Thunder - Oxford New Theatre - Friday 18th November

Excellent. Front row seats, good sound, nice venue, nice city and a very late night! 

Setlist

Backstreet Symphony

Dirty Dream

What a Beautiful Day

A Million Faces

Laughing on Judgement Day

Gimme Some Lovin'

Robert Johnson's Tombstone

My Darkest Hour

River of Pain

The Devil Made Me Do It

Fade Into the Sun

Love Walked In

I Love You More Than Rock 'n' Roll

+

You Can't Keep a Good Man Down

A Better Man

Dirty Love

The Answer - Mean Fiddler (Astoria 2) - Wednesday 1st November

Went with Paul for his first viewing of this Irish band. I'd sold it to him on the promise of a mix of Led Zep, Free, Bad Company with a bit of AC/DC thrown in. Thankfully he agreed and we both enjoyed the show.

Setlist

Come Follow Me

No Questions Asked

Doctor

Never Too Late

Keep Believin'

Sometimes Your Love

Under the Sky

Preachin'

Into the Gutter

+

Leavin' Today

Memphis Water

Be What You Want

Moment

Jam

The Who - Roundhouse, Camden - Sunday 29th October

My first ever visit to the Roundhouse and (in the words of Mott The Hoople's "Saturday Gigs"), we did indeed float up there on a Sunday afternoon. With good reason too - a chance to see The Who, "up close and personal". Well that was the plan. As it turned out, the place was heaving and we had to put up with a spot about 2/3 of the way back. However, the venue is quite small, so still a good view. 

A relatively short set and no encore (no complaints though - tickets were cheap and this was part of the BBC Electric Proms series). The middle part of the show was based around the Endless Wire album. Slightly deaf afterwards!

Setlist

I Can't Explain

The Seeker

Who Are You

+

Fragments

Sound Round

Pick Up the Peace

Endless Wire

We Got a Hit

They Made My Dream Come True

Mirror Door

+

Baba O'Riley

My Generation

A Man in a Purple Dress

Mike Post Theme

Pinball Wizard

Amazing Journey

Sparks

See Me, Feel Me

Tea & Theatre

Dead Men Walking - Fairfield Halls - Sunday 22nd October

The Ashcroft Theatre part of the halls seemed empty ! (80 people?). Support from TV Smith (slightly paranoid?). DMW were their normal eclectic mix (I did enjoy Saturday Gigs - "and then we went to Croydon!"). Special guest was Johnny Moped - for the first stage appearance in 20 years. H'mmm, maybe he'd consider leaving it as long again.

Good show, wrong night, wrong venue!

Dan Baird - The Borderline - Friday 20th October

I'm writing this weeks after the event, but from what I can remember it was excellent!

Woodedz- The Orange (West Kensington) - Thursday 21st September

We took the opportunity for a bit of a crawl before getting to West Kensington, starting in the White Horse in Parson's Green. Then onto further establishments on the way via Fulham Broadway, including a dodgy game of darts (one throw, "100", - the next, "4") and a partial Pub Quiz where we didn't have time to stay for the end, but would have been near the top based on the first 3 rounds if we were playing for real...

Woodedz are John "Rhino" Edwards from Status Quo and his sons Max and Freddie. This low-key gig was not really supporting anything and was showcasing the "Rhino's Revenge" CD from a few years back and this it did pretty well. Rhino's singing was better than I'd remembered and the boys guitars and drums were spot on. Wasn't sure about the "rap" halfway through, but there were good versions of Quo's "Obstruction Day" and "Paper Plane". The set finished with a tribute to the Brentford Striker, Lloyd Owusu... "the one and only" according the catchy song! 

All good fun - shame only about 80 people turned up. Bit of a pain to get home from on a Thursday for us, but at least home not too much after midnight. Next up, next month is Dan Baird... looking forward to that.

Robbie Williams - Wembley Stadium - Tuesday 19th September

Wembley Stadium? - yeah right !! Moved to Milton Keynes Bowl... no siree bob, thank you very much! Refund promptly obtained.

"We Will Rock You" - Dominion Theatre - Tuesday 5th September

The 5th September would have been Freddie Mercury's 60th Birthday if he was still alive. This special performance of the Queen musical was its normal good fun (despite highly suspect plot!) and featured "special guests". Only a couple as it turned out, but I was able to increase my "chart acts seen" by McFly turning up for "Don't Stop Me Now". 

For the encore, the expected appearance of Brian May and Roger Taylor gave us Bohemian Rhapsody, Love of My Life, Say It Isn't So (I know it's for a good cause, but I really don't rate this song) and The Show Must Go On. 

I'm perhaps being greedy, but had hoped for a few more guests.. Still, what we saw was good and we spotted Spike Edney and Neil Murray in the house band... let's rock!

Bad Influence - "The Windsor Castle" (Carshalton) - Saturday 2nd September

Hadn't known anything about this until Richard told me a day or 2 beforehand. Bad Influence normally feature Harry and Chris from Thunder and play a selection of original material and covers. 

Carshalton is only a brief train ride from home, so I met Richard there just after 9 and only missed 2 songs. The pub itself (and clientele) is a real 70's throwback. Think "The Sweeney" and you are spot on. Lots of middle aged men in brown jackets with wide lapels and lots of smoke. No really... lots! We resisted all temptation to shout "You're Nicked!" and enjoyed the music. 

The vast majority of the music was originals (which we didn't know, but was enjoyable), but we were treated to a second encore with "I'd Rather Go Blind" and "Keep Your Hands To Yourself". No Chris on bass, but Harry was on good form. Good stuff overall.

The Mods - Sutton United FC - Friday 1st September

First gig for a while and a nice Friday night 10 minute stroll from home. The Mods are always worth seeing - a collection of fine musicians who who may well have seen in the bands of famous artists on bigger stages.

Tonight, we got the lineup of Johnny Warman, Steve Byrd, Johnny Marter, Steve Barnacle and Spike Edney. This was actually a birthday bash for the promoter so we got the best of the Mods and 4 Bills and a Ben (their alta-ego). As the Mods they play covers of the 60's Rock and Britpop scene (think the Who, Small Faces, Kinks etc) and as the 4 Bills more a soulful sound (Tina Turner, Athur Conley, Robert Johnson, James Brown etc).

The highlight for me (as usual with these guys) was the extraordinary guitar playing of Steve Byrd - the guy is brilliant and makes it look amazingly easy. He used to be in Tina Turner's band and supposedly wrote the music for Baywatch (which of course, was why we all watched it!)

Only criticism was that the 4 bar staff were nowhere near enough to cope with the demand and so service was slow. Still, at least thanks to the new relaxed laws we could enjoy a pint in the Plough afterwards.

All in all an excellent 2 hours of great music - if you get the chance to see these guys, do !