Martin McAloon (Prefab Sprout) - Login Lounge, Camberley- 19th November 2025

For many years Prefab Sprout have been on my 'want to see sometime' list, but they never tour and I found out fairly recently that front-man and song writer, Paddy McAloon suffers from Ménière's disease, a condition affecting the inner ear that causes vertigo, tinnitus, and hearing loss, which means he can't play with other musicians, so it seems it will never happen, but then Martin McAloon's "Two Wheels Good" tour appeared on my Facebook feed.

Martin is Paddy's younger brother and bass player with the band, so this seemed as close as I was likely to get and, better still, he was playing a small venue I'd never visited before less than 10 miles away. I bought a ticket.

One Facebooker bemoaned the fact that it was 'just him with a guitar', so I knew I wasn't getting a full band experience, but I was still interested to hear how the songs would sound live, especially in such a stripped back form.

It was below freezing as I made my way into the Login Lounge, but I was greeted by a friendly woman and wandered upstairs to the performance area.

By day, the Login Lounge is a remote workspace with meeting rooms people can rent by the hour to work from and it looks a pretty pleasant environment to do that in.

Upstairs there was a large bar area at one end and a lot of tables leading to a fair sized (for the size of the venue) stage. Lighting was good, not too bright, but equally not coal hole dark. Apparently, they hold lots of music and comedy events here in the evenings and at weekends.

I sat with a friendly couple from Wokingham and we chatted about musical tastes before a figure with straggly white hair and beard appeared and greeted us with a cheery "Hello!" - Martin looks very much like his brother does in recent photographs.

The McAloons and their friend, Mick, the drummer hail from 'a village between villages' in Durham and always ploughed their own furrow, musically, but are a band I hold in fond memory, partly, at least, for the time I played their greatest hits album over and over on a drive home from a glorious day's skiing in St Anton. "Cars and Girls", especially takes me back to that day.

The tour was to celebrate 40 years of their most famous album, "Steve McQueen" (released as "Two Wheels Good" in the USA, hence the tour name) and the first set consisted of the tracks from the album in order.

Martin was alone on the stage with an array of guitars which he explained were all tuned to different keys for different songs.

He started with "Faron Young" and, if I'm honest, it didn't work that well to my ears - I started to wonder if the Facebook naysayer had a point...

Next was "Bonny", a song I didn't know, but sounded far better than "Faron Young".

This was followed by a song I know well, "Appetite", which did sound good - It's not a 'big production' song and sounded pretty good, Martin's voice not sounding dissimaler (allowing for the passing of time) to his brother's and he can certainly play a guitar well, although a few times during the set, the lack of other instruments did make a key change seem a bit abrupt.

The next two familiar songs, "When Love Breaks Down" and "Johnny, Johnny" (titled "Goodbye Lucille #1" on the album) were equally good and I was starting to enjoy the set, Martin chatting amiably between the songs, recounting anecdotes from the bands time, notably around the writing or recording of the songs.

The rest of the album tracks were less familiar to me, but enjoyable, it seemed Martin had hit his stride.

The first set rounded out with a song that I didn't catch the title of, but he said they'd wanted on the album, but producer Thomas Dolby didn't like!. It would have been fine as an album track, but apparently, failed to make the next two albums as well, so became a bit of a 'lost' track - He actually asked us not to record it, to keep it that way!

Around a 15 minute break then ensued as Martin took a break and the audience nipped to the loo and/or bought a drink for the second set.

Martin's promotion for the tour promised 'all the hits' and he certainly seemed to cover the ones I recalled.

He started with a song Jimmy Nail covered, "Cowboy Dreams" and then "Hey Manhattan", a song that has a 'big' sound, but he managed to pull it off pretty well with just a guitar! As a contrast, the very stripped down, even in original form, "Cruel" followed and then a few songs I knew less well "Nancy Let Down Your Hair" (seemingly about a crush on a female boss!), "Spinning Belinda" (this was requested from the crowd and he'd forgotten the words, so played a bit of the tune), "Horsin' Around", "Cue Fanfare", "Machine Gun Ibiza" and "Atlantis".

In between, he played "We Let The Stars Go" as a request and it was warmly received.

The last few songs were a mix of hits and requests from the audience, "Dublin" and "Golden Calf" being slotted in between "Carnival 2000", "Life Of Surprises", "Cars and Girls" and, unsurprisingly, "King Of Rock n Roll" as the finale.

There was no pretence of an encore, just a "Thanks for coming along and I'll be at the merch stand over there any moment now!"

Would I have liked to have heard these songs played with a full band to give the bigger production sound some of them deserve? I can't deny I would, but that's very unlikely to ever happen, so it was great to hear these songs played by someone who played them originally and with a bit of a twist due to the limited instrumentation avaiable.

I did wonder if he may have backing tracks to fill out the sound (My first time seeing Echobelly did this, to good effect), but that didn't seem to be the case, everything came from whichever guitar he used and an effects box for it.

On reflection, I'd have liked to have heard "If You Don't Love Me" and "The Sound of Crying" rather than some of the less familiar songs, but I've only come to that opinion the next day, so it wasn't a big problem.

Overall, though, I did enjoy the gig. Martin's a personable fellow, his voice close to his brother's and his music the way (on the whole) the band would have wanted it, within the constraints.

I suspect his performance would seem a little empty in a bigger venue, but in the excellent Login Lounge it worked very well and I came away very happy to have enjoyed an evening of Prefab Sprout music at last!

Setlist:
Steve McQueen album - first set
Faron Young
Bonny
Appetite
When Love Breaks Down
Johnny Johnny/Goodbye Lucille #1 (Name of track on Album)
Hallelujah
Moving the River
Horsin' Around
Desire As
Blueberry Pies
When the Angels
Bonus track

Other Songs - second set
Cowboy Dreams
Hey Manhattan
Cruel
Nancy let down you hair
Spinning belinda (a bit of the tune, he'd forgotten the lyrics)
We let the stars go
Cue fanfare
Machine gun ibiza
Atlantis
Carnival 2000
Dublin
Life of surprises
Golden Calf
Cars and Girls
King of Rock n Roll

The Devout - The Boiler Room, Guildford - 14/11/2025

Some tribute bands are really good and The Devout have a reputation as one of the best Depeche Mode tribute bands (from how many, though , I don't know) and the Boiler Room was packed when I arrived at around 7:30

I was a fan of DM in their early, Vince Clark and a little later days, but lost interest as they veered into the leather and studs period.

Sadly, the first hour of The Devout's set was mostly dirgey leather period songs that, especially with the singer's habit of shouting "Guildford!" and letting the crowd do far more than their fair share of the singing, merged into a mostly dull wall of morose music.

There were 3 people on the stage, two at the back behind synthesizers and a singer in a vest.

