Category Archives: Rock music

Rock: album review – David Gilmour ‘Rattle That Lock’

Album reviews, Rock music, , , ,

Only a year after releasing what was billed as Pink Floyd’s final album, The Endless River, late 2015 saw David Gilmour bring out a new solo album, too. Rattle That Lock is his first solo offering since 2006. While Sid Barrett and Roger Waters both have their enthusiastic advocates as the holder of the creative genius behind Pink Floyd, for me it was always David Gilmour I looked to first and foremost. Gilmour’s vocals and guitar are the sound of Pink Floyd for me. I found the Waters-inspired The Final Cut little more than a self-indulgent ranty dirge, but hugely enjoyed both of the post-Waters albums, A Momentary Lapse of Reason and The Division Bell. And Gilmour’s 2006 solo offering, On An Island, very much continued in the same vein.

So what, then, of Rattle That Lock? I’ve played it several times over now. All of the musical ingredients you would expect from a David Gilmore album are there: the beautiful melodic guitar solos, the lush atmospheric keyboards, the deliciously rich backing vocals and that clear, sensitive unmistakable lead vocal. But somehow, unlike previous offerings, it doesn’t quite seem to add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. It’s not a bad album and there are some really beautiful moments on it. But in places it does begin to sound a bit like Pink Floyd by numbers. On An Island followed exactly that same formula, of course, but perhaps had the benefit of featuring a number of really well-written memorable songs that added to the creative output of, rather than merely sought to copy, the classic Floyd back catalogue.

There are some lovely stand-out tracks, like Faces of Stone and In Any Tongue. And apart from the truly horrendous disco beat on Today there are very few low points on this album. But overall, although it’s mainly songs rather than instrumentals, Rattle That Lock is more in the business (like 2014’s The Endless River) of offering atmospheric Floydish soundscapes rather than genuinely classic new material. Having said that, it’s still a thousand times better than The Final Cut…

Released: September 2015

http://www.davidgilmour.com/rattlethatlock/

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Dave Davies (and Ray!) at Islington Assembly Hall 18/12/15

Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , ,

A couple of years ago I drew up a list of some of the bands I wanted to try and catch at least once before they (or I!) died, became otherwise indisposed or packed up for good. Black Sabbath with Ozzy, The Who, The Beach Boys with Brian Wilson, Deep Purple and, given rumours of a possible reunion, The Kinks. One by one I worked through all the bands on my list, but The Kinks reunion remained elusive. So the next best thing seemed to be to at least catch the surviving members perform solo. I’d already seen original drummer, Mick Avory, perform with several 70s-era ex-members of The Kinks. So a Dave Davies solo gig in Islington seemed like a good idea and I could hopefully get to see a Ray Davies solo gig at some future date, too.

The Islington Assembly Hall, part of the town hall complex, is not the largest of venues but it’s filled up nicely as Dave Davies takes the stage, backed by three supporting musicians. We get a nice mixture of classic 60s Kinks singles, some lesser known tracks from the band and a selection of Dave Davies’ solo material. Although his speaking voice sounds frail at times, his singing voice is much stronger and his mastery of the guitar (arguably, on You Really Got Me, the man who invented the heavy metal riff) is as powerful as ever. It’s a particular joy singing along to those old Kinks numbers especially: All Day and All of The Night, Tired Of Waiting For You, See My Friends, Death of a Clown and I’m Not Like Everybody Else.

Of course, when he came back on for an encore we could all guess absolutely what the song was going to be. What we couldn’t guess, though, was who would be joining him for that final song. “A surprise for Christmas!” announced Dave and on walked his brother Ray, the two of them sharing a stage together for the first time in 19 years. The audience as one are hit with amazement and wonderment at this beautiful and unexpected moment in rock’n’ roll history. Ray was in fine voice as he sang You Really Got Me and Dave cranked up the guitar. The audience went wild. Excitement, joy and genuine emotion as that 2 minutes and 14 seconds of one of the greatest rock’n’roll songs of all time blasted out from the stage. An early Christmas present indeed.

