News and views - last update Jan 20th 2012

A page for me to indulge myself by writing about stuff that may or may not be of interest to anyone else. NEWS, GIG REVIEWS - both my own and other peoples', MEMORIES - ancient and recent.

Jan 20th 2012 - Live Music Bill passes Report stage

This is from an email I received from Phil Little who plays drums with me. Phil has been very active in promoting the Live Music Bill which, when it has finally been passed, will make it easier for any venue to put on live music - and hopefully for musicians to find work. It's something Phil has been working towards for 19 years so today is a big day for him. We met up tonight in a local venue Pissarro's and watched a band called the Luvverlies playing some good stuff. Their bass player Barry Jones may be joining up with us to do some gigs as a three-piece.

Today Lord Clement Jones' Live Music Bill passed the Report stage in the House of Commons.

Although the live music lobby's target of 100 plus MPs were present, things looked decidedly risky when the debate on the Daylight Saving Bill, the first Bill on the list, occupied the entire session and at 1-30 pm the Live Music Bill looked doomed, with not enough time to be debated.

However, at the end of the session the names of the Bills that have not been dealt with are read out, and, if nobody shouts "Objection !", then the Bill can proceed.

It is unusual for a Bill to proceed without objection at this stage, but, this was the case with the Live Music Bill which was passed in about two seconds.

This is perhaps the most difficult obstacle the Live Music Bill has had to overcome and it is difficult to see how the Bill can fail to become law now.

Nov 25th 2011 - Screening of The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople at Rough Trade East, London on Nov 18th

Last Friday (Nov 18th) I drove up to London with Phil John and his partner Chris to attend another screening of the documentary The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople. It was organised by Shindig magazine, which features a brilliant 16 page article by Kris Needs about the band in this month's issue. We arrived at about 4.30 and met up with Chris Hall and Mike Kerry the producers of the film. We met in the Carpenters Arms - the pub in Cheshire Street that the notorious Kray twins bought for their mother. After a while Verden Allen and Luther Grosvenor arrived. Verden was the band's original keyboard player. When he left in 1973, I replaced him on Hammond Organ - and Morgan Fisher took over on piano. Luther Grosvenor replaced Mick Ralphs on guitar when he left in August 1973 to join Bad Company. Luther changed his name to Ariel Bender when he was with Mott.

It was great to chat with Verden and Luther - I'd never really spoken to Verden before as we weren't in the band at the same time. He told me about his new band Soft Ground - I'm hoping I might get to see them when they play at the Half Moon in Putney on February 11th next year. Luther greeted me like a long lost friend - even though I had been rather introspective and uncommunicative when we were in the band together. We walked the short distance to Brick Lane and found Rough Trade East, a large record store in the Old Truman Brewery Complex. The whole area has changed completely in the ten years since I moved away from London. It's buzzing with activity - hundreds of people on the streets, sitting and standing on the pavement outside crowded pubs - and filling the dozens of curry houses that line Brick Lane itself.

At one end of the record store an area had been cleared for an audience and a screen had been set up on a stage. We left the store and found another pub, further down Brick Lane. When we returned with ten minutes to go to the 6.30 start there was hardly anyone there and I began to think of the scene in This Is Spinal Tap where the band attend an in-store event and no-one shows up. But suddenly everyone arrived and it was standing room only. Jon 'Mojo' Mills of Shindig magazine introduced the film and as the lights dimmed, Luther suggested we return to the pub. As we had all seen the film before this seemed like a good idea - though I wasn't able to drink anything stronger than orange juice as I was driving. We walked up and down Brick Lane, wasting valuable drinking time trying to find somewhere quieter than previous pub. Impossible - and we ended up at the same place, standing outside on the pavement again. Luther is just amazing - funny, loud, amicable, tactile, forever reminding everyone that he is 'Luther Grosvenor - aka the great Ariel Bender'. In fact he hasn't changed in the slightest from the way he was back in 1973 - no sign of any mellowing with age. While we were at the pub Anne Carpenter turned up. My wife Carol has been in touch with her for a while on Facebook - she is involved with the Alzheimers Society and pays frequent visits to the band's drummer Buffin, who is suffering badly with the disease.

Chris and Mike knew the timing of the film to the minute, so we were able to arrive back just at the point where Luther announces that when he joined the band 'he gave them a shot in the arm', hastily adding 'not literally of course'. It really is a brilliant film, easily up there with the best rock documentaries. Surely it will eventually be shown on TV. There are lots of laughs, some great music and some very emotional moments, especially towards the end as Buffin talks about their break-up in 1974 saying that they were the only band he ever wanted to play with. I took a rather poignant photo of him on the screen - it's in my photo-gallery along with some others that were taken that night.