Musically, they sounded OK, although mostly the sound was coming from synthesizers, so one wonders how much they were actually doing live, but the 'singer' really wasn't that great. Even to my untrained ear, I could hear him clearly missing notes plenty of times, which might explain why he was so keen to shout at the audience and hold his mike out to them.

When I got home, I put on "A Broken Frame" and the difference in vocal quality between The Devout's front man and DM's was night and day. A stark contrast, for example, to the Cure tribute I'd seen a couple of months earlier.

For a couple of songs, one of the synthesizer players took the vocal lead and he had a far more tuneful voice to my ear.

I'll be honest, an hour in and I was seriously considering cutting my losses and heading home for an early night and a Horlicks.

The performance wasn't great, the venue packed and oppressively hot for a November evening (There was a brief pause at one point as a young man had to be helped out after passing out, although it still didn't compare to the Summer night I'd seen Dave Wakeling's version of The Beat).

However, the last ten songs almost redeemed the evening for me.

Starting with DM's first single, "New Life", they rattled through a number of the livelier early songs, along with later hits such as "Everything Counts" and "Personal Jesus", which clearly enlivened the audience, rounding out with the iconic, but not universally loved by DM fans, "Just Can't Get Enough" (which went down a storm) and then the downbeat "Never Let Me Down Again" to finish off at which point I made my way to the welcome coolness of the evening.

It was apparent from walking in that The Devout have a strong following, but I didn't feel they lived up to the hype.

The main thing that I took from the evening, though, was that I have a narrow window of favourite DM songs and the later material, on the whole, is just not for me. If it is, you may well enjoy The Devout more than I did, plenty of people seemed to.

No photos or videos, it was far too crowded to get a decent line of sight - The one at the top is taken from The Devout's website

Setlist:
Black Celebration
Policy of Truth
World in My Eyes
A Question of Time
Sacred
Stripped
Blasphemous Rumours
Leave in Silence
Photographic
Something to Do
Somebody
A Question of Lust
In Your Room
Told You So
Walking in My Shoes
New Life
See You
People Are People
Shake the Disease
Home
Personal Jesus
But Not Tonight
Everything Counts
Enjoy the Silence
Just Can't Get Enough
Never Let Me Down Again

ABBA Voyage - ABBA Arena, London - 9th November 2025

I had heard so many people say how good the ABBA Voyage show was that I was intrigued. As my wife, unusually, expressed an interest as well, I bought us two tickets for an afternoon session

We made the trek to the Olympic Park from Waterloo station relatively easily and grabbed a burger and a beer before going in to the Arena.

Inside there were further food and drink and merchandise outlets, as well as toilets and complimentary cloakrooms.

Our particular event had been hijacked by Radio 2 and turned into a Children In Need benefit and Scott Mills was holding a DJ session in the pre-Arena area, which made it pretty crowded, but passed a few minutes before we dropped off our coats and headed into the Dance Floor area.

The venue has a fairly small floor level area and 3 seated areas behind. It's not a massive venue, but it's a good sized one.

As we went in an animation of a snowy forest was playing on mesh screens dropped down in front of us and this continued for around 45 minutes until an announcement that the event was about to begin.

Flashing vertical white lights heralded things and then the 4 virtual members of ABBA appeared (seemingly) from the floor of the stage.

The first two song, "The Visitors" and "Hole In Your Sole" were relatively obscure ones, I guess they work you in gently as you're still trying to work out what is happening on the 'stage' and how they are doing it.

Things definitely hit their stride with "SOS" and "Knowing Me, Knowing You" ("Ah ha!" as Alan Partridge would say), followed by the gentler, more melodic, but still familiar "Chiquitita" and "Fernando".

The performance makes clever use of lighting, huge, almost wrap around, screens, a live band and, of course, the "ABBAtars".

They are mostly the size you would expect to see people on a stage and, as such the detail isn't too clear. Once or twice I recall thinking the movements looked a little stiff (like computer game characters), but more often I marvelled at the natural little actions that I would have felt extremely difficult to replicate, a flick of the hair, a half turn, it was remarkable at times and a credit to the people who put this all together.

Photography and Videoing is forbidden on pain of expulsion, so here's an approved video about ABBA Voyage to give a taste of it

Throughout, too, the ABBAtars were projected in large scale onto screens either side of the stage and, now and then looked a little CGI'd, but at times the detail was so good that I feel convinced that some of the content must have been based upon high quality film footage from the 70s and 80s.

However it was done, it was very impressive and it was hard at times not to feel you were watching people perform live in front of you.

The band were good, getting a turn to perform when they performed most of Does Your Mother Know without the ABBAtars.

They were absent too, for a couple of songs, when an animation of an Aztec-looking person took on a fantasy journey to a castle where the images of the band members were hewn in rock. It was different and a reminder that you weren't at a live concert, but an audio-visual show.

The lighting played a big part in this.

At one point lines of dotted lights showed on the 'stage' over and behind the ABBAtars, while rods of lights descended over the audience, echoing the lights on stage and giving the impression of an extension of one place. One another song, beams of red lights over the dance floor area did likewise.

The song that started it all, "Waterloo" was shown in the form of archive film footage, projected on the mesh screens ahead of the stage again.

That said, it was genuinely quite hard not to react, in the most part, as if you were seeing and hearing live performers on the stage.

All 4 ABBAtars had a little chat with the audience and they even appeared as they do now briefly at the end to thank us for coming.

The main 'set' ended with "Dancing Queen" and then they were quickly 'back' for an encore featuring "The Winner Takes It All" (probably my favourite ABBA song, they do melancholy very well I think).

We left, both very happy we'd come along.

However, on the way home we agreed there seemed little point going again. It's not a live gig, the next time will be the same.

It is, though, a great technical feat and an enjoyable experience - Go and see it, even if you're not an ABBA fan, there is plenty to enjoy!

PS: Some have decried this as a threat to live music. Obviously, for ABBA it's not, they will never tour again, but I can see it proving popular as a concept for many performers past their best (I imagine a similar Beatles concert, for example, would be hugely popular) or as a way for people to see performers in huge demand; someone like Taylor Swift springs immediately to mind, even if not for me, to be reachable by even bigger audiences.

Setlist:
The Visitors
Hole in Your Soul
SOS
Knowing Me, Knowing You
Chiquitita
Fernando
Mamma Mia
Does Your Mother Know
Take a Chance on Me
Eagle
Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)
Voulez-vous
Don’t Shut Me Down
I Still Have Faith in You
Waterloo
Thank You for the Music
Money, Money, Money
Dancing Queen
Encore:
The Winner Takes It All

Dub Pistols - West End Centre, Aldershot - 24th October 2025

Sometimes I take a bit of a speculative punt on an act; this was one such occasion.

I knew the name "Dub Pistols", but next to nothing about them, but having no acts to see in October and them appearing at the West End Centre, very close to my home, I decided to take a gamble after listening to a few of their tracks online.