Setlist:
Ripping Up
All Day and All of the Night
She’s got everything
Creeping Jean
Tired of Waiting For You
See My Friends
In You I Believe
Strangers
Flowers in the Rain
Young and Innocent Days
The Man He Weeps Tonight
Death of a Clown
Living on a Thin Line
Dead End Street
Where have all the Good Times Gone?
I’m Not Like Everybody Else
You Really Got Me (with Ray Davies)

http://www.davedavies.com/

Steeleye Span at Cadogan Hall, London 14/12/15

Folk music, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , ,

Although always described as a folk rock band, just how much weight Steeleye Span attach to one or the other of those two influences has tended to ebb and flow over time. They started off very folky, then got more rocky, then more folky, then more rocky… and so on and so on. At the moment we are at a particularly rock phase in Steeleye’s history.

Wintersmith, the Terry Pratchett-inspired 2013 album, set the band in a prog-infused direction and really gave guitarist/keyboardist, Julian Littman, a chance to come into his own and stamp his own influence on the band. It’s not a direction that’s going to please all fans but it’s one I’m certainly enjoying. “We keep movng forward – we’re not a Steeleye Span tribute act,” explains Maddy Prior at one point, as she introduces some of the newer material. And it is genuinely fascinating to witness.

We do get old songs from the back catalogue, even going back to the very first album. But the dark, heavy, progged-up feel of Wintersmith is carried through into much of the older material too, with lush keyboard passages, crunching bass lines and high-octane, melodic, screeching guitar solos. There have been a couple of personnel changes lately in this constantly-evolving band. New second guitarist, Spud Sinclair, and new fiddle player, Jessie May Smart, both bring something worthwhile to this latest musical direction the band are currently headed in. Smart is a versatile player, deftly moving from haunting and melodic to spiky and rocky, and she’s proving a worthy replacement for the legendary Peter Knight. Plus having another set of female backing vocals compliment’s Prior’s voice nicely.

It’s a well chosen selection of songs in the setlist for this tour. The excellent Wintersmith album is well-represented, of course, with songs like Crown of Ice, You and the brilliant The Dark Morris Song. But there’s some nice surprises, too. New York Girls, which I’ve always considered a fun but extremely lightweight novelty song from 1975’s Commoners Crown album (with Peter Sellers on ukele!), is transformed into something far more meaty and substantial. Cromwell’s Skull, a new song with (in the words of Rick Kemp) a real Floyd-ified bit at the end is absolutely fantastic and it’s great to see the band really rocking and progging it up. There’s the glam-folk 70s smash All Around My Hat, of course and there’s Blackleg Miner and Boys of Bedlam. But rather than encoring with the acapela Christmas hit, Gaudette, as on many previous the band all come back to stand at the mic stands to do a beautiful acapela Somewhere Along the Road, an old song of bass player, Rick Kemp, that has finally been given the Steeleye treatment.

The Steeleye Span bus continues to take us on a long, winding and unpredictable yet thoroughly satisfying journey.

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2015-12-14 20.59.25

Previous Review: Steeleye Span at New Forest Folk Festival

Fotheringay at Great British Folk Festival 6/12/15

Folk music, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Having seen Fotheringay on their short summer reunion tour (after a modest break of some 45 years) one of the most delightful things about tonight’s performance is, founder member, Jerry Donahue’s assertion that what started as a temporary project to promote the band’s retrospective box set is now set to become permanent. So the band that was formed by the late Sandy Denny, her late husband, Trevor Lucas, and the still very much alive Jerry Donahue, Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway lives once more.

Donahue talks with great fondness tonight about his time in Fotheringay. But, given a band whose overlap in membership with Fairport Convention was often mocked by critics back in the 70s, Donahue managed to commit the ultimate faux pas by getting his two former bands muddled up and referring to the band on stage as Fairport at one point. Pat Donaldson, the only member of the original Fotheringay never to have ended up in Fairport, made to leave the stage in mock disgust. The spirit of Fotheringport or Fairport Confusion clearly lives on…

What a wonderful show we get though. Some of Sandy Denny’s most beautiful songs brought to life once again and performed live for audiences in the 21st Century. Between them, both Kathryn Roberts and Sally Barker do an amazing job handling Sandy Denny’s vocal parts with passion, beauty and respect. I was terribly dismissive about Sally Barker’s vocals when she sang a Sandy song during a guest slot at Fairport’s Cropredy appearance in 2014. But after seeing Fotheringay twice now I happily own up to being completely, absolutely 100% utterly wrong about Barker, my guilt being compounded even more because, not only did she give us such a wonderful performance tonight, she also took the trouble to personally run around backstage for me to ensure I had all three surviving members’ autographs on my Fotheringay CD. Sorry Sally!

