left about 10 yards from the high stage. Excellent view, but very sparse audience

The Dead Daisies / Quireboys - Wednesday 10th November - Shepherd's Bush Empire

Brief review:  Managed to bag some promotional free tickets for this one and enjoyed the Quireboys romp though their re-released debut album "A Little Bit Of What You Fancy". In fact, it was basically a setlist from 1990!

I don't know much about the Dead Daisies, but with Glenn Hughes on vocals and Doug Aldrich also in the band, it was a fair guess that there would be some decent rock music performed. And despite not knowing much of the material, in was perfectly enjoyable - maybe not quite enough to make me rush out and buy their albums, but I wouldn't be adverse to seeing them again. 

Venue and View:  Front left for Quireboys and first half of DD. By the merch desk at the rear after Fortunate Son.

Setlists

[Quireboys]
Misled
Man on the Loose
Long Time Comin'
Whippin' Boy
Hey You
There She Goes Again
I Don't Love You Anymore
Sweet Mary Ann
7 O'Clock

[Dead Daisies]
Unspoken
Rise Up
Dead and Gone
Chosen and Justified
Mexico
Bustle and Flow
Lock 'n' Load
Fortunate Son 
Midnight Moses 
Drum Solo
Mistreated 
My Fate
Leave Me Alone
Saving Grace
Like No Other (Bassline)
Holy Ground (Shake the Memory)
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Long Way to Go
Burn

Wendy James - Friday 1st October - Islington Academy 2

Brief review:  Whilst it's great to see Wendy still performing well, I have to say I find her solo material a bit "hit and miss". Some songs are good, but others drag a bit - for me at least. But then I am of the age where the reason I am here is for the Transvision Vamp songs, and those were performed well, even if it was difficult not to be mildly irritated by the posturing of the guitarist trying so hard to look cool. Maybe the Osmonds outfit didn't help!

Venue and View:  Pretty busy - and not a great venue compared to the larger downstairs room. We went for the right hand side, but towards the back and away from the hideously expensive bar!

Setlist

You’re So Great
Speedball
You're a Good Man, Sister
Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window? 
You're a Dirtbomb, Lester
If Looks Could Kill 
I Want Your Love 
Perilous Beauty
Little Melvin
The Impression of Normalcy
Tell That Girl to Shut Up 
Down on You 
Bad Valentine 
Baby I Don't Care 

Rhino's Revenge - Friday 12th May - 100 Club, London

Rhino's Revenge (Rhino is Status Quo's bassist) at the famous 100 club on Oxford Street. Rhino gave us the normal mix of Quo tracks (some co-written by him) and a selection from the 1st and 2nd Rhino's Revenge albums. The latter isn't his best work in my view, but the live show is always good fun. Could have done with being able to hear his chat in between songs a bit clearer, but even though the backing band was without the normal family members, the music was loud and clear. Unlike the red lighting which ruined all attempts at a decent bit of photography! He seemed to be enjoying himself as we even got an unscheduled second encore of "Roll Over Beethoven". On the basis the band needed to work out keys and rhythm, I guess this had not been rehearsed!

Setlist (approximate!)
Rocker
My Name Is Stan
Belavista Man 
Two Way Traffic 
Famous
Busy Doing Nothin'
Get Out of Denver 
Obstruction Day 
Spend Spend Spend
Lucinda 
Mine All Mine
Secretary
Bad News 
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Paper Plane 
Jam Side Down 
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Roll Over Beethoven

Fleetwood Mac - Tuesday 24th September - O2 Arena, London

So, back for some more Fleetwood Mac - this time in the UK and back to the O2 again. And, thanks to some extremely generous friends, an evening in a corporate-style box with drinks thrown in... Lovely.

The setlist was identical to the show we saw in Tampa and the anecdotes were similar as you'd expect. Stevie Nicks vocals sounded better though and there was genuine appreciation from the crowd. We were slightly unluckily that Christine McVie only joined the band on the other 2 London shows and not this one, but you can't have everything. A really nice evening - thanks A&P!

Setlist

Second Hand News

The Chain

Dreams

Sad Angel

Rhiannon

Not That Funny

Tusk

Sisters of the Moon

Sara

Big Love

Landslide

Never Going Back Again

Without You

Gypsy

Eyes of the World

Gold Dust Woman

I'm So Afraid

Stand Back

Go Your Own Way

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World Turning

Don't Stop

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Silver Springs

Say Goodbye

Rod Stewart - Friday 20th September - O2 Arena, London

H'mm - not a great start to the evening. We'd taken a flyer earlier on in the day and purchased 2 below face value tickets from one of those "authorised secondary ticket sites" - you know the sort I mean. All comes with a guarantee and you print your own ticket etc. All good and feeling quite pleased with things until we get to the gate. Tickets rejected! No definitive reason given, but probably sold multiple times and used by someone else. This had happened to "loads of tickets" that night according to the gate security.

With the company representative missing, we faffed around for quite a while before 'sourcing alternative tickets' for ourselves. This meant we had missed a good 40 minutes of the set, but at least we were in eventually to see just over an hour. And what a good 70 mins or so it was - Rod's voice sounded good, the setlist was pure sing-a-long and I think everyone would have left having enjoyed the show.

PostScript: ticket money refunded without question, however no explanation given. Any of the readers have good or bad experiences with these secondary ticket resellers - not the likes of ebay, but the semi-official authorised ones?

Setlist

This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak for You)

You Wear It Well

Tonight's the Night

Havin' a Party

Rhythm of My Heart

Chain of Fools 

Forever Young

The First Cut Is the Deepest 

Have I Told You Lately

I Don't Want to Talk About It 

Brighton Beach

Can't Stop Me Now

She Makes Me Happy

Maggie May

I'd Rather Go Blind

Soul Man  (Sung by backup singers; sung as "Soul Girl") 

You're in My Heart (The Final Acclaim)

Sailing

Hot Legs

Baby Jane

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Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?