Magnum (Tony Clarkin Tribute) - Tuesday 21st January - O2 Forum, Kentish Town

Brief review:  A tribute concert to the much-missed Tony Clarkin (founder, guitarist and song writer for Magnum). An emotional evening, but it was great to hear Bob Catley on vocals once more, ably supported by the most recent incarnation of the rest of the band.

A fitting tribute to a rock legend.

Venue and View:  Front left, standing

Setlist
How Far Jerusalem
Lost on the Road to Eternity
Wild Swan
When We Were Younger
The Tall Ships
The Flood (Red Cloud's War)
Les Morts Dansant
Don't Wake The Lion (Too Old to Die Young)
+
Soldier of The Line
Just Like an Arrow
Need a Lot of Love
On a Storyteller's Night
All England's Eyes
Vigilante
Kingdom of Madness
+
The Spirit
When the World Comes Down

Slady - Friday 10th December - Belle Vue, High Wycombe

Brief review:  A free pub gig in High Wycombe for the excellent Slade tribute. Previous shows this year had unfortunately classed with other engagements, so this was well worth the train journey north. It transpires that Wycombe has a range of very good value pubs - or we got very lucky with happy hour timings! That also may account for people passing out in some of them.

The girls were on good form and there was a mix of hits and album tracks in a well performed set. It's great to see the music kept alive so enthusiastically. 

Venue and View:  Small pub with the stage squeezed into a corner, but not raised. Our view was up front and personal - pub pretty packed.

I didn't note the full setlist, but for reasons that were not entirely clear, Merry Xmas Everybody was played twice.

Simply Madness (Feasty Fest) - Sunday 12th September - Cheam Park

View from the back

Brief review:  Feasty Fest features a number of bands - mainly doing covers or tribute acts within Cheam Park. Simply Madness are (unsurprisingly) a Madness tribute band. And if you like Madness, you'll probably like them as they sounded pretty authentic to me.

Venue and View:  Seated under a tree, 100 yds from the stage.

Cregan and Co - Friday 3rd September - Boom Boom, Sutton

Brief review: Jim Cregan, Pat Davey, Harry James, Ben Mills and Sam Tanner were in excellent form as always for an evening of mainly Rod Stewart covers. There were (to our surprise), 2 new original songs, which were fine (guest Val Cowell adding some bluesy vocals on the first), but basically the rest of the show was a big sing-a-long. Just as you'd expect!

Venue and View:  Standing about half way back to the left. Pretty full!

Setlist

Downtown Train 
Forever Young
Hot Legs 
The First Cut Is the Deepest
The Wild Side of Life
You're in My Heart (The Final Acclaim)
I Was Only Joking 
Best of The Bad Boys [with Val Cowell of Bad Influence - Live Debut]
Anyone Who Knows Her [Live Debut]
Young Turks
Handbags and Gladrags 
Blondes (Have More Fun) 
Baby Jane 
Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)
Maggie May 
+
Have I Told You Lately

Björn Again - Saturday 14th August - Hampton Court

Brief review:  The Hampton Court Festival always brings some eclectic performers and this show looked the best of the bunch this year (I was slightly surprised it went ahead!). As always, all the ABBA favourites performed well and with humour. The cover of Van Halen's "Jump" added a bit of variety to the proceedings.

Venue and View:  Pre-show drinks in (expensive!) gazebo, thanks to friends. Seats well back on the right hand side (just under cover), but unobstructed view and sound. Fussy stewarding about stepping forward from our seats when standing!

Jamie and the Jets - Friday 13th August - Boom Boom, Sutton

Brief review:  Local show with recommended Elton John tribute act. The recommendation was a good one and a fun evening was had by all. Excellent vocals and musicianship and even a few "hardcore" album tracks thrown in for good measure.

Venue and View:  Seated about half way back, so view partially obstructed by standing punters (photo is from the other side when standing). Reasonably busy in the seats, but plenty of standing room.