After the film, the screen was hastily removed revealing five bar stools, each with a microphone. Phil, Verden, Luther and I took our seats alongside Jon Mills and the audience fired questions at us - intelligent questions this time, unlike most of those that were asked at the premiere at the National Film Theatre last year ('Can you tell us a joke Ian' is one bizarre one that springs to mind). Andy Morten of Shindig magazine asked each of us to name our favourite memory of our time with the band. Phil and Verden both mentioned shows with the original band (between 1969 and early 1973). I picked out the second show at Hammersmith on December 14th 1973, when we were in great form - until the theatre manager brought down the safety curtain and caused a riot. But Luther didn't choose a Mott moment - he said that he was at his best when he was with Spooky Tooth. I was glad to have the opportunity to tell the audience about the first time I saw Luther - in 1968 at the Lyceum in London, playing with Spooky Tooth. He was in irresistible form that night - a truly great rock guitar soloist doing what he did best.

So - another brilliant Mott event. The biggest surprise of the night was to sit up on the stage looking down at an audience that contained lots of young people - including a front row made up entirely of young females - I haven't seen that for nearly forty years! As usual the fans were the real stars - clearly enjoying meeting members of the band, even one who was given the opportunity of a lifetime and could have gone on with them to bigger and better things, but chose to leave instead.

Oct 25th 2011

There will be another screening of the documentary The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople in London on November 18th. It's at Rough Trade East in Brick Lane at 6.30pm. Admission is free. I'll be going along, as well as the band's former roadie Phil John who lives near me. I spoke to Luther Grosvenor (alias Ariel Bender) today. He was the band's guitarist when I was with them. He and Phil John (who was the band's roadie for their entire existence) are already booked to do a question and answer session for the audience after the screening. Hopefully I'll be involved in that too.

Oct 24th 2011

Wow!! The best gig yet with Phil Little. We went down a storm on Saturday night at The Plough in Hastings - I hope the neighbours didn't mind the noise that both the audience and ourselves made, as it's in a very quiet part of town. Lots of people came up to us saying it was the best night they've had there. We are only keyboards and drums but it feels every bit as powerful as a rock band. Phil is really exciting to work with - solid as a rock, but very inventive too. He really listens and responds to what I do - and vice-versa.

Sep 4th 2011

Played on the main stage at the Big Green Cardigan festival today as part of The Rhythm Section. We're a five-piece band - Simon Shaw (guitar), Phil Little (drums), Tom Alexander (percussion), Matt Novis (bass) and myself on keyboards. Simon and I share the lead vocals. This was our third gig, but it was the first where we really felt like a band. It just all came together beautifully - and the audience loved it. So hopefully there'll be more gigs to come. It won't be easy to organise it though, as everyone in the band is very busy doing other things. (Dec 2011 Update - we've now got three gigs booked for 2012 - see Home page - come and see us if you can)

The festival aims at being a replacement for the Black Horse Festival which ran successfully for many years. This was it's first year. The venue is in a lovely part of the Sussex Countryside. It was well organised, with the bands and artists playing on two separate stages in a large tent. Unfortunately the attendance was disappointing - we played to about 100 people. But hopefully its reputation will grow. From my point of view as an artist I loved it - I had the chance to play my own material on Saturday with Phil Little on drums and then to play as part of a brilliant band on the Sunday. But I felt a bit sorry for Mick and Dave Hoad who spent so much time organising it. I really hope they're able to do it again next year and that more people will turn up. (Update - it's been confirmed that The Big Green Cardigan festival will be held again in September 2012)

Sep 2nd 2011

Looking forward to a couple of festival gigs this weekend. Playing with Phil Little (drums) playing my own songs on Saturday on the main stage of the Big Green Cardigan festival near Hastings. And on Sunday I'm on the main stage again as part of the band The Rhythm Section. Here's our set list for Sunday:

Evil Ways (Santana)
When The Sun Goes Down (Original)
Spanish Moon (Little Feat)
OyeComo Va (Santana)
Do It Again (Steely Dan)
Samba Pa Ti (Santana)
Albatross (Fleetwood Mac)
Black Magic Woman (Fleetwood Mac/Santana)
Look Ka Py Py (The Meters)
Down And Out In New Orleans (Original)
Jockey Full Of Bourbon (Tom Waits)
Jingo Lo Ba (Santana)

July 16th 2011

A really great gig last night with Phil Little. We don't really need any more than just piano and drums, especially now that I've started using a Korg sound module to give the bass end of the keyboard a boost. So with the piano going through the PA, and Phil playing drums at full volume we can be as powerful as any rock band - and not having any other instruments to worry about, means we can improvise as much as we want - extending songs or cutting them short at will. We got a great reception from the audience. Just wish I'd recorded it. There was some great interplay going on between us in some of the solos - for instance on the Beatles song Things We Said Today. Another new one that went down really well was Thunderclap Newman's Something In The Air which gives me the chance to do a bit of boogie in the middle.