PJ Wright also does a fine and convincing job handling the vocals originally sung by Sandy Denny’s late husband, Trevor Lucas, as well as delivering some beautiful pedal steel guitar on a couple of Sandy Denny solo tracks the band perform tonight.

Song highlights: there were so many. Nothing More, John The Gun, Knights of the Road, Solo, Peace in the End and many more, even though they have to trim their planned setlist slightly due to time pressures.

Had she lived would we now be seeing Sandy Denny joining her erstwhile folk-rock contemporaries, Jacqui McShee and Maddy Prior, at Butlins folk festival this weekend? That we’ll never know. But we have got Fotheringay brought to life once more. There have been various tributes to Sandy Denny (arguably the most gifted female singer-songwriter that Britain has ever produced) in recent years. In addition to the boxed sets and the various books we’ve had the all-star The Lady tribute show put together by Andrew Batt, we’ve had Thea Gilmore’s interpretation of Denny’s newly unearthed lyrics and, of course, we can always expect some sort of tribute in any performance of Denny’s old band, Fairport Convention. But of all the tributes, and they’ve all been wonderful in their own way, for me the one that has been the most special, the most authentic and the most spine-tinglingly, amazingly beautiful has been this current Fotheringay reunion. Long may they continue.

http://www.fotheringay.com/

2015-12-06 21.33.48

Previous review: Fotheringay in London

Tom Robinson at Great British Folk Festival 5/12/15

Folk music, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , ,

Amidst those stalwarts of early 70s folk-rock (Steeleye Span, Fotheringay, Pentangle) this year’s Great British Folk Festival at Butlins Skegness, also had a bit of late 70s new wave protest-singer vibe to it, with both Billy Bragg and Tom Robinson on the bill. Apart from seeing him do a guest spot for one song at Fairport’s Cropredy festival, I’d never seen a full Tom Robinson set until this evening. Robinson is one of those artists that I’ve long been aware of but I’ve only really ever been familiar with a handful of his songs. I remember being amazed (and pleasantly surprised) hearing Glad To Be Gay on the Secret Policeman’s Ball album as a young teenager. I remember his early 80s hit War Baby being on the juke box when I had a job collecting glasses in my local. And, of course, I was familiar with the wonderful 2-4-6-8 Motorway which we all sang along to at Cropredy when he did his guest spot with Fairport there a couple of years ago. But beyond that, my knowledge was pretty thin. We had a bit of a crash course from one of our number who is a serious fan on the way there and got to hear his new album in the car on the way up.

So what did I find? A really engaging performer. A singer and musician whose passion and sense of justice burns as brightly now as it did thirty-odd years ago. Some great entertaining songs – new and old. A really amusing and often hilarious raconteur. And a sincere and convincing advocate for the power of music as a force for good. In short – he impressed.

Songs from his new album, Only The Now, sat well against older material. Tracks like Risky Business, railing against the bankers, exhibited much in the way of both the style and passion of the 70s era Tom Robinson Band material, yet the subject matter is bang up to date. He didn’t disappoint in performing all of the songs I actually knew, either. A stripped-back acoustic War Baby. A mass-singalong 2-4-6-8 Motorway. And, of course, the song that was such a political statement for the mid to late 70s…

A quick scan of our Grindr apps (purely in the interests of demographic research you understand) would suggest that early December at Butlins in Skegness is perhaps not the gayest of venues. But what the folk scene lacks in diversity, it certainly makes up for in tolerance. One of the absolute highlights in a weekend of many highlights was seeing the massed ranks of the Bulins crowd bellowing out each chorus to Glad To Be Gay. I’m certainly glad to have seen Tom Robinson. And I look forward to exploring further.

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2015-12-05 19.51.25

Deep Purple at The O2 3/12/15

Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , , , , ,

In the world of classic rock/heritage rock/dad rock, call it what you will, three out of five members from the heyday era of a late 60s/early 70s rock band is pretty good going these days. So those buying a ticket for Deep Purple at the O2 still get to see Ian Gillan on stage, joined by the rhythm section for much of the band’s history Ian Paice and Roger Glover, just like when the classic Mark 2 incarnation of the band recorded Deep Purple In Rock, Machine Head and Made in Japan. And while Ian Gillan, Ian Paice and Roger Glover are on fine form tonight it would be unfair to suggest that it is only the presence of these three that make the band worth seeing.

