Great gig with Strangefish

A short while back (16th June) I had a great night supporting a band called Strangefish in London. Nice to get out and strum a few tunes now and again, the success of this gig may well motivate me to do a few more, especially as Monty (my keyboard maestro) is up for it when he’s available. Ideally of course I’d rather have a full band thing up and running, but in the meantime the occasional solo set such as this is more than worth it.

The set was about 40 minutes, old and new songs with vocal and electric guitar, broken up by an ambient soundscapes section in the middle. It went well, several people told me how much they enjoyed it, and Tina (thanks again!) sold a few CDs afterwards which was a nice bonus.

Mick Lloyd and The House Of Progression deserve every support for putting these gigs on at The Peel in Kingston-Upon-Thames. There was a good crowd in the small venue, 60-70 or so. I hope to do another support there at some point, but will more than likely go up as a punter to catch some of the “progressive rock” acts which are booked up until the end of the year.

Strangefish played all of their album “Fortune Telling” and other material I wasn’t familiar with. It was nice meeting them, they’d come down from Manchester, they seemed to have a good night too. Great stuff.

Peter Gabriel in Hyde Park

Whoopee-yeeeeeee-haaaaaaa is my carefully considered summary of events. Great to see The Man again, with a set including older tracks such as “Intruder”, “D.I.Y.”, “On The Air”, “I Don’t Remember”, “The Rhythm Of The Heat”. The big hits “Solsbury Hill” and “Sledgehammer” came at the end, finally finishing with the classic “In Your Eyes”. Some highlights IMO were “No Self-Control”, PG’s daughter singing “Mother Of Violence”, and the last few songs when the vibe really took off and a “rocking out” time was had by all.

A large percentage of the crowd were quite bewildered by the older material, whereas of course us fans of “a certain age” were wetting ourselves! Talking of which, there had been a heavy heavy downpour of rain at the end of Crowded House’s set, but it just held out during PG.

It was great to hear and see all that old stuff again (voted by fans on his website according to PG) but it was obvious that most of the crowd didn’t quite know what to make of some of it. Did they think “Gosh! What astonishingly brilliant and innovative musical explorations of the deeper and darker sides of human nature!”, or did they think “What’s all this weird shit? It sounds nothing like Sledgehammer”. I wonder! Personally I love just about everything he’s ever done. It was great to see him, Tony Levin, David Rhodes prancing around gleefully. There is an excellent lady on keyboards whose name I didn’t catch.

Brilliant brilliant brilliant. Afterwards we only had to walk ten minutes down the road to a posh hotel, courtesy of my friend Chris. The alternative would have been a further two hours in damp clothes on the train.

Both Chris and I were surprised at how good the second support band The Feeling were. “High energy modern melodic pop with a seventies influence” is how they could be described. Crowded House played all their hits, have always been a bit of a fan of theirs from way back.

Howard Jones

Last Wednesday I made another trip up to Windsor, this time to see Howard Jones (remember him?) in concert. Flipping brilliant. An unplugged set accompanied by excellent guitarist Robin Boult, featuring all the eighties hits and some other stuff. Always loved his style, although I have to admit his continually upbeat message sounds slightly out of place in 2007. But all power to him, I would have bought an album and T-shirt if I’d had any spare money, its always tight these days.

“What is love? Does anybody love anybody anyway?”, “I’d like to get to know you well, so we can be one together”, “Don’t crack up, bend your brain, see both sides, throw off your mental chains, ooh ooh oooh!”. His My Space site has a great dancey newer track from 2005, “Revolution Of The Heart”.

I can remember Howard playing in front of about 5 people just before his first hit and Top Of The Pops appearance. In fact he used to give piano lessons to one of my old keyboard players, who always spoke highly of him. These days Mr. Jones is also a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist, something I was heavily involved with a long time ago. Good old David Stopps was also there introducing HJ in Windsor, still his manager, I remember him from his early Steve Hillage and Marillion promoter days at Friars Aylesbury.

That was a long time ago… here and now in 2007 its good to hear that Howard Jones is alive and well, with great songs and a message of intelligent compassion that is still music to these ears.

Marillion in Bristol

Went down to Bristol to meet up with my old buddy Chris Smith and see Marillion. How excellent they were! Several tracks from the new album “Somewhere Else” blended into the set perfectly, and really it was just great to be there. “Transcendent” is a good description. I almost completely lost interest in them for many years but have been a re-born fan of sorts since “Anoraknophobia” in 2001. I still have great memories of all the old Marquee gigs with Fish before they signed to EMI in the early eighties, but they are possibly even better now, in a much more mature way.

There have been several less stressful nursing shifts over the last ten days which is always welcome. In fact there was a string of four days in different places that was so pleasant and laid back I was almost enjoying myself, crikey.

I had my first day’s work with another casting agency in London on Monday. It was okay but not as enjoyable as some of the other bits I’ve done so far. They seemed to keep putting me right by the main camera action and then changing their mind. Obviously I should be the star of the show, of course! I was part of two scenes involving an Alcoholics Anonymous group which will be part of a new film starring Uma Thirman. It dragged on a bit as these things do, but there was a very attractive Polish girl to chat with afterwards. The lunch provided by the caterers was first class.

There is some astrology to do, a Howard Jones gig to see in Windsor this evening, but first its a bit more practice for my own gig at the weekend.