Even from those, though, I realised I was either going to really enjoy the evening or, possibly, hate it.

There was no support, not a bad thing often, and the band (6 mostly middle aged men) ambled onto the stage about on time.

I can't find a setlist anywhere, so I can't really tell you what they performed, although I do recall "West End Story", "Real Gangster", "Running From The Thoughts", "Mucky Weekend", possibly "Rub A Dub" and "Pistoleros" and a few covers "I Predict A Riot", "Peaches" and "Gangsters", which (for me) were the highlights.

On the positive side, they're a very energetic act and there were plenty of people having a great time there, clearly familiar with the songs and the band.

To me, though, the tracks soon began to sound very alike, but I was happy to move along with the groove and the dubbing by the MC, which was pretty good, I have to say.

Barry, the lead man, suggested we all go to the bar for a drink after about an hour and most people did (Some seemingly didn't come back!), which seemed to surprise the band who I think expected a cry for an encore "That's never happened to us before! It's an encore, not an interval", the MC told us, somewhat bemused!

I moved back a bit for the second part and the sound was actually better there, but I was starting to get a headache (I'm pretty sure there were some substances being smoked around me, too, which didn't help), so, although I did enjoy the rendition of "Gangsters", I was out of the door when the set finished.

All told, I certainly didn't hate "Dub Pistols", they put on a lively show, but they're not really 'my thing' and I don't imagine I'd go and see them again.

Setlist:
If I find one, I'll add it.

Nerina Pallot - Fiery Bird, Woking - 28th September 2025

I'd seen Nerina Pallot before at The Boiler Room and been impressed with her variety of songs, her voice and her easy going manner.

That had been with a small band, but when I saw she was playing at a venue in Woking that I'd never heard of, I decided I'd go and see her again.

The venue turned out to be part of a disused office building (Someone said it was once KFC's regional HQ) and felt a lot like the venue I'd been to in Bracknell to see the Police 3.0 a few months earlier - A big room with a very low stage and a bar area.

I spoke to a friendly man at the 'merch' stand and bought a copy of her covers CD, made up of songs from artists from towns on this tour (disappointingly, she decided against my suggestion of covering A Town Called Malice, but did cover a Paul Weller song).

Disappointingly, for me, I discovered the venue was all seated. I like to move around a bit at gigs (My wife would definitely discourage me from calling it dancing) and being stuck in a hard plastic chair isn't my idea of a good gig, but it was what it was and I found a seat near the front, so I'd have a good view.

The tickets said 7:00PM start (on a Sunday evening), so I assumed Nerina probably wouldn't be on stage until 8:00, so I don't think I was alone in being a little surprised when she appeared at 7:15! Good job I got there early!

Nerina was alone on the stage, with an electronic piano and a couple of guitars and started with a couple of song on an electric guitar, before moving to the keyboard.

Singing unaccompanied by a band, I was even more struck by how good Nerina's voice is.

She has a clarity and a great range.

Another thing I've always liked about her is the variety of her songs, she's not just a ballard singer or a 'rock chick', she even had a 'Randy Newman'esque song (written in a hurry for an advert, she tells us, because "Randy Newman was too expensive!") in You and Me (The Dog Song), laughing that people have said they had this played at their wedding, which made her wonder what they were trying to say...

As in Guildford (where she chatted so much, she was told to hurry up to finish the set), she chatted amiably with the audience, even eliciting some 'news' from the audience (One woman was there alone on her husband's birthday because he 'hates live music' and someone announced the arrival of a nephew).

Before she played "Everybody's Gone To War" she quipped, "I'll play my one hit now and then normal service will be resumed".

At one point, she called the friendly man from the Merch stand up on stage.

He turning out to be her husband who, she told us, has more stage fright than her (despite being an accomplished keyboard player, it transpired) and he accompanied her on Wild Wood, her 'local act' cover for the evening.

There was a brief interlude mid set, while the audience got drinks and Nerina had a costume change, I see this more and more, maybe the audiences at gigs I go to need a pee break mid way!

She ended the set and then returned mere moments later to give us her cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart - Usually I hate covers of that song (Paul Young's emotionless dirge being the worst offender), but Nerina's arrangement is very different, while retaining all the emotion and despair of the original.

If I'm honest, I prefered her gig at the Boiler Room, with the bigger sound of a band and being able to stand up for the performance gave the gig a more energetic, less passive feel, but perhaps that's just a personal preference. I'd have liked to have heard "Alice At The Beach", too, the song that introduced her to me, but as you can see, she covered a lot of her back catalogue and I suspect a lot of those there found her through her earlier material.

If nothing else I discovered two albums from her I'd not heard, "Into The Light of a Dark Black Night" (the covers album) and "A Psalm For Emily Salvi" (released in 2024 and somehow I'd not realised there was a whole album).

Overall, though, another very enjoyable performance by Nerina - She's performing at the Royal Albert Hall next May and I'm still toying with the idea of going, much as I dislike the hassle of going to central London for gigs these days.

Setlist:
These are songs I recall from the gig, the order is definitely wrong, except the encore
Everybody's Gone to War
Put Your Hands Up
I Don’t Know What I’m Doing
Sophia
Idaho
The Right Side (Not 100% sure about this one.)
You and Me (The Dog Song)
Geek Love
Learning to Breathe
Wild Wood (Paul Weller cover)
It Starts
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Real Late Starter
There's a River
Damascus
Bring Him Fire
Daphne and Apollo
Encore:
Love Will Tear Us Apart

Siouxsie & The Budgiees and The Cureheads - Boiler Room, Guildford - 1st August 2025

I used to be snooty about tribute bands, but I've come to recognise that they can be a lot of fun and, even where the original acts from 40 years ago are still touring, sometimes better than the real thing!

So, it was that I bought a (modestly priced, another advantage!) ticket to see two tribute bands (which turned out to be a little less than two, more in a bit) at the Boiler Room in Guildford.

The bands were "Siouxsie and the Budgiees" and "The Cureheads" (tributes to the Banshees and Cure, respectively.

When I arrived at the Boiler Room, I was a little surprised to see a notice saying the event was sold out, but there seemed to be a lot of students in town and it was a Friday evening. Inside, though there were few people at 7:40, so I wandered into the garden and waited for a while.

I came back in a little before 8 and bought myself a pint of Guiness (at an eye-watering £8 - I know it helps support the venue, but bloody hell, that's expensive!) and found myself at the front of the crowd in the still quite empty venue.

Around 8, the band appeared. A couple of middle aged blokes (Phil and Nigel) on guitar and bass, a young drummer (whose name I didn't catch) and a woman, Ceri (probably of similar age to the guitarists, but it was hard to be sure in all the makeup and the wig - She went for an early Siouxsie look!).