Slady - Saturday 31st October (Evening Show) - The Water Rats, Kings Cross

Brief review: After a nice meal at Drake and Morgan, it's back to the Water Rats for the evening show. The girls have changed into a "Halloween" theme and certainly rocked the house. If you like classic 70's  Slade, then you'll definitely enjoy their shows. Well worth the trip and hopefully not such a long gap to the next one.

Setlist (Evening show)

How Does It Feel? [snippet - keyboards and intro only]

Take Me Bak 'Ome 

Cum On Feel the Noize 

Look Wot You Dun 

Skweeze Me Pleeze Me 

Coz I Luv You 

Mama Weer All Crazee Now 

Darlin' Be Home Soon 

Gudbuy T'Jane 

Just a Little Bit 

Don't Blame Me 

Look at Last Nite

Far Far Away 

Nobody's Fool 

Everyday 

+

[Break for Raffle]

+

The Bangin' Man 

Good Time Gals 

Get Down And Get With It

Slady - Saturday 31st October (Afternoon Show) - The Water Rats, Kings Cross

Brief review: After a 7 month Covid-19 enforced gap, it's 2 socially distanced shows on the same day. The excellent Slade tribute band started with an acoustic opening to the all-seated afternoon show before increasing the volume later.

Setlist (Afternoon show)

How Does It Feel? [Acoustic]

She Did It to Me [Acoustic]

Far Far Away [Acoustic]

Everyday [Acoustic]

Coz I Luv You 

+

[Break for Q&A / Raffle]
+

Cum On Feel the Noize 

Skweeze Me Pleeze Me 

Look Wot You Dun 

Mama Weer All Crazee Now 

Darlin' Be Home Soon

Gudbuy T'Jane 

The Bangin' Man 

Nobody's Fool 

When the Lights Are Out 

The Funky Gibbon [ad lib snippet]

Get Down And Get With It

Rhino's Revenge - Saturday 12th October - Half Moon, Putney

One Liner: A tribute evening celebrating the life of Quo legend Rick Parfitt. "State of Quo" opened the evening to a packed house with Rhino's Revenge as headliners. Excellent from start to finish!

Setlist
Two Way Traffic 
Belavista Man 
Secretary
Gravy Train 
Busy Doing Nothin'
One Note Blues
Obstruction Day 
Old Time Rock & Roll 
Get Out of Denver 
Cougar
Before You Accuse Me (Jim Kirkpatrick on vocals)
Mony Mony
Jungle Love
The Madness 
This Is Me 
The Strange One
Lucinda
Never Too Old (To Rock 'n' Roll)
My Name Is Stan
Bad News 
Jam Side Down 
+
Paper Plane (with "State of Quo")
Back in the U.S.S.R. 
Once Bitten Twice Shy 

Keith Moon Tribute - Saturday 10th November - Olympia (London Drum Show)

The drummers take a bow

Normally you would not catch me within miles of a "Drum Show". But tacked onto the end of this one was a tribute to the Who's Keith Moon - billed as "Who's Playing", so that changed everything. With the bonus of a new venue (within the Olympia complex) - a mini theatre on the 2nd floor!

The premise was simple. Each Who cover had a new drummer and a bit of chat about their influences. With all money collected going to the National Deaf Children's Society it turned out to be very pleasant. I must admit I had to google a number of the performers and the singer, Steve Hunt, was obviously struggling quite badly with a cold. But all in all a decent effort from all involved.

Setlist (Song / Drummer)
The Real Me - Chris ?
The Seeker - ?
Can’t Explain - Jamie ?
Substitute - Pick Withers
My Generation - Danny Farret
Pinball Wizard - Pete Cater
Love Reign O'er Me - Chris Mansbridge
Who Are You - Jonathan Rodney
Baba O'Reilly - JR Robinson
Won’t Fooled Again - Gabor Dornyei

Steve Hunt - Vocals
Steve Smith  - Guitar
Dave Clark - Bass
Rob K - Keyboards

(corrections to performers much appreciated!)
http://www.ndcs.org.uk/

And adding a link to Steve's band:- www.whoareyou-tribute.london