July 10th 2011

I just received the latest edition of the Mott The Hoople Appreciation Society magazine - Two Miles From Heaven. Once again, Keith Smith has done a brilliant job. This one is all about the reunion concerts in 2009 - there are reviews both by fans and by the press, as well as lots of photos. It's good to see a smiling Dale Griffin on the cover - there's an interview inside in which he talks enthusiastically about the reunion concerts - and candidly about his struggle with Alzheimer's: 'I want people to know that it's Dale who has Alzheimer's, not Alzheimer's who has Dale'. There's also my own article about the Meet The Keyboards events. And some interesting comments before the reunion took place from various people in which they express their hopes for the concerts. A great read - well done Keith!

June 27th 2011

Some more gigs coming up soon with Phil and Matt - see my Home page. Playing mostly my own songs, but also some interesting versions of other peoples' material. I don't call them 'covers' because we never try to sound like anyone else. Some of the songs we do are Cortez The Killer by Neil Young, The Homes Of Donegal (a song I used to play in Paul Brady's band), I'm A Man by Steve Winwood/Chicago, All The Young Dudes by Mott The Hoople, No Way To Say Goodbye by Leonard Cohen, I Shall Be Released by Bob Dylan/The Band, Round And Round by Chuck Berry, Working In A Coalmine by Lee Dorsey, Whiter Shade Of Pale - and a rocking version of Tequila!

May 2nd 2011

Had a great night at The Roomz, St Leonards - sitting in to play keyboards with The Rhythm Section. I was expecting to play just a few songs, but I ended up playing with them for the whole night - thanks to Simon Shaw's well-written chord sheets! This was the first gig for The Rhythm Section - consisting of Simon Shaw (guitar, vocals), Phil Little (drums, percussion, guitar, vocals), Matt Novis (bass, vocals), Tom Alexander (percussion, drums) and Emmanuel Donde (percussion). They play an exciting mixture of Afro, Latin, Cuban influenced music - and I'm hoping to do more gigs with them in the future.

April 6th 2011

Last Friday there was a screening of the documentary The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople in the band's home town of Hereford. I wasn't able to get there, but it was great to see photos of several band members there - guitarist Mick Ralphs, organist Verden Allen, guitarist Ariel Bender and their original singer and long time tour manager Stan Tippens. But especially Buffin the drummer who has been very ill for some time.

Another excellent gig with Phil on drums last Friday at the Dolphin in Hastings. And on Monday we added Matt Novis on bass for a rehearsal. So hopefully we'll soon be going out as a three-piece. As I've been playing solo for years I need to get used to not using my left hand to play bass lines.

March 5th 2011

I haven't actually played with a band since 1991, so it was great to have the first rehearsal with our new band on Thursday. I'm not sure what we will be called. Anyway it sounded great. We consist of myself on keyboards and vocals, Joe Rytlewski on guitar and vocals, Matt Novis on bass and Phil Little on drums. We will probably be doing some of my songs and some of Joe's, but on Thursday we started by playing our own versions of other people's material - I hesitate to call them covers because we don't try to sound like the originals. We just start playing and hope for the best! We played Neil Young's Cortez The Killer which is a three-chord trick - perfect for improvising. We also played Bob Dylan's I Shall Be Released and Leonard Cohen's No Way To Say Goodbye. We did a couple of my songs - the easy ones - Slow Train Blues and If You Got A Good Woman, which are more or less 12-bar blues. We recorded everything on Joe's state-of-the-art studio equipment and I recorded it on video, so when Joe has done a bit of studio magic, I should be able to put a couple of things on YouTube and on my site.

February 18th 2011

I had a long conversation on the phone last night with Phil John who was one of Mott The Hoople's long serving (and long suffering) roadies. He told me that there will be a showing of the new documentary The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople in Hereford, the band's home town - I think it's on March 25th. So we are both hoping to go along even though we both saw it at it's London Film Festival premiere.

I played three widely diverse gigs last week. Tuesday - at Crowhurst Park in front of a full house for the first gig as a three-piece rock/blues band with Joe Rytlewski (guitar) and Phil Little (drums) - soon to be a four-piece hopefully. Then on Wednesday a solo performance at The Congress Hotel in Eastbourne and on Sunday just me and Phil at the North Star pub in St Leonards, playing almost totally unrehearsed.