They started with Israel, a hit, of course, and mostly played well know Banshee's songs, the musical sound was spot on, sounding exactly as they were played in period, but for me, Ceri's voice just missed sounding right. She can certainly sing, but she didn't sound like Siouxsie to me.

That said, it's hard to replicate a distinctive vocal sound and the songs were great to listen to (the sound was excellent, ever word was audible in the mix, which is rarely the case even for supposedly top flight acts) and everyone was undoubtedly having a good time, despite the heat, me included.

I can't recall the full setlist (and am yet to find one even for another recent gig), but they played Happy House, Christine, Arabian Knights, Wheels On Fire, Hong Kong Garden and other hits, all of which received loud applause and rightly so.

There wasn't an encore (I noticed "Dear Prudence" at the bottom of the setlist on the stage floor, so I guess they ran out of time - There was a bit of a delay with a drum kit malfunction), but after a break, about 9:15, the guitarist, drummer and bassist from the Budgiees appeared! Clearly, there was a degree (!) of overlap in these two bands.

For a while, I wondered if (in all the Robert Smith makeup), we might have Ceri back, but it was a different singer, Rabbit Schmidt (according to Wikipedia!).

I'd been impressed with the band's accuracy of Banshees sound, so it was great to hear that they sounded just as accurate playing The Cure tracks.

Of course, for talented musicians, the difficult bit of being a tribute band is getting the vocal sound to sound like the original and they definitely did this better than Ceri had managed, at least to my ears.

I have to be honest and say that I'm not a hardcore Cure fan and there were a lot of songs I didn't recognise at all, but they were (mostly) enjoyable and all performed excellently. The singer did quip a few times that if you'd come with a 'mad Cure fan', you'd recognise the next song.

The ones I was more familiar with included Lullaby, In Between Days, Just Like Heaven, Let's Go to Bed and the twon in the encore, Friday I'm In Love and Boys Don't Cry.

The familiar songs were great and sounded very much like the originals to me, allowing for them being played live.

Overall, it had been a great night. Both bands (or versions of the band) were excellent musicians and they performed the tracks with skill and energy, rewarded by a packed house of enthusiastic gig-goers of very mixed ages (some were around when these bands were the new kids on the block, but some, like 3 probably teenage girls in goth getup in front of me, were definitely not even a twinkle in their parent's eyes in the early 1980s).

It was very hot (not quite as bad as when I'd seen The Beat a couple of years before, but I don't think I'd sweated as much since then!), but I'd only ventured away from the front of the packed crowd after the Cureheads main set finished and went home very happy with my night out.

A great night out for anyone who likes Siouxsie and the Banshees or The Cure.

Setlist:
Siouxsie and the Budgiees
TBC

The Cureheads - From another gig, but close
Plainsong
Pictures of You
Play For Today
A Strange Day
Torture
A Night Like This
Push
Lullaby
The Walk
Let's Go to Bed
Last Dance
Kyoto Song
In Between Days
Just Like Heaven
A Forest
Encore:
Friday I'm in Love
Boys Don't Cry

St Vincent - O2 Academy, Bournemouth - 30th June 2025

St Vincent (or more accurately Annie Clark) is not a woman who you can easily categorise - You never know what she will do next.

With every album there's a new style/image and sometimes the shift is quite dramatic.

I'd seen her before, on the Daddy's Home tour, where the style was quite 70s and mellow.

They had been at Glastonbury the day before this gig, so I had an idea that this was going to be a hard-rock St Vincent and so it proved to be.

I arrived just before 8 to see one of two support acts just finishing, but I saw so little of their performance I can't really comment on it.

About 8:30, the expected support act, Cult oF Venus, arrived. This is just one woman with a flowing grey gown (a bit like a wraith!), long blonde hair and a box of electrics (which reminded me of the support act for Nouvelle Vague) although she also had an electric guitar.

Her sound was predominantly electronic and she was quite enjoyable, albeit rather etherial and the vocals were a bit lost in the mix (a near universal flaw with support acts!).

Some of the songs were quite melodic and she seemed to have a great voice, but then she'd tweak something on the box and there would be a discordant jar in the music - Odd, but interesting.

She got a good reception and deserved the loud applause when she finished.

We then had a prolonged wait for St Vincent, to the point at which people started slow clapping and whistling no doubt prompted by the fact that it was getting very hot in the venue, despite effective air con, but when the band did appear, at 9:30, that was quickly forgotten.

The tour was in support of the most recent album, All Born Screaming, so obviously we got a number of tracks from that, including the opener, Reckless.

This set the tone, Annie, wearing a grey jacket and shorts, over tights, with shoulder length black hair (rather than the odd blonde wig(?) of the previous tour) and her guitarist played with lots of thrashing and distortion, not heavy metal, but certainly on the loud end of rock.

"Fear the Future" (From her 'Masseduction' album) followed and then, possibly her best known song, "Los Ageless" (a great song and undoubtedly my favourite of hers) from the same album.

The stage looked bigger than I recall it from previous (many) visits to 'The Academy' (it was a nightclub of that name in my late teens/early twenties, so I've known it for many years), with a drummer to the rear right and a keyboardist to the left, and the guitarist and bass guitarist flanking Annie.

We then got another track from the latest album, "Broken Man" and then "Dilettante" during which she forgot to the lyrics and sang/spoke them for a verse, before the band joined in again for the rest of the song.

Another old favourite, "Birth in Reverse" and then "Pay Your Way in Pain", followed by "Flea" and "Big Time Nothing" from the latest album, sandwiching "Cheerleader".

At some point, I forget exactly when, Annie attempted to crowdsurf over the audience, but it seemed those in the front misunderstood her intention and they let her crash to the floor! She seemed ok, although jokingly pretended to have injured her back later on ("At least you have the NHS here").

She seemed pretty relaxed and convivial between tracks, probably talking more than most would have liked (perhaps we could have had another song or two), but it did make her seem a likeable performer, although in one manic moment, she hurled a cymbal stand from the drumkit into the crowd (this was more deftly handled than her, though, being caught by a couple of people before it could make substantial contact), so perhaps she was still a bit miffed about them dropping her!

"Marrow" from an earlier album, "Actor" followed and then "Violent Times" from the new album, which was a bit of a variation in tempo from the rest of the gig and excellent.

Another popular track, "New York" followed and then we had "Sugarboy" and a dramatic finale rendition of "All Born Screaming", the title track from the tour album.

By now we were close to the 11 O'clock curfew, but they came back for one more song, a stripped back "Candy Darling", demonstrating Annie's excellent singing voice after the loud and brash performance of most of the gig, although it had been apparent on some tracks.

Overall, the gig was, I expected, totally different to the last time I saw them. Noisy, thrashy, distorted guitars, even on the older tracks, but it was exciting and energy packed.