Guitarist, Steve Morse, has now been with the band 21 years, joining not long after Ritchie Blackmore walked out seemingly for the very last time. And keyboard player, Don Airey, who many will recall from his time in Blackmore’s original post-Purple project Rainbow, has now been with the band 13 years, ever since founding keyboardist Jon Lord retired from the band before tragically succumbing to cancer. Both of these“new boys” are serious, world-class, heavyweight additions to the band as they demonstrate tonight.

Set-wise there’s a lot that fans of 1972’s Made In Japan (one of the best live rock albums of all time) will be familiar with: Highway Star, Strange Kind of Woman, The Mule, Lazy, Space Truckin’, Smoke on the Water (everything from the acclaimed live album, in fact, bar Child In Time). The classic 70s tracks are complemented by a few “best of the rest” from the post-84 period, like Perfect Strangers, as well as stand-out tracks from the latest album Now What?! It being a gig by 70s rock legends, of course, there are the obligatory solo spots: guitar solo, drum solo, bass solo and a gloriously eccentric keyboard solo from Don Airey (encompassing everything from Land of Hope and Glory to Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner (Elgar meets Chas and Dave?)

The O2 is a great venue for really big arena gigs in many respects. But I’ve noticed on several different occasions now that for those in the banks of seating around the sides, where we were seated tonight, the audience can take a little bit of time to warm up. Clearly, they were enjoying it. But unlike those on the main floor the audience remained resolutely seated. Given I was starting to get cramp and given there was no way I was going to remain seated for Smoke On The Water I decided that as soon as I heard the opening da da der – da da da der, I would jump up in my seat and hope that everyone else would follow me. They did. And the band stormed through Smoke, through their first ever single Hush and, finally, through a roaring version of Black Knight. The crowd lapped it up. O2 audiences can take a bit of warming up but they get there in the end.

Setlist:
Highway Star
Bloodsucker
Hard Lovin’ Man
Strange Kind of Woman
Vincent Price
Uncommon Man
The Well-Dressed Guitar
The Mule
Lazy
Demon’s EyeH
Hell to Pay
Perfect Strangers
Space Truckin’
Smoke on the Water
Hush
Black Night

http://www.deeppurple.com/

2015-12-03 20.47.36

Judas Priest at Brixton Academy 1/12/15

Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , ,

The evening kicked off with excellent support from Michael Schenker’s Temple of Rock. And Schenker clearly understood the golden rule of being an effective support act: unlike the headliners that everyone has paid to see, hit the crowd between the eyes with your best song first – don’t save it ’til the end! So we begin the night with a cracking version of Doctor Doctor. It couldn’t have been a better start to the evening in an absolutely jam-packed Brixton Academy.

I first discovered Judas Priest as a teenager back in the early 80s not long after British Steel came out and the band can still be heard regularly blasting out from my speakers. But as a gay heavy metal fan I can’t also fail to mention my personal admiration for lead singer Rob Halford. In a genre that always seemed so resolutely heterosexual, Halford’s decision to be open about being gay back in 1998 was a big moment both for him personally and for heavy metal generally. Seeing his total command of an adoring crowd tonight it’s hard to believe that Halford’s sexuality could ever even have been an issue. But there must be many a teenage rock fan across the globe who can personally thank Rob Halford for demonstrating so visibly that, yes, it’s ok to be both gay and like heavy metal. Cheers Rob.

Halford is not a frontman who goes for a lot of between-song chat and audience banter but, boy, does he know how to work a crowd: mass chanting, crowd sing-alongs, every stage movement eliciting a multitude of fists in the air and more costume changes than Elton John, Halford knows how to squeeze every last drop of adulation from an audience. His vocal range is as wide and as powerful as it always was. He growls the lowest of the low notes and howls the highest of the high notes just as he always did. It’s a performance of utter brilliance in every respect, as is that of the whole band. The unmistakeable twin lead guitars are as powerful as ever, with Glen Tipton being joined by new guitarist Richie Falkner (who replaced Priest veteran, KK Downing, in 2011).

And let’s not forget the songs of course. They deliver a great mix of songs representing different eras of the band’s history, the relevant album cover for each song flashing up on the giant screens on stage beforehand, fuelling anticipation of what might be coming next. We get some new songs from last year’s album, Redeemer of Souls, of course – the first with new guitarist, Falkner. But as we move through the hour-and-a-half set, more and more of the unforgettable classics of the 80s emerge: Breaking The Law, Hell Bent for Leather, You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’.

