Thunder - Tuesday 28th March - Hammersmith Apollo

Luke Morley and Ben Matthews

One of Britain's top rock bands in one of the World's great venues - what's not to like? Well, the venue name of course - I'm not going to call it the Eventim Apollo.

Regular readers of the blog would have known exactly where to find us in the venue (to within a couple of metres) and Danny and the boys were on excellent form. Their new album, "Rip It Up" has been a bit of a slow burner for me - especially after the fantastic "Wonder Days" predecessor. It is growing on me a bit and the new songs worked well in a live setting.

The normally excellent Lynne Jackaman appeared for some background wailing in the encore on "She Likes the Cocaine" and unfortunately it was wailing - her fantastic vocals not really shown to their best ability in my opinion.

So like pretty much every Thunder show I've been to, this was really good. It just didn't quite feel as much fun as normal for some reason. Can't quite put my finger on why.

[ Edit - Subsequent Christmas show(s) added in Wolverhampton - yay! ]

Setlist
No One Gets Out Alive
The Enemy Inside
River of Pain
Resurrection Day
Right From the Start
Backstreet Symphony
Higher Ground
In Another Life
The Thing I Want
Don't Wait For Me
Rip It Up
Love Walked In
I Love You More Than Rock 'n' Roll
+
Wonder Days
She Likes the Cocaine 
Dirty Love

Status Quo - Sunday 26th April - Hammersmith Apollo

Whilst enjoying the debut "Aquostic" gig at the Roundhouse last year, I wasn't certain I could justify the high price for seats this time around. That little issue was solved by the availability of rear-stalls standing tickets at a much fairer price, so we opted for those. I remember doing the same for Chuck Berry tickets years ago and (depending on the gig and security attitude), you are sometimes allowed to stand at the side of the venue rather than really at the back. That's what we did here.

The show was good, but in typical Quo style, they made zero changes to the setlist. Yep, all the same songs, in the same order as last year. Now that I could understand if it hadn't been for the fact that the new record is a recording of that show - the same songs in the same order. C'mon guys, throw us a curve ball - swap 2 songs over! Would it have been too much to ask that they learn another song?

Still - there's probably only a fraction of us that moan about such things. The sound was good, the songs were good and I really enjoyed the evening. Just as well, as I'm going again next week!

Setlist
And It's Better Now
Break the Rules
Again and Again
Paper Plane
Mystery Song / Little Lady
Rock 'n' Roll
Caroline
What You're Proposing
Softer Ride
Down Down
Pictures of Matchstick Men
Down the Dustpipe
All the Reasons
Reason for Living
Rollin' Home
Don't Drive My Car
Claudie
Rain
Marguerita Time
Nanana
Whatever You Want
Rockin' All Over the World
+
Rock 'til You Drop
Burning Bridges (On and Off and on Again)

Thunder - Saturday 14th March - Hammersmith Apollo

The return of Thunder to mainstream shows is much welcome in my book (perhaps less welcome at home as even when they've been in retirement there seem to be several "Thunder related" shows that I attend).

Reef are the support at London's premier music venue (that place in Putney has surely lost the copyright on that phrase!), We caught the last part of their set and they were a fair bit heavier than I'd envisaged.

Thunder came on to an excellent 70's montage on the giant video screens. They are supporting the marvellous new album, "Wonder Days" which is one of the highlights in their now extensive back catalogue. Danny Bowes vocals and enthusiasm were in evidence as normal and the band as solid as ever. Of course it was great to see Ben Matthew's looking so well after his recent health issues. I did wonder if he was being eased back in with the shorter than normal set, but he more than played his part.

As you now come to expect from Thunder, a great night out.

Hopefully a fuller tour is on the cards later in the year.

Setlist
Wonder Days
River of Pain
Black Water
Resurrection Day
Broken
The Devil Made Me Do It
Empty City
Backstreet Symphony
I'll Be Waiting
The Thing I Want
When the Music Played
Love Walked In
I Love You More Than Rock 'N' Roll
+
Low Life In High Places
Higher Ground
Dirty Love