Several years ago I used to play as a duo with Joe Rytlewski - he's an excellent blues/rock guitarist, who plays regularly with his own band Joe's Blooze Band. Phil Little was Joe's drummer for several years in a band called Pullback. I met Joe again recently when I played at the Kings Head Sessions - he runs that pub and also does the sound at Crowhurst Park where I played as a duo a few weeks ago with Phil. So it seemed natural that we should do a gig as a three piece. The venue was full and the evening started off with Tim Hoyte, who is a quite superb singer/songwriter. He performs solo on acoustic guitar and listening to him I can't believe he hasn't become well-known.

We had just two hours rehearsal before this gig, preferring to rely on natural instinct rather than set arrangements. Joe and I have always had a good musical rapport and it soon came back again as we did extended versions of Bob Dylan's I Shall Be Released and Neil Young's Cortez The Killer. We started with my song Slow Train Blues and Joe did a great version of a one-chord blues workout called Commit A Crime. The guitarist Gary Moore had died just a couple of days earlier so we played his song Still In Love With You. We ended as we always used to when we played as a duo - with Chuck Berry's Round And Round. We have pretty much the same approach to all of the songs - just start playing and see where it takes us. The audience loved it and we're now hoping to add a bass player to form a four-piece band. As we were driving to the gig Joe said something that included the phrase 'all that mullarkey'. Later we were talking about a name for the band and I suggested MULLARKEY, so unless we think of anything better that's probably what we will call ourselves.

On Sunday afternoon Phil and I played a very different gig, but just as much fun - playing to a pub crowd at the North Star in St Leonards. Again it was all done without rehearsal, but it was so much better for that - playing mostly well-known stuff like Walking The Dog, I'm A Man, Route 66, Let It Be, The Mighty Quinn, Whiter Shade Of Pale, All The Young Dudes. But it never really feels like we're playing other people's stuff because we don't try to follow any arrangement - we follow that same approach of just starting playing and doing whatever comes into our heads. Roy Lemon, who runs Legends guitar shop in Bohemia Rd, St Leonards got up to sing a couple of songs - a raucous version of Proud Mary and also Let It Be if I remember rightly. He's got a powerful voice and the audience loved it.

And a couple of nights ago, Phil and I went into Hastings Old Town Studios just around the corner and recorded a few of my songs - hopefully the start of us recording an album there. Tomorrow night I'm back at the Congress Hotel in Eastbourne playing solo to the hotel guests - something I enjoy just as much as all the other gigs.

January 23rd 2011

Supporting Eric Faulkner (ex-Bay City Rollers) at Crowhurst Park, Battle, East Sussex - Jan 18th 2011

Mrs Yarrington's Music Club holds regular concerts in a lovely old manor house near Battle in East Sussex - sea view, rabbits, badgers and foxes in the grounds! A great place to enjoy music that comes under the broad banner of 'roots' - folk, blues, bluegrass, jazz etc. So was tonight going to be a departure from that ethic - a night of tartan troosers and 70s singalongs with an ex-Roller and an ex-Hoopler? Not exactly!

As if to establish his credentials right from the start, Eric began with some dazzling finger-picking on acoustic guitar as an intro to a gutsy performance of Whiskey In The Jar. What followed was a thoroughly entertaining set with some compelling original songs, involving some uncomfortable subjects - one about the murder of members of the Miami Showband during the troubles in Northern Ireland - and one about the plight of African migrant workers in Spain, where Eric now lives. He also took the traditional song The Work Of The Weavers and gave it new lyrics, turning it into a hilarious jibe at politicians and a former manager of his band.

Eric is a fine guitarist and singer and creates a great rapport with the audience especially with his stories of the old days. And yes, there were Rollers songs - chosen by the audience picking bits of paper out of a black top-hat that was given to Eric at Top Of The Pops by Marc Bolan, if I heard the story correctly. Keep On Dancing, Shang a Lang and Bye Bye Baby were duly performed - Eric asking the audience for help remembering the words and with backing vocals:'come on, I cannae sing both parts on my own'.

Just like Mott, the Bay City Rollers still have loyal fans - a Swedish lady who was on holiday in the UK came along with her daughter for the gig, and a couple flew in from Iceland to follow Eric on his tour. With Burns night approaching my wife Carol gave me a volume of the complete works to present to Eric. He seemed very touched by the gesture and we chatted for a while about the old days. He also plays with a band performing Rollers songs - no doubt earning rather more than he earns on his solo gigs. But he said that performing as a solo singer/songwriter is more fulfilling. I know the feeling, but in a slightly different way. Most of my gigs are played to audiences who expect to hear familiar material. I enjoy those gigs as I always put my own slant on everything I play, but the kind of gigs I really love to do are where I get to play my own songs. At this venue the performer is face-to-face with an audience who hang on every word and note - ideal for finding out whether your songs are any good or not.

