Catlea (& support) -West End Centre, Aldershot - 24th April 2026

There was a long spell before I saw my next live music, although I had managed to book a manic trio of weekends in June and July!

Feeling that I could do with the enjoyment of a live gig after a winter of none, I browsed my local venues and discovered Catlea was playing at the West End Centre in nearby Aldershot and, better yet, the tickets were just a fiver!

I did a bit of trawling on YouTube and decided she sounded interesting enough to risk that much money.

It was a pleasantly warm evening as I made my way to the venue, which features a tiny hall.

The ticket said it started at 8 and around half past, I heard activity from the hall.

I went in and saw a huge man with a microphone and three other, regular sized men, with some instruments.

Sadly, though, this support act turned out to be a rap performer and, while I'm quite catholic in my musical tastes these days, after two tracks, I knew this wasn't for me, so I adjourned to the bar and treated myself to a nice cloudy IPA...

After a while, they finished and so I returned to the hall and after a short while a group of people arrived.

This was 'Indi', which some research suggests is India Brown, the singer, and a group of musicians making up the rest of the band, including a saxophonist, which is not something you often see.

They made a pleasant sound, India has a good voice and is very photogenic, suggesting she could be destined for big things, although some of the band seemed to be concentrating very hard on playing their instruments, as if they weren't fully comfortable with them.

They started with a song called "Taxi in Mumbai" and then went through a number of catchy, songs, some upbeat, some more ballad-y.

I enjoyed them and so did most of the people there, it seemed, as there were calls for them to play another song, but I guess they either didn't have time or any other material!

By now it was past 9PM, so I assumed the next act would be Catlea, the headliner, but no...

A group of a drummer, a woman with a bass and two young lads (Yes, I'm getting old, but they looked like teenagers!) ventured onto the stage and made a very loud noise.

My first reaction was to head to the bar and have another IPA, but I decided they deservered a second chance and they did get better. Not all their songs were more than noise, but they were all better than the first and, if I'm honest, I actually enjoyed at least half of them. A little bit 2000s US punk/grunge, I guess (so not really my thing), but they were not the worst support I've seen and heard. I didn't catch a band name, though.

Finally, at God only knows what time, but after 10PM, Catlea took the stage. I was a bit surprised to see the previous bands' drummer again, but why not, everyone seemed to be friends.

However, as it had got later and later, by the time the supposed headliner arrived, there was about 30 people left and within a couple of songs, there was about 20, at least half made up of the Wookie Rapper and his band and some hangers on, who Catlea clearly knew.

It was a most bizarre experience to be one of the very few people there who weren't 'with the band'!

And that was a shame, because goth looking, but soflty spoken, American, Catlea, her boyfriend and a basist and that drummer were pretty good.

I recognised a couple of songs from my YouTube trawling, but most were pretty good and she has a pleasant voice.

A website says of Catlea (today featuring purple hair, shaved on one side of her face and long on the other), "Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Catlea's musical style covers an eclectic spectrum from alt-indie to rock, to pop and EDM. The alt-indie singer's vocals range from angelic to raw and powerful." I'd say that was a fair description of what we got.

On this occasion, though, she didn't play any instruments, just standing front and centre and sang, while her 3 bandmates provided a distinctly alt-indie rock sound.

Sadly, by the end, the friends were a bit pissed and their interaction with the band started to distract from the performance.

The gig felt a bit shambolic by the end, but what can you expect for a fiver?

I was surprised that so many people left even before Catlea came on, but maybe people had simply been tempted out by a cheap Friday night gig and felt they'd had enough by the late hour they finally took to the stage.

I'd say both Indi and Catlea were worth checking out on YouTube and going to see if they're in your area for a such a ridiculously cheap price.

No setlist, things were too chaotic.

The Slow Readers Club - Assembly Hall, Islington - 6th December 2025

I'll admit, I'd never heard of The Slow Readers Club until a few months ago

Someone on a forum recommended them to me as I was singing the praises of Editors, one of my favourite bands to see live.

I had a listen to some of their tracks online and could see similarities and, more importantly, I liked what I heard.

I also spotted they were appearing in London in December, a month where I had no other gigs lined up, so, despite some misgivings about the reliability of the trains for going to gigs in London (after a few years of industrial disputes and over-running maintenance), I bought a ticket.