As on my first visit to see her, I'd worried that I may not like the performance after the Glastonbury coverage, but again, live, in a small venue, they were great and I'd happily go and see her a third time, if only to see the direction she takes next.

Definitely an imaginative, talented, artistic performer, but one who can put on a show that leaves you energised, entertained and excited.

Brilliant stuff from her and the band.

#stvincent

Setlist:
Reckless
Fear the Future
Los Ageless
Broken Man
Dilettante(Forgot lyrics of second verse)
Birth in Reverse
Pay Your Way in Pain
Flea
Cheerleader
Big Time Nothing
Marrow
Violent Times
New York
Sugarboy
All Born Screaming
Encore:
Candy Darling

The Police 3.0 - Acoustic Couch, Bracknell - 27th June 2025

Once upon a time, I was a huge Police fan.

I never really stopped liking them (and enjoyed Sting's solo stuff in the main), but somehow they dropped off my musical radar for a long while.

Recently, though, I spotted that a Police (and Sting) tribute band were playing in a venue near me, one I'd not been to before. The price was right, so I went along.

I hadn't been to Bracknell for decades, even though it is only about 15 miles from my home and I used to work there for many years - It was pretty unrecognisable to me and I had to use Google Maps to navigate the extensive shopping centre to reach what claimed to be the location of the venue.

All I could see was a very non-descript door, that looked like the outside of a fire exit from a shop or access to a machinery room, but a man standing outside asked if I was looking for the music venue and pointed at the door when I said I was.

Inside the venue is very basic, a large stage area at floor level dominates one end of the room, with a dance floor in front of it and seats and tables (some upturned cable drums) are around it. On the left, as you look at the stage, there was a reasonably large bar area, with very reasonably priced beer (£4 for a pint bottle of Doombar).

I'd arrived about 8:15, so had a half hour wait for the band to appear. I was stood by a pillar and didn't notice, but behind me the venue had filled up reasonably well, with probably 100-150 people by the time the 3 band members made their way onto the stage.

Thankfully (in my view), the 3 men make no effort to pretend to be 'The Police', just concentrating on playing the music.

I'm not a musically trained person, but the tunes sounded pretty decently played. The vocals were a little mixed, though, some sounding very Sting-like, others much less so.

I think 'mixed' is a good summation of the performance, some tracks (especially the more energetic, older ones) captured the spirit and energy of the originals while a few missed the mark.

They started with a Sting solo song, "If I Ever Lose my Faith in You" and then followed it with the Police hit "Message in a Bottle", which got a loud applause.

Most of the songs were singles (the gig was advertised as "The greatest hits of The Police and Sting", so fair enough) and of course, everyone knew them.

Some songs, "Walking on the Moon", "An Englishman in New York" (possibly the highlight for me), "Roxanne", "Wrapped Around Your Finger" and "De Do Do" (a song I never liked) were really well performed and got a fantastic response.

I also particularly liked "King Of Pain".

A couple of songs fell a bit short, for me "Fields of Gold" and "Don't Stand So Close" particularly, but overall the songs were well performed and captured the energy well.

The sound wasn't great where I stood. Whether I picked a poor spot, they'd not done a great soundcheck or the venue's solid concrete walls, floors and ceilings don't help, I can't say. It wasn't so bad that the tunes weren't easily recognised, but the vocals were sometimes lost and some harsher notes seemed to dominate on some songs.

The band, though, were likeable and the gig had a very 'feel-good' atmosphere, with people clearly enjoying themselves.

The crowd wanted more and they came back for a last song "Next To You".

For a modest outlay, the Police 3.0 are well worth going along to see if you like the Police and/or Sting and I will keep an eye on the venue's website for future gigs.

Setlist:
If I Ever Lose My Faith In You
Message In A Bottle
Synchronicity II
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
(Spirits in the Material World)
Walking On The Moon
It’s Probably Me
Can't Stand Losing You
De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da
Don't Stand So Close to Me
So Lonely
King of Pain
Driven to Tears
Wrapped Around Your Finger
Seven Days
Fields Of Gold
Every Breath You Take
Englishman In New York
Roxanne
Bring On The Night
ENCORE
Next To You
Setlist Courtesy of Police 3.0

Johnny Marr - 1865, Southampton - 19th June 2025

I can't pretend I was ever a great Smiths fan in period - I found Morrisey a bit of a tit (waving his gladiolis around, his fake hearing aid and his droning voice) and time has only soured me on him further, but I have come to appreciate Johnny Marr's contribution to the sound of the Smiths and also to Electronic, the New Order/Smiths spin off, and so it was that I found myself back at 1865 less than a week after seeing Heaven 17 there

Like Heaven 17, there was no support and I think this, too, was a pre-Festival season 'test' gig.

The schedule said the band would be on stage at 8, but it was about 8:15 (not too bad) before the 4 musicians appeared.

I'm guessing Johnny Marr dyes his black hair these days, but he still looks trim and fit.

I didn't expect to recognise many of the songs, having scanned back through previous setlists and never, to my knowledge, having heard any solo material.

That didn't really matter, though, as the songs performed where energetic rock performed with vigour and instantly catchy.

He started with a solo track "Generate! Generate!" and then a less well known Smiths track, "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before" before some more solo material including a couple of new songs, which sounded good and fitted the set well.

He then said "I'm going to play another new one" and we got the opening chords of "This Charming Man" to a roar of appreciation from the crowd, who I suspect were mostly Smiths fans, although quite a few obviously knew many of the solo tracks.

The set continued with a mix of solo and Smiths' tracks, all being greeted enthusiastically, but the latter far more so.

The sound, if I'm honest, wasn't the best, certainly not as clear as Heaven 17 had been the previous week and very loud (writing this the following morning, my ears are still ringing and muffled), which probably didn't help. I was probably about 6 or 7 rows back, further than I'd been at Heaven 17.

That said, the overall effect was energy packed and feel-good and all the songs were well performed and fitted together well. Overall, it was a 'rockier' set than I'd expected, but certainly enjoyable.

The set ended on "How Soon Is Now?" and "Getting Away With It" (the only Electronic song, which was a bit of a disappointment for me).

Obviously, we had the charade of them leaving the stage, although I'm sure a drink was needed, the venue's air conditioning was doing a good job on a very hot evening, but even so it was sticky in the audience and I'm sure not much better on stage.

The first song of the encore was an excellent cover of Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" and then he rounded out with The Smiths' hit "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out".

Marr commented a few times that this was the first gig in a while, but it didn't really show in any rustiness (perhaps it was apparent in the energy?) and I definitely left feeling glad I'd come along to see an artist who I may well not have considered before.

Most of the audience, though, were diehard fans and probably would have cheered as loudly if the gig had been awful.