Due to car problems I was grateful for a lift from Mark who runs the Mick Ronson Legacy site on Facebook - dedicated to the ex-David Bowie and Mott guitarist. In 1974 after my sudden impetuous departure from Mott, I wrote a song called Rainbow Over Michigan describing the feeling of being on tour with the band. Mark commented that he could imagine Mott performing that song. Well, I don't know if it's true of that particular song, but if I'd stayed in the band maybe I would have contributed to the writing to some degree - and my biog would be very different.

This was my first gig with drummer Phil Little (see previous two posts). We played seven of my own songs plus All The Young Dudes. As usual the audience reaction made me wonder why I have never really tried to make a success of my writing. Every song got a great reception - especially my most recent one The River - a slow song with a long improvised crescendo at the end, slightly reminiscent of The Waltz, a song I used to play with Dexys Midnight Runners.

We finished with I'm A Man - the Steve Winwood song that was later recorded by Chicago on their first album. Forty-one years ago this was one of the songs Phil played while auditioning for a band I played with in Lancashire. He didn't get the job back then, so it was quite appropriate that we played this song, with it's rhythmic instrumental section that gives the drummer a chance to show off. Phil did a great job on his first gig with me, especially as we had rehearsed together for less than two hours. So I hope it's the first of many.

January 22nd 2011

It's a small world! Forty-one years ago the band I was playing with in Lancashire needed a drummer. We held auditions and narrowed it down to two candidates. Lou Rosenthal (now drumming with The Merseybeats) got the job. But the other was Phil Little.

Our paths would probably never have crossed again, but two years ago Phil contacted me and we exchanged a few emails. Like me Phil had also moved about as far away from Lancashire as you can get on mainland Britain and had lived here in Hastings for several years - where he had played in a band with Joe Rytlewski, a blues guitarist that I used to gig with a few years ago. He then moved to Wales. A few weeks ago I emailed Phil again and was surprised to find that he had moved back here to Hastings. Meanwhile I found myself in need of a drummer again, so Phil stepped in and we played our first gig together on January 18^th - and the man behind the sound desk was the aforementioned Joe Rytlewski. All three of us will be playing together at the same venue on February 8^th.

January 20th 2011

Played at Crowhurst Park again last night this time with drummer Phil Little. We were supporting Eric Faulkner - former Bay City Roller and now a very talented songwriter/singer/guitarist. It was my first gig with Phil - after less than two hours rehearsal. I'm definitely not a perfectionist - I've worked with too many to be one myself! I'll write a review of the gig on this page soon.

November 26th 2010

Had a great gig - actually two gigs - at Crowhurst Park, near Battle, East Sussex last Saturday as part of their Autumn Chill weekend. Starting at 9am, drummer Ian Roberts and I played a Jazz Breakfast. It's strange doing a gig that starts at 9 in the morning - when we finished I said 'thankyou and goodnight' and then realised it was only 11am. In the evening we played what was planned to be a background dinner-jazz session, but we soon got the feeling that the audience were up for something much more lively and we had everyone dancing by the end.

A couple of weeks earlier I made a solo appearance at the Kings Head Sessions in Battle - playing my own songs, as well as meeting up again and jamming for the first time in a few years with blues-guitarist (and now landlord of the pub) Joe Rytlewski. Hopefully I'll be there again soon, so anyone who is in the area would be most welcome. I'll be back at Crowhurst Park on Jan 18th, playing support to Eric Faulkner, formerly of the Bay City Rollers - he now goes out as a solo performer, singing his own songs and telling on-the-road stories. It should be a lot of fun.

October 17th 2010

The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople - premiere of the new documentary at the London Film Festival

What a great night. Mike Kerry and Chris Hall have done an amazing job of putting together this documentary. There are interviews with almost everyone involved in the Mott story and most of them were there last night - Ian Hunter, Mick Ralphs, Verden Allen, Blue Weaver, Stan Tippins, Phil and Richie of the road crew. (Jimmy Page was there too and the DJ Jeff Dexter). And I found myself sitting next to Luther Grosvenor (known as Ariel Bender when he was with Mott. He kept nudging me and saying 'this is great isn't it!' When Ian walked in and took his seat in the row behind us there were loud cheers and applause from the audience. The irrepressible Luther stood up and shouted 'Oi, you didn't do that when I walked in - the great Ariel Bender here!!', which resulted in much laughter and of course an even bigger round of applause.