Soon we are nearing to a close, however, with the crowd going wild to a high-octane version of Painkiller and a brilliant sing-along Living After Midnight. Always metal. Always Loud. Never just noise. Judas Priest are still on form and are truly still the Metal Gods.

Setlist:
Battle Cry
Dragonaut
Metal Gods
Desert Plains
Victim of Changes
Halls of Valhalla
The Rage
Turbo Lover
Redeemer of Souls
Beyond the Realms of Death
Screaming for Vengeance
Breaking the Law
Hell Bent for Leather
The Hellion
Electric Eye
You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’
Painkiller
Living After Midnight

http://judaspriest.com/

2015-12-01 20.36.07

Sweet at Orchard Theatre, Dartford 22/11/15

Glam rock, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , , , ,

Sweet are a melodic hard rock band who play catchy, well-written rock songs with beautifully vocalised harmonies. But some rock fans are a bit snobby about Sweet because Sweet are glam rock and glam rock is not for serious rock fans. Well what a lot of nonsense that is. For sheer musical professionalism, tuneful melodiousness and unforgettable songs, there are few rock bands to match Sweet.

The tour is billed as Finale. “But let’s make one thing absolutely clear,” says guitarist Andy Scott. “No way is this the fucking finale.” Phew, they almost had me worried there. But as Scott, stalwart of the band since 1970, tells the Dartford audience tonight, he’s not really qualified to do anything else.

The current Sweet line-up (guitarist Andy Scott, drummer Bruce Bisland, vocalist/bass player Pete Lincoln and Tony O’Hora on keyboards, guitar and vocals) have been together since 2011. And they’ve proved themselves to be one of the most durable and easily the best line-up of Sweet since the days of the classic Connoly-Scott-Tucker-Priest formation back in the 1970s. Musical talent oozes out of every pore, even though they are a man down down tonight. Drummer Bisland has been ordered to rest for a month by doctors due to muscle fatigue. Sweet’s stage manager, Adam, has gamely filled the drum stool at the eleventh hour. And while there are some truly awful experiences of “roadie gallantly stepping up at the last minute” in rock history there are also some very good ones, too, and tonight is the latter. He does a great job, knowing both the band and the songs like the back of his hand.

I’v seen Sweet many times, of course. But so many of the things I want from a Sweet concert are there in spades tonight. There is a riotous version of Action, a hard-rocking version of Hellraiser, a majestic version of Love Is Like Oxygen (dedicated to Brian Connoly, Mick Tucker and the people of Paris), a pounding version of Wig Wam Bam, an anthemic version of Fox on the Run and, as befits two of the best songs ever written in the history of British popular music, spectacular versions of Blockbuster and Balroom Blitz. But there’s more, too: more well-crafted melodic hard rock in the form of brand new song Defender, a beautiful acoustic version of Lady Starlight. And this is followed by more acoustic delights as the early pre-glam rock bubblegum-era material (Co Co, Poppa Joe and Funny Funny) is given new life by being given the stripped-down, seated, guitar and vocals treatment. The Sweet goes all Bob Dylan as you will – but it works!

If you are a fan of melodic hard rock but have hitherto denied yourself the chance of seeing Sweet. Get over yourself. You are missing out. This band are brilliant. Go and see them!

Setlist:
Action
New York Groove
Hellraiser
Peppermint Twist
Defender
Lady Starlight
Co Co
Poppa Joe
Teenage Rampage
Wig Wam Bam
Little Willy
Love Is Like Oxygen
Fox On The Run
Blockbuster
Ballroom Blitz

http://www.thesweet.com/

2015-11-24 21.27.23 (1)

Previous review: Sweet at Bilston

Slade at White Rock Theatre, Hastings 14/11/15

Glam rock, Hastings music scene, Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , , , , ,

Tonight was my twenty-third Slade concert. After seeing them three times as a teenager in the early 80s the band abruptly stopped touring. But since guitarist Dave Hill and drummer Don Powell revived the band in the early 90s, sans Noddy Holder and Jim Lea, I’ve see them most years since. Yes, I miss Holder’s unmistakeable voice. Yes, I miss Lea’s musical dexterity. And yes, I miss the combined songwriting talent of the two of them which produced all of the big hits but isn’t producing any new ones. But going to a modern-day Slade gig means I don’t miss out on hearing those wonderful songs being performed live still. And it means I don’t get to miss out on the sheer, unadulterated, wacky, crazily eccentric sense of fun you get from a Slade gig.

