Face Of Cheam

A late decision was made to go to the Childline Rocks jamboree at the Indigo, made only when Thunder announced reduced price tickets with no booking fee on their site.
Even with these late reductions and other two for one offers on Ticketmaster, the Indigo was still only half full, which was a shame. However, despite it being a charity show, the bill wasn’t really strong enough to justify the initial price of over £50.00 a ticket, so understandable as I'd imagine not many were aware of the special offers.
Despite this a fun night was had. Thunder, who helped organise the show with compare Whispering Bob Harris and his wife Trudy opened proceedings with a string four song set of Loser, River Of Pain, Love Walked In and I Love You More Than RocknRoll. Guitarist Luke Morley was in good form bouncing around the stage and the excellent sound system really enhanced their short set.
Fish was next up with three songs, the last of which was Marillion’s ‘Incommudicado’. Fish appeared to have a slight cold and his voice wasn’t too strong. Not sure what his first two songs were but a bit to ‘prog’ for my liking. After a short break and a £4 pint of Stella! Marillion did a four song acoustic set which was very good, although singer Steve Hogarth did wear a Tutankhamun hat for one of the songs.
I didn’t know too much about The Zombies although I recognised two of their three songs. She’s Not There and Time For The Season are instantly recognisable though you would struggle to get the artist in a pub quiz. Singer Colin Blunstone exited and was replaced by Russ Ballard who with the Zombies keyboard player Rod Argent were in Argent together. Russ who is looking fantastic for 62, is a well known songwriter (more later) and did a great version of ‘Hold Your Head Up’ though I was hoping for ‘God Gave RocknRoll To You’ which was missed.
Glenn Hughes and Ian Paice then came to the stage with members of Thunder. It was the first time that the bassist and drummer of Deep Purple’s Burn album line up had appeared together in 30+ years. Glenn Hughes warbled through ‘Mistreated’, great range but was really a painful warble towards the end of the song, and was then joined by Thunder’s Danny Bowes for ‘Might Just Take Your Life’.
Then the highlight of the night followed, with Russ Ballard returning with a great version of ‘Since You’ve Been Gone’ which also featured the lovely Tara MacDonald on backing vocals. Mmm nice.
Fish then returned for a Sensational Alex Harvey song which I did not recognise but was bit bluesy.
Another person looking fantastic for their age (59), Lulu, then came on stage. After ‘To Sir With Love’, she did a great rendition of ‘Shout’ telling both Luke Morley and bass played Chris Childs to sit down during it showing who the boss of the song was.
Finally, Roger Daltrey, turned up. He started on his own doing a track called ‘2000 Years’ from The Who’s last album. This was followed by the long version of ‘The Kids Are Alright’. This was great and featured Russ Ballard on acoustic lead during the songs coda. At the end of this song Roge handed his guitar to a roadie and promptly walked off. Luke had to run off stage to remind him that they still had ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ to do. Roger blamed his age warning it will happen to all of us. ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ was a slightly different version to the Who’s (or Thunders Cover) with an acapella bit in the rock bit (if that makes sense?). This also featured Tara on backing vocals. Roger then did leave the stage and did not return with everyone else for a finale of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’. This was a little shambolic with too many vocalists but still fun. It also featured the two Marillion singers, Fish And Hogarth sharing a microphone.
Bob Harris ended the show thanking everyone and threatening a similar charity bash next year. A similar bill and hopefully a more realistic initial price and I could be tempted!

Will take place on the last Saturday in June (28/6/08) and will be based on Borough High Street. We shall start around midday at Elephant & Castle and walk up towards London Bridge taking in various drinking establishments on the way.

This is a traditional event which started off over ten years ago with a crawl of the Monopoly Board. Other themes that have been done (in no particular order) are A-Z of London, Nationalities, Circle Line, Kings Road, Croydon Tram Link, Notting Hill Carnival Route, The Boat Race, Upper Street, Brighton Monopoly Board and Blue Heritage Plaques.

Whereas I am sure I have done more stupid things supporting Southampton, going to Wolverhampton on a Tuesday night must rank up there. Having a half day at work, I trekked up on the afternoon and got the last train back to Euston and then two nightbuses arriving back home at three in the morning.
It was worth it, with the normally hopeless Jason Euell heading a 94th minute equaliser!
The pubs of Wolverhampton were good and for some reason I decided to stay on the real ale. The Tap & Spile was first, a real spit and sawdust place showing the horse racing. As you would expect it was half empty with mainly old men in. A Golden Glow was had here which was suprisingly drinkable. Walking pass the Banks brewery my next stop was The Royal Oak. With its namesake in Southampton my home match local, I decided to have an 1828 here. It was fairly empty but they did have a lovely blonde barmaid here, and also a middle aged landlady!
The Chindit was recommende by a friend and I had a pint of Hereford Pale Ale here which was very pale indeed. A small two bar establishment, with an immaculate pool table and posters of the Beatles dotted around. Quite nice and friendly but not outstanding. The Combermere Arms was very nice, an outside gents with a tree in it. Here, I had a pint of Tinners and lost a few quid on the quiz machine. With time getting on, I had a bottle of Newcastle Brown in the heavy metal pub, The Gifford Arms, with its heavily tattooed clientiele. As with most heavy metal pubs, it was welcoming and played a varied range of rock. I tried to follow the crowd to Molineux from here but most of the drinkers were on their way to the Korn gig at the civic hall. After the game I tried to find the Great Western, but with that side of the railway being redeveloped I settled for the ember-inn establishment the Bluebrick. As with most ember inn places it was nice but they are all a bit similar aren't they? Time was had to nip to the local Spar to get a fourpack of Coors for the long train ride home!

So the Reverend and the third and final NME award show I attended. Not really knowing what to expect I quite enjoyed this. A lot of the songs sound a bit Stone Roses and 'Heavyweight Champion Of The World' was a highlight. The Reverend was wearing a dodgy jumper and did have a tasty female percussionist in his band wearing a skimpy dress. There was a strange encore with the Reverend saying he would play more outside and leaping into the crowd, leading a procession of people into the streets. Cars were trampled on to get a view of him danicng moronically in front of a building site. As it was a capella you couldn't really here him, so we left them to it in order to get a tube home.
Prior to the gig, we had a couple of pints, the first in the Good Mixer, which was empty, and losing some of it's Britpop history. The Lock Tavern was next, a pub formerly owned by DJ Sarah Cox. Here we frequented the very nice roof terrace and admired some of the attractive clientiele. We also had a quick look at the damage caused by the recent fire of Camden which gutted the highly annoying, over-rated and supposedley trendy Hawley Arms.

Having read a positive review in an issue of Kerrang and having nothing else to do, on Monday 25th February I ventured up to the Water Rats to see a band called Rebel Yell. The review called them a punk indie rockn’roll band, and this is exactly what you got. Visually they are like the Stray Cats, the singer with a huge double bass, the drummer standing up like Slim Jim Phantom, behind a miniature drum set. I doubt any of them were alive when Slim Jim married Britt Eklund however, as all members are in their teenage years. Musically there were hints of The Ramones and The Clash. Indeed they covered ‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go’ in the middle of their set. Their original stuff though was very catchy and one song which was about a girl being pregnant, was immediately catchy. Worth checking out again. Hailing from Leeds, and introducing theirselves as ‘Rebel Yell playing northern rock’n’roll it will be interesting to see if they can get more well known and start to play bigger crowds. Alas the small Water Rats was less than half full.
The other band on the bill I saw was Richmond. Melodic middle of the road, and although polished in between Coldplay and Counting Crows, they appear to be older than me so unless they can do an Orson I fear their time has passed them by.