It was very moving to see Buffin talking so emotionally and articulately about the band he described as the only band he would ever have wanted to play with. He wasn't able to be there because of his health problems.

It was strange to be sitting in a cinema surrounded by the main characters in the film! Having watched many rock documentaries, I was imagining a scenario where one member of the band would say something on the screen about another band member and a fight would break out in the audience! There were lots of candid comments, but everyone was very friendly in the 'green room' afterwards.

As I only joined the band in 1973 I've always been a bit hazy about the band's early days, so it was great to be able to catch up on that. The powerful effect the original band had on their audiences came across really well, as did the effect Guy Stevens had on the band. There's some great footage taken by a US music fan who used to film all the bands that came to his town - and Morgan's film of the band on tour in the USA is used to great effect too. Definitely a 'must see' for all Mott fans!

September 26th 2010

So another summer has come and gone. Four days ago people were swimming in the sea here on the south coast. Today there's a cold north wind and up on the West Hill in Hastings we were surrounded by hundreds of swallows and martins swooping and diving - sometimes just inches away from us. No doubt they were stocking up on the crane flies that appeared in huge numbers a couple of days ago. And soon they'll be gone across the sea to France, then across the Mediterranean and even across the Sahara. Cue a Sandy Denny song - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3wbVcGpUdw

September 12th 2010

Looks like there'll be another gathering of Mott The Hoople members in October. There will be three showings of the new documentary The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople at the National Film Theatre in London on Sat 16th, Sun 17th and Tues 19th. The documentary has been in the making since 2008 and most of the people connected with the band have been interviewed for it, including myself. I've been in touch with keyboard players Morgan Fisher and Blue Weaver and they are hoping to be there, even though it means flying in from Japan and Spain respectively. The band's long-serving roadies Phil and Richie will be there. and it will be interesting to see who else turns up - Ian Hunter may still be in the UK following his tour, so it would be good to see him and the other members of the band. And no Mott event would be complete without one of their biggest fans, Joe Elliot of Def Leppard. Let's hope we have as much fun as we did last October at the 40th anniversary reunion concerts.

September 2nd 2010

Mott The Hoople's drummer Buffin now has a website. It was set up for him by our friend Constance from Chicago - she is a huge Mott fan. Buffin has Alzheimer's disease and he talks openly and funnily about it on his site. There's a page where you can leave messages and it's quite moving to read all the messages of appreciation and encouragement that have already been posted since it went online two days ago. There's a link to the site on my Links page. There is an interview with Buffin this Saturday morning, 4 September 2010, on BBC Radio 4 Saturday Live at 9am GMT.

August 21st 2010

Ian Roberts and I played at the North Star in St Leonards last night. What a great time we had - and I'm sure we'll be back. They certainly seemed to like our version of Come On Eileen. We had to play it three times! I'm not sure that Kevin Rowland would approve of our version of his song, though it's based more on the way Dexys played it when I was with them than on the original version. When I played it with Dexys on tour in 1985 Kevin slowed it down and made it more funky than the original. We keep the funkiness but speed it up a bit. One of the things I liked about Kevin was that he wasn't afraid to mess around with his songs - and several people last night commented that they like the way Ian and I do our own version of everything we play. Actually they are not even 'versions' of songs - most of the time we just start playing a song without any idea of where we are going with it - much more fun than rehearsing things to death.

June 24th 2010

Had a great gig at Poorboys in Hastings last Sunday with Ian Roberts on drums. He's just amazing. The audience loved it, so we'll be playing there again soon. People like the fact that we don't play like a duo - we both play as if we're on stage with a rock band - as loud as we can get away with! Working with Ian gives me the opportunity to put into practice something I've always believed - that piano and drums can be as powerful a combination as a whole band. The piano in rock music is usually used as an added extra, but I grew up listening to (and trying to play) Beethoven's piano sonatas, which are about as powerful and expressive as you can get. Of course these days I play a digital piano - I'd love to carry a 9 foot concert grand with me, but not with my bad back! Apart from my own songs, most of our material isn't arranged - we just start playing and see where it takes us and people seem to love that kind of spontaneity.

May 20th 2010

The Kittiwakes - at Mrs Yarrington's Music Club, Battle, East Sussex.

The first truly warm evening of the year. A great time to return to Crowhurst Park, not to perform this time (see May 6th), but to enjoy a performance by one of the folk scene's up and coming bands.

Ami Tarrant opened with a lovely half-hour set - mostly of her own songs, but also including a gentle version of Ben Harper's Waiting On An Angel.