Setlist:
Generate! Generate!
Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before (The Smiths song)
Armatopia
Hi Hello
Spirit Power and Soul
Bring On the Noise (Live Debut)
How Come (Live Debut)
This Charming Man (The Smiths song)
Somewhere
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want (The Smiths song)
Down on the Corner (Johnny Marr + The Healers song)
Panic(The Smiths song)
Walk Into the Sea
Bigmouth Strikes Again (The Smiths song)
Easy Money
How Soon Is Now? (The Smiths song)
Getting Away With It (Electronic song)
Encore:
The Passenger (Iggy Pop cover)
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (The Smiths song)
#JohnnyMarr #TheSmiths #electronictheband #NewOrder

Heaven 17 - 1865, Southampton - 13th June 2025

About halfway through the first song, the instruments all died!

I was back at the 1865 for the second time to see a band I've listened to for 40+ years and who I've seen a couple of times before, but not for 13 years - My last time was in Bournemouth in 2012.

However, I kept seeing reviews saying how good Heaven 17 were in recent gigs and when I saw they were playing a 'pre-Festival' gig at the 1865 (where I'd enjoyed seeing Nouvelle Vague) I snapped up a ticket.

There was no support (rarely a loss) and the schedule said Heaven 17 would be on stage at 8:30PM.

I arrived about 45 minutes earlier, treated myself to a decent pint of beer at pub prices (If only more venues offered this option!) and found myself a few rows back from the stage with a decent view.

As the 8:30 'on stage' time drew nearer the venue filled up and, while I can't say for certain, it looked near capacity to me.

At 8:30 sharp, 3 women appeared and took their places, one behind a large keyboard setup at the rear of the stage and the other two behind microphones to the right (from our viewpoint).

A few moments later a man in a silver suit and a glittery fedora appeared, followed by a taller man in a baseball cap. Obviously most of the audience recognised them as Martyn Ware and Glenn Gregory respectively.

Martyn doesn't look that healthy, if I'm honest, despite only being 2 years older than Glenn, who looked quite good, despite the long departure of that mop of golden hair that once was as much part of his persona as his voice.

However, Martyn has always been the background maestro of Heaven 17 (and BEF and the Human League!) and Glenn very much the 'front man'.

Quickly the beats started and I recognised a favourite of mine, "Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry".

Things were going well, Glenn's voice sounded strong, the music was hard to resist moving to (but few seemed to fighting the urge anyway) and then Glenn and the backing vocalists were signing acapella, accompanied by much of the audience.

I (and I'm sure much of the audience) thought this was deliberate, but then Glenn stopped singing well before the end ofthe song.

It seemed the master sound console had 'died' - Not a great start, were we going to get half a song for making the trip?

Luckily not, a few minutes of fiddling upstairs, while Glenn chatted with the audience and the keyboards came back and then the vocalists were singing into their mics and audible and then so was Glenn.

Sadly, they gave up on "Crushed..." and moved onto their next song in the set, although few complained as it was "Fascist Groove Thang" and the glitch was forgotten.

Glenn talked a lot between songs (by his own admission), but we got a set full of old favourites (most were from the first couple of albums), which was probably to be expected and suited a Friday night audience familiar with the band and keen to enjoy themselves.

The set seemed quite 'front loaded' with many of their best known songs early on.

We had "Play To Win", "Geisha Boys and Temple Girls" (with an explanation that it was about going out in Sheffield!), "Come Live With Me" and "We Live So Fast".

As at Bournemouth all those years ago, Glenn and Martyn performed "You've lost that loving feeling" as a duo, something Martyn and Phil Oakey did in their Human League days. I could probably have done without that, to be honest, but it seems to be a bit of a 'party trick' for the duo.

After that, we had lesser known tracks "This is Mine", "And That's No Lie" and "I'm Your Money" and then the main set rounded out with "Let Me Go", a very energetic performance of "Penthouse and Pavement" (possibly my favourite H17 track) and then the inevitable "Temptation".

I'd have to say the female vocalist on this wasn't as good as the one had been in Bournemouth and it's not my favourite track, but the crowd loved it and it was energetic.

Glenn said they'd be back if we made some noise, to which the crowd loudly roared and Glenn joked "Not that much noise!"

The encore was 3 covers, sort of.

The keyboard player and Glenn returned first, to perform a slowed version of The Associates "Party Fears Too" in honour of Billy Mackenzie along with the revelation that Billy had given Glenn a whippet!

This was followed by a lively rendition of Bowie's "Let's Dance" and finally "Being Boiled", a song from Martyn's time with the Human League.

The audience loudly cheered and applauded and the lights came up.

So, had they still got it? Definitely! Glenn sounded good and, no doubt, the electronic nature of the music ensures that aspect doesn't disappoint.

An energetic, lively performance, enhanced by an enthusiastic audience meant this was a great night out.

#heaven17

Setlist:
Crushed by the Wheels of Industry
(We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang
Play to Win
Geisha Boys and Temple Girls
Come Live With Me
We Live So Fast
You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'
This Is Mine
And That's No Lie
I'm Your Money
Let Me Go
Penthouse and Pavement
Temptation
Encore:
Party Fears Too (Associates cover)
Let's Dance (David Bowie cover)
Being Boiled (The Human League cover)

Martin Fry - The Barn, Ringwood - 28th May 2025

I'd never been to a 'book tour' event before, but the promise of some music between the chat from Martin Fry, front man of ABC, tempted me

We were told there were to be no phones or cameras at the event, so I have no images or video from the performance, but as I couldn't find any reviews before I went I thought I'd post one.

I booked the event at a venue in Ringwood, a town I know fairly well, but had never seen a gig at. Frustratingly, a week or so after booking, I saw he was also appearing in my home town, which would have saved me some petrol!

The venue itself is part of a school (We'd have called it the Assembly Hall in my day, but it's a bit fancier than that). I was a few rows back, but the angle of the seating meant everyone had a clear view of the stage.

As we waited, clips from various videos throughout ABC's career played over an instrumental medley of ABC tracks - It was quite slick.

As you can see, a keyboard and guitar were setup to the left of the stage, with a leather stool centre stage and a comfy armchair and another chair to the right.

At 7:30 (this was no music gig timetable!), the keyboard player and guitarist quietly appeared and took their places and then the lights went down and a voice asked us to welcome Martin Fry to the stage.

Mr Fry is now 67, but is still looking fit and trim, unlike some of his contemporaries.

I forget now if they started with a song or did some chatting first, but he did all the songs from the stool and chatted from the red armchair, where he was interviewed by a bespectacled man.

We got ABC's first single "Tears Are Not Enough", "Poison Arrow" and "All Of My Heart" from "The Lexicon Of Love", their iconic debut album, along with reminiscences of recording the album and the early days of the band.

Martin talked of their initial gigs in the UK and then touring around the world on the strength of the album and then coming back to Sheffield and the stark contrast that provided to their glamourous hotels and sights around the world, which impacted the style of their (difficult) second album, "Beauty Stab" - I'll admit it was a bit of a disappointment to me when it was released and didn't get played much, but it stands up better on relistening now, without the expectation of more of the same as "Lexicon".