The set-list has hardly changed much in the last twenty years but it’s great to be punching our hands in the air to Gudbuy T’ Jane, throwing toilet rolls across the stage during Mama Weer All Crazee Now, applauding Dave Hill showing off his“superyob” guitar during Get Down and Get With It, swaying along to Everyday and My Oh My and jumping up and down with wild deranged abandon to Cum On Feel The Noize.

In the nicest, friendliest, most good-natured way the whole place was pretty much going crazee. Everyone, that is, apart from two gents on the front row who complained bitterly throughout the concert about people dancing about, jumping up and down and waving their arms in the air. I don’t think they quite got the whole Slade concert business. Never mind, they were gone before the band came back on for Merry Xmas Everybody. A month too early? No way! I don’t put together Slade’s winter tour schedules but mid-November is surely near enough to Christmas for the crowd to be singing along to the greatest Christmas song ever made.

For fifty years Dave and Don have been playing together now. Let’s toast them.

Setlist:
Gudbuy T’ Jane
Lock Up Your Daughters
Take Me Bak ‘Ome
Look Wot You Dun
Everyday
Coz I Luv You
Run Run Away
Far Far Away
My Baby Left Me
Mama Weer All Crazee Now
Get Down and Get With It
My Oh My
Cum On Feel The Noize
Merry Xmas Everybody

http://www.slade.uk.com/

dave hill hastings

Photo credit: Dave Kemp

Previous Reviews:

Slade at Giant of Rock, Minehead
Merry Xmas Everybody

Snakecharmer at O2 Academy Islington 13/11/15

Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , , ,

Bluesy heavy rock fronted by ex-Deep Purple vocalist, David Coverdale, Whitesnake in the late70s/early 80s were utterly brilliant. One of the first rock albums I ever bought as a teenager was Ready an’ Willing. Whitesnake evolved into something quite different but the early vintage of Whitesnake was always the one I was most interested in. Ex-Whitesnake members, guitarist Micky Moody and bassist Neil Murray, are keeping the flame alive with Snakecharmer, playing a mix of Whitesnake classics and newer material in that similar melodic, bluesy heavy rock similar vein.

The Whitesnake veterans have teamed up with ex-Wishbone Ash guitarist, Laurie Wisefield; the son of Rick Wakeman and keyboard supremo in his own right, Adam Wakeman; and Thunder drummer, Harry James. They are joined by vocalist Chris Ousey who handles the David Coverdale material perfectly, yet resisting the temptation of becoming a Coverdale trinute act.

I’ve seen another former Whitesnake member, Bernie Marsden, perform solo on several occassions and it’s nothing less than an absolute joy. But while Marsden’s shows these days duly celebrate the Whitesnake legacy there is a real emphasis on the slower blues that is his love and passion. A Snakecharmer gig, however, is more in the spirit of the heavy rocking nature of early Whitesnake, with the added bonus of a top-class lead vocalist and, of course, Micky Moody’s irreplacebale slide guitar playing. And anyone who thinks that an extended drums and slide guitar solo spot is a tad self-indulgent and over the top needs to het along to a Snakecharmer gig to see just how good this can be.

There’s some great new material. But, more than anything it’s those old Whitesnake numbers we are at this gig for. And how glorious it is singing along to Ready an’ Willing, Here I Go Again and Fool For Your Loving. I was 15 again, deftly manouevering myself to the very front row at Donington with my mate Gareth. The simple, life-affirming, communal joy of live rock music.

So how devastating it was getting home after the gig and finding out about the terrible events in Paris: other rock fans, like me, just wanting to enjoy the simple pleasures of a night out at a live gig. But tragically, unlike those of us at the Islington Academy tonight, many of them never coming home. I was reminded immediately of the emotive words of another of David Coverdale’s erstwhile colleagues, Glenn Hughes. Only a couple of weeks earlier on the final night of his UK tour Hughes spoke emotively and passionately about the beauty of music and its ability to break down barriers and bring people together, even when there is so much hate in the world. Terrorism will not stop that.

Setlist:
Guilty as Charged
A Little Rock & Roll
Ready an’ Willing
Accident Prone
Falling Leaves
Ain’t Gonna Cry No More
Nothing to Lose
Crying in the Rain
Moody’s Blues (slide guitar & drums solo spot)
Slow an’ Easy
My Angel
Here I Go Again
Fool for Your Loving

http://www.snakecharmer.org/

2015-11-13 20.30.59