I suppose the main thing that attracted me here tonight was that The Kittiwakes were performing songs inspired by a part of the world that I love - northern Norway. Their highly acclaimed debut album Lofoten Calling was written by their talented leader Kate Denny. They are a three piece - all playing various instruments and singing. The songs are about various aspects of life in the Lofoten Islands as well as some of the myths that have grown up around the landscape and the sea. It's a harsh life up there in the Arctic, especially for the fishermen who make a living on the treacherous waters that surround the islands and for those who wait anxiously for them. This was reflected in quite a few of Kate's songs including Weaver which is simply a masterpiece - describing the paradoxical situation of a woman weaving the sail that will carry her loved one away and wondering if it will ever bring him back. The title track is an accapella piece in stunning three part harmonies. In fact one of the most impressive aspects of the band are the vocal abilities of all three members. Hurtigruten is a lively instrumental that ends with a vocal passage describing how you can set your watch by the time the coastal express boat departs. Some years ago I was playing in Harstad in a group of islands even further north than the Lofotens. We decided to take the Hurtigruten to Svolvaer, the main town in the Lofotens. We were enjoying the wonderful winter scenery from the deck as the steamer sailed smoothly between the islands, when we were told that we would need to get off at the next stop as the ship was about to encounter a storm which would prevent it getting into the harbour. So we never quite made it to the wonderful Lofoten Islands. Happily Kate Denny did and it inspired her to write some beautiful songs.

Occasionally they moved away from the Lofoten Calling album to perform some of her other songs including Beano a delightful song which brilliantly describes the annual trip to the coast which at one time was the only escape many Londoners had from the daily grind. And when the three Kittiwakes turned their hands to traditional English (and in one case Swedish) fiddle tunes they were just as assured.

There's only one place I would rather have been tonight. A town called Henningsvaer in the Lofoten Islands for the first night of a music festival which is taking place over this weekend. With typical Norwegian humour it's called Codstock - like Woodstock, but with fish.

May 18th 2010

Advice to my fellow musicians: if you play a wrong note, don't panic - just play it again with more conviction (preferably with a look of smug satisfaction on your face). Don't lose your nerve - just keep playing it and eventually the audience will be convinced that you meant it. It will still sound wrong but they'll just think they are too ignorant to understand your genius. Works every time!

May 15th 2010

On Sunday 2^nd May I saw Ian Hunter And The Rant Band at the Barbican Centre in London - supported by Three Bonzos And A Piano.

The Barbican seemed a slightly strange venue for a rock and roll concert. The screens in the foyer advertised concerts by various luminaries of the jazz and classical music world - Winton Marsalis and his Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and the great Russian conductor Valery Gergiev who looked a little like Arthur Daley - would you buy a used cello from this man?

I wonder what they would have thought of the motley procession that began in the foyer and entered the auditorium to start this concert. Sitting up in the balcony I gradually became aware of what sounded like a drunken Salvation Army band approaching. Roger Ruskin-Spear and his cohorts appeared marching through the stalls blowing trombones and clashing cymbals in peoples' faces. Three Bonzos And A Piano eventually reached the stage to deliver a wonderfully shambolic set of old favourites including Jollity Farm, and Canyons of Your Mind, with it's gloriously inept guitar solo. There were some hilarious moments - Sam Spoons playing the spoons in a strobe light; Roger Ruskin-Spear with his wondrous (and occasionally malfunctioning) robots. Finally a hospital trolley was wheeled onto the stage bearing an apparently lifeless body with a Frankenstein's monster head. Ruskin-Spear applied electric shocks and the 'monster' came to life and started playing the spoons, much to the delight of the audience.

I saw Ian Hunter and the Rant Band two years ago at the Komedia in Brighton, which is a much smaller stand-up venue. The sound was better there, but maybe that was just because of my position high up in an auditorium whose acoustics were designed with non-amplified music in mind. Ian and the band were in great form and delivered powerful versions of some Mott The Hoople classics including Angeline and Sweet Jane. But Ian's most recent album Man Overboard provided some of the best moments. I can't think of another artist of his age who is still completely at the top of his writing form.

There's nothing much more annoying than having to leave a great gig early to catch a train - except maybe arriving at the station with time to spare and realising that you could have stayed to the end! I was moving towards the exit when I looked back and saw Ian sitting at the piano to play Somewhere from West Side Story. I decided I had to stay long enough to hear that - it's not a song you would normally expect Ian Hunter to sing, but it was an inspired choice and it deservedly received the biggest audience reaction of the night up to that point.

So unfortunately I had to miss the encores, which I believe included an appearance by Mick Ralphs. Ah well, Ian is showing no sign of hanging up his shades, so I expect I'll catch the usual Saturday Gigs, All The Way From Memphis and All The Young Dudes finale next time.

May 6th 2010

On Tuesday 4^th May, 2010 The Mick Bolton Duo supported Lisa Mills at Crowhurst Park, Nr Battle, East Sussex

What a great night. Lisa Mills is a superb singer/songwriter/guitarist from Mississippi. It was the last show of her three-week tour of the UK and she had just travelled for twelve hours from the north of England, arriving at the gig about forty minutes before she was due to go on. Despite that, this was a high energy performance from start to finish and you can easily imagine her fronting Big Brother And The Holding Company (Janis Joplin's band), which she did for three years.

On this tour though, she was accompanied only by Ian Jennings on double-bass and to be honest, that's all she needs. Working as a duo seems to give her the space to improvise and play around with tempos and arrangements in a way that isn't really possible when more musicians are involved. Her guitar playing often reminded me of Steve Cropper, especially on slower songs like her beautiful version of Percy Sledge's Warm And Tender Love. She had a great rapport with her fellow musician - often laughing and joking with him and even teasing him by playing a few notes and asking him to guess the song, then yelling NO when he got it wrong. Lisa has a great voice for the kind of bluesy rock that she specializes in. Having a great voice isn't enough though - I can think of several well-known singers that I can't stand listening to even though I have to acknowledge that they are great singers - one of them shares my name! Well Lisa has everything - as well as the voice, there's the sensitivity to know how to use it to bring out the emotions in her songs, whether a beautiful self-penned acapella or a fresh, funky version of Unchain My Heart. She began by announcing, 'this is the last night of the tour so we're gonna have some fun y'all'. And really that was what it was all about. I can't remember when I last saw someone so obviously enjoying being onstage. Listening to comments from the audience afterwards it was clear that this endeared her to them - must make a mental note of that for my own performances!

The audience consisted mainly of members of a local music club known as Mrs Yarrington's Music Club. They regularly hold events featuring all kinds of roots music at this lovely venue - an old grey-stone manor house set in beautiful countryside overlooking the sea. I hope I'll get to one of their forthcoming events - an evening of folk music from the Lofoten Isles in northern Norway. I spent some time up there, so I'm looking forward to that. Both myself and the club's organiser Mick Hoad warned Lisa that southern English audiences may seem a little more reserved than those she was used to, especially in the States, where her performance would no doubt have been punctuated by yells of 'Alriiight' and much 'whooping'. Mick and I stood at the back and did our best but, although the applause was warm and enthusiastic all through her set, it wasn't really until the end that the audience really let their guest know just how much they loved her, forcing her into three encores. And love her they did - not just for her stunning voice and great songs, but for the warm, happy personality that shone through everything she did.

And thankfully the audience seemed to enjoy my set too. I played as a duo with drummer Ian Roberts. Yes, I also like to have the freedom to not worry about other musicians knowing when I'm going to slip in a different chord, or add another chorus. Apart from All The Young Dudes, our set consisted entirely of my own songs. It was our first gig for six months and, considering we only had one rehearsal, I was very happy with the way we sounded. I'm looking forward to lots more gigs as a duo with Ian. He's a brilliant drummer and we work really well together. Sometimes he seems to guess what I'm going to do before I know I'm going to do it.

You can find out more about Lisa Mills and listen to her some of her songs at www.myspace.com/lisamillsmusic. A good track to start with is Tennessee Tears.

May 4th 2010

Had a busy few days - played a solo gig on Saturday, saw Ian Hunter and the Rant Band at the Barbican in London on Sunday night, played a solo gig on Monday and tonight had a great time playing support to Lisa Mills, a fantastic blues/rock singer from Tennessee - on the last night of her tour. Lots more to write about all that, but I just need some sleep right now.

May 1st 2010

I went for a haircut today and discovered that my regular hairdresser used to cut Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney's hair. He must have been going to their house in East Sussex at about the same time I was going there to give Linda keyboard lessons. We both agreed what a pleasure it was to work with them. We were both given photos and posters by Linda. And we were both given VIP passes to one of Paul's concerts - mine at Wembley and his in Ghent in Holland. I remember that I would often see their daughter Stella waiting with her school classmates at the bus stop to catch the bus home from school - they were just a very normal family.

April 27th 2010

I rehearsed on Sunday with my brilliant drummer Ian Roberts - for our support gig with Lisa Mills on Tuesday 4th May. It was sounding great. As I play the bass lines with my left hand we don't need any other musicians to sound like a band. So I'm really looking forward to getting lots more gigs with him playing my own material.

April 17th 2010

I saw two TV programmes last night about Nick Drake, the English singer/songwriter who died in 1975 of an overdose of drugs which had been prescibed for depression. What a sad loss. The first programme was a concert of his songs performed by many different artists. He abandoned a tour in the