They played "That Was Then But This Is Now" from that album and "(How to Be a) Millionaire" and "Be Near Me" from Zillionaire, which was a spell of greater success in the States for the band.

Martin then talked about his cancer and subsequent recovery, which fell between that and what I think is their second best album, "Alphabet Street", from which we got the famous "When Smokey Sings", the song that bought them back into the mainstream in the UK. Sadly we didn't get "King Without A Crown", one of my favourite ABC tracks.

A funny anecdote about Lady Gaga at the Royal Variety performance followed, along with some recollections of working with Hollywood and a significant missed opportunity to do so and then we had "Viva Love" from the "Lexicon of Love II" (Interestingly he mentioned it started life with the title "Lexicon of Lost Ideals", which might have lessened the burden of expectation the final title gave it) and a new song, "Never get to be the King" before the set rounded out with what Martin described as his signature song, "The Look Of Love".

Someone did video Look Of Love at another event on the tour

After a prolonged applause, Martin said that "It's all about the songs. The ones that changed the world like "What's Going On" and "Blowing in the Wind", but also about the ones you hear once and can never get out of his head and I'm going to pretend I wrote this one" and then performed the chorus of "Escape" by Rupert Holmes.

Sitting down the experience was quite passive, a dislike I have of all seated gigs generally, but in the context of an "Intimate Evening with..." it was acceptable - I've not been to see ABC for some years now, because all their gigs (with a full orchestra) are all seated, which I think is a shame and I wish Martin would tour with a more stripped back lineup again, although I'm sure the orchestral format is more lucrative.

I had no real expectation of the evening, imagining that it'd be a lot of chatting with a handful of songs, so the balance was a pleasant surprise and Martin's voice has held up well (As he mentioned at one point, there is 'nowhere to hide' in an acoustic gig) and I came away pleased I'd come along. #ABCMartinFry

Setlist:
Tears Are Not Enough
Poison Arrow
All of My Heart
That Was Then but This Is Now
(How to Be a) Millionaire
Be Near Me
When Smokey Sings
The Luckiest Man in the World
Viva Love
Never get to be the King
The Look of Love (Part One)
Pina Colada (Escape) - Rupert Holmes Cover

Skinny Lister - The Fighting Cocks, Kingston - 13th May 2025

"I tell people you're the most exciting live band out there today."

This is what I told Lorna of Skinny Lister I say to people about Skinny Lister, as we had a quick chat before the gig.

I first saw them at the West End Centre in Aldershot, where they literally burst onto the stage with the first note of their set and blew me away with the rest of it.

I've seen them since, but due to their relentless touring and recording schedule, recent gigs have nearly all been in the depths of December (It's the same again this year!), so when I saw they were doing an 'album launch' gig in Kingston (for Banquet Records) the day before my birthday with a CD copy of their new album included for just £16, it was a very easy decision to book a ticket as soon as they were available.

I had expected the gig to be at Pryzm, the nightclub/venue I'd seen all the other Banquet run events at, but this was just around the corner in the pub/venue called The Fighting Cocks.

I found the venue easily enough and there was virtually no-one there when I arrived, so I went back to the main bar, where the variety of beers was better, and purchased an excellent Stout.

The venue almost certainly counts as the smallest I've ever been to, making even the West End Centre seem capacious by comparison.

An email had arrived the previous day to say there was an 'issue' with their support and another followed early in the day to say "Man The Lifeboats" where the support - The presence of a support at all marked this out as unusual amongst the 'album release' events I'd attended, none of the others had one.

Two men appeared, one with a guitar and the other an accordian and they described themselves as "two-fifths of Man The Lifeboats" and started their set.

They are not dissimilar in style to Skinny Lister, 'Shanty Punk' being a term the Lister's termed but could equally apply to MTL.

They were lively, entertaining and quite humourous between songs. "We make a bigger noise with a drummer and two more members, but we go out of time a lot more, so this is probably as good as you'll ever hear us", the guitarist quipped after one song.

We even had an impromptu cèilidh at one point, stepping forward and back and clapping, although due to my location, I quickly gave up as I was mainly stepping on people sitting by the wall's feet!

An enjoyable 40 minutes or so passed with Man The Lifeboats, but, of course, we were here for the main event.

By 9PM, the venue was packed and it was feeling pretty hot inside, but that didn't stop the energy or enthusiasm of Skinny Lister or the audience, an interesting mix of 60 somethings and 20 somethings on the whole, all of who seemed to know at least most of the songs.

They started with a couple of songs from the new album, which I'd heard, "Yorkshire Belle", "Plough On", "Set Us Straight" (I hadn't heard that one before) and "Song From The Yonder" (the title track).

Then we had "Wanted", "Bristol Bound" (another new, very catchy, track) and then old favourites "George's Glass", "Tragedy in A Minor", "Unto The Breach", "Mantra" (better live than on the previous album, I felt), "13 Miles" (a great song) and numerous others definitely finishing out the 'official' set on "Rollin' Over", "Colours", "Cathy", "Company of the Bar" and "Trouble on Oxford Street" (their most famous song, perhaps and an energy packed one to finish on.

Lorna then, rather academically, asked if we were in a rush to leave and of course, got a resounding "NO!" and we had two more songs, one of which was a request from the crowd and a young man and woman picked from the crowd came up and joined in (The same happened with a woman who clearly didn't know the words to 'her' song earlier and for a bride to be, who did, for Forty Pound Wedding in the main set - hence the list below isn't 100% right for this venue) for Six Whiskies to end on.

With that it was nearing 10:30PM and as we left, we were presented with our signed copies (a really nice touch, which I hadn't expected) of the album in whichever format we had chosen.

So, were Skinny Lister still "The most exciting live band out there today"? It's a bold claim, but I struggle to think of a band who can so instantly engage an audience and deliver such an energy packed set from end to end, so prove me wrong!

Setlist: (From a different night, but close)
Yorkshire Belle
Plough On
Set Us Straight
Song From the Yonder
Wanted
Bristol Bound
George's Glass
Tragedy in A Minor
Unto the Breach
Mantra
13 Miles
Arm Wrestling in Dresden
Bold as Brass
John Kanaka ([traditional] cover)
Rollin' Over
Colours
Cathy
Company of the Bar
Trouble on Oxford Street
Encore:(more of a continuation really!)
Hamburg Drunk
Six Whiskies
#SkinnyLister

Tracey Thorn & Ben Watt - MOTH club, Hackney- 7th April 2025

The gig they said would never happen.

First a disclaimer/acknowledgement - Everyone had to put a sticker over the lens on their camera, so none of these photographs are my own, but were all shared on the Everything But The Girl facebook group.

Ben and Tracey are famous as Everything But The Girl, as well as having a prodigious solo catalogue each, but for years Tracey hasn't sung in public, citing stage fright in numerous books and articles.

I had seen, and enjoyed, Ben live in Guildford some years before, but noted then that I would love to hear Tracey sing, but it seemed it would never happen.

So, it was with great excitement that I read they were doing two small venue gigs in Hackney and I tried to get a ticket, but failed.

For a few days I thought nothing of it and then an email arrived offering me one from the waitlist and I eagerly purchased it.

As the day drew near, I seriously considered putting my ticket back on the waitlist. There was no way I could get back from Hackney in time to catch a train home, so I had the added expense of a hotel to pay for, but in the end I decided that I'd wanted to hear Tracey Thorn sing for so long, that it was worth a bit of money.

And so it was that I found myself in Hackney on a warm April evening. Hackney, if you don't know it, is not the loveliest part of London and the MOTH club is a pretty horrible place by the standards of Hackney.

Why the duo chose it, besides (I suspect) being local and a small venue as they wanted, is hard for me to fathom.

We all had to sit on hard, uncomfortable chairs, like a school assembly (the chap next to me quipped that it was worse as we'd paid for this!), except for some people stood at the back and, as it filled up, in the aisles between the chairs and some booths reserved for guests along each side, who obscured the view for others. It seemed the venue was too small for the tickets they'd sold - Why couldn't the majority stand in such a tiny venue?

Whatever the reasoning, and I'm sure there was one, we were there for the second of two gigs here.

People had raved about the first one, but I suspect many of those people would have raved about Ben and Tracey sitting there in silence, such is the fervour of EBTG fans, I find.

I'm a fan, undoubtedly, but a more muted one - I don't play one of their albums every day or even every month, my life isn't measured out in EBTG releases, I didn't play one of their tracks at my wedding and I don't imagine I will ask for one at my funeral. I like their music and I think Tracey has a great voice, but would it still be great, live, all these years on?

We didn't have to wait too long, as they started their set at about 8:05 with the first EBTG song, Night and Day. Not a favourite of mine, if I'm honest, I'd have prefered Each and Every One, but a logical place to start, I guess (in the absence of Marine Girls songs in the set), a retrospective of Ben and Tracey's solo and combined output.

Someone commented there hadn't been much chat between the tracks on the first evening, but there was a reasonable amount on the Monday and Tracey explained that they'd wanted to include songs from both their back catalogues as well as their combined work and to include songs that they'd rarely, if ever, performed live. It was certainly (as billed) a personal and intimate performance and why not? It was, to a great extent, an experiment, especially for Tracey, to see if she could overcome those much recorded fears of performing in front of an audience again.

So, here we go. Has her voice lasted? Was it worth the hassle and discomfort of sitting on those hard seats, having red wine spilt on me by people in the aisle (to be fair, the young woman who did it did buy me a drink to apologise and I suspect the overcrowding was as much to blame as her), in a grotty working men's club in a run down part of London?

Short answer. Yes.

Much has been written, by herself included, of Tracey's voice becoming deeper as she's grown older, but I'm not sure the difference is dramatic. Maybe there are some high notes she no longer aims for, but they weren't apparent in the songs they chose (including for that reason perhaps).

Next up was "No Difference", which was a song I like, followed by "Mine", which I didn't recognise and appears to have only been a single release.

Next up was a relatively recent song from Ben's back catalogue, "Hendra", the title track from his last solo album (I seem to recall it's about his sister). I saw Ben perform at The Boiler Room in Guildford back in 2017 and was impressed then by his voice and I was again on the songs he sang here. Tracey's voice is so distinctive and so much a part of the iconic sound of EBTG that Ben's vocal quality tends to be forgotten or, at least, overshadowed, but he's a great singer.

Tracey then told us that the first germ of the idea of trying to perform in public again was sown at a gig to see a singer called Bridget St John, someone she had been compared to in an early review, and performed one of her songs "Song To Keep You Company".

Ben and Tracey were joined on stage by their son, Blake, and Rex Horan (who'd been with Ben in Guildford) and Blake took the lead on a song by someone called Adrienne Lenker next.

"Smoke" (from Tracey's Record album) and "Winter's Eve", another Ben song, about getting through tough times to better ones with the line "There's still so much I want to do" featuring strongly and Ben remarked that he'd been quite ill again recently, but was through it and so grateful and happy to be performing as a duo again. It was obivously a very poignant lyric for him and we felt that.

The first set ended with a classic EBTG song, Single, with the lines "Am I Coming Back?" and "Do you want me back?", which must have struck a chord with Tracey in the lead up to these gigs.

There was a 20 minute or so break and then the quartet were back for another 9 songs.

The first was a Charli XCX song, "I Might Say Something Stupid". Tracey has written that she's a big fan of Charli XCX, but it's not a liking we share, but I was just enjoying hearing her sing live.

I'd expected some songs from last year's album, Fuse, and next up was probably my favourite of what I think is a rather patchy album, if I'm honest (Tracey's solo "Record" strikes me as far stronger) "Run A Red Light" which seems to be about doing something reckless and deal with the consequences afterwards, maybe another lyric relevant to the event.

"Frost and Fire" was, I think, a highlight of the evening, with Tracey's voice seeming especially strong and confident, maybe the song just lends itself to that, but it was a favourite on the night.

Ben sang "North Marine Drive" and Tracey "Small Town Girl" and then Blake performed one of his songs, "Removed", with his mum on backing vocals to their obvious pride.

Ben's song "Irene" was next before they ended the set on two EBTG favourites, "Downhill Racer" and "Mirrorball" - which were enthusiastically applauded as they left the stage.

Of course, we had a slight pause and they returned to give us another song from Fuse, "Nothing Left To Lose" and finally "25th December", an odd choice for an April gig, perhaps, but a great song and when is the 'right' time to perform it unless you play a December gig?

They finally posed for us to take some farewell memory photos, but by the time I had a view unfettered by everyone else's cameras, they were leaving the stage, so here's someone else's shot!

So, was it worth the hassle and the cost of a hotel and a train into London and back? When the tickets were announced people were saying they'd fly from South America to be there, so for some easily.

For me, yes. Tracey's voice is still great, I was reminded of how good Ben is and Rex and Blake provided excellent support.

It did, as some other reviewers have said, feel a bit like we were sitting with them while they jammed in private and that was nice. Even the lack of cameras added an intimacy to the event, no doubt their intent.

It obviously worked for Tracey, too, as they've already said they will be back at the MOTH club again "soon".

I won't (one visit to the MOTH club and Hackney for that matter is enough for me), but if they play a better venue, easier for me to get to, I'd love to see them again.

If not this will be "The night I heard Tracey Thorn Sing"

#EBTG #TraceyThorn #BenWatt #EverythingButTheGirl