The gig was at the Assembly Hall in Islington, a venue I thought was new to me, until I remembered that Lauren and I had seen Sara Bareilles there back in 2014.

The audience tonight was very different from the mostly 20 something women from that gig, formed mostly of middle aged men and a fair number of women of similar ages.

It turns out that The Slow Readers Club were formed in Manchester in the 2010s (from the remnants of a band called Omerta, who I had vaguely heard of) and had a bit of a following, but no real commercial success until the launch, in 2015, of the album 'Cavalcade'.

The gig tonight was part of a short tour to celebrate the 10th anniversary of that album's release and I'd had another listen to it and some other albums by them before coming along, in the hope I'd recognise a few tracks.

First off, we got a support act, Cheap Thrills, an indie rock band from Liverpool, who were energetic and enjoyable enough to get the crowd in the mood. A decent support act, definitely, helped, no doubt, by a good sound balance.

After a break of 30 minutes or so, as Cheap Thrills' equipment was removed, the lights dimmed and a set of light panels at the back of the stage lit up. It all looked quite slick and professional, a bit of a surprise to me, if I'm honest.

The performance took the form of two sets, separated by a very short break, with the first being the full album "Cavalcade" performed in order and the second a selection of other tracks from other albums from their back catalogue, the most recent released this year.

The quality of the sound balance continued for The Slow Readers Club, with the distinctive vocal being nice and clear above the music.

The lead singer, Aaron Starkie, has a very distinctive voice, able to sing very high notes and low ones, often within a single line of a song.

That might sound a bit gimmicky (or, God forbid, bring images of Maria Carey to mind), but it's actually really good and (in my experience) a unique sound.

Cavalcade is a good electro-indie album with a number of very strong tracks and, of course, some not quite so strong ones.

Luckily, the first 5 tracks, at least, are in the former category and the band rattled through them very well.

Those panels displayed graphics and sometimes video during each song and gave the whole performance a professional sheen.

Musically and vocally, the live sound was very like the recorded one, but not in the sterile way a few bands are (I recall really not enjoying a gig by Spandau Ballet back in the 80s, because they delivered such a performance live).

One or two of the later tracks from the album weren't as immediate, but by then we were all into the album and tracks like "Fool For Your Philosophy" and "Secrets" were still good to hear.

With the end of "Know the Day Will Come", the band left the stage, but the lights remained dimmed and the panels illuminated again about 5 minutes later.

The second set consisted of tracks from other albums, ranging from their earliest, released in 2011, through the most recent one.

I recognised some songs, such as "Everything I Own" and "All I Hear", but others, I have to admit didn't sound as familiar.

That said, I enjoyed most of them equally and overall it was a (for me) surprisingly enjoyable gig.

They finished with a song called "Lunatic" from their first label released album "Build A Tower", which broke into the top 20 album chart in the UK. The next album, "The Joy Of The Return" (from which they played "All I Hear") made it to number 9, while the recent "Out Of A Dream" (Another self-released album, like the first 3, from which a few tracks were played) got to number 11.

Unusually, there was none of the pretence of an encore, they finished their second set, took some photographs of the audience and thanked us and then they were off to the merch stand.

They seem to be a band that have a strong following (Two lovely German women I spoke to had arranged a trip to London specially to see them!) while remaining very low profile.

They are a band that performs well live, sounding similar to their recordings, but adding an edge of excitement that live performing should deliver.

I'm very pleased that I was directed their way (There are similarities to Editors, for sure, but they're definitely not a 'me too' band) as I greatly enjoyed my rare trip to 'the smoke' to see them and round off my 2025 gig going.

Setlist:
First Set - Cavalcade:
Start Again
I Saw a Ghost
Forever in Your Debt
Plant the Seed
Days Like This Will Break Your Heart
Don't Mind
Cavalcade
Fool For Your Philosophy
Grace of God
Here in the Hollow
Secrets
Know the Day Will Come
Second Set - Other Tracks:
Technofear
All I Hear
The Wait
You Opened Up My Heart
Everything I Own
Block Out the Sun
Boy So Blue
Feet on Fire
On The TV
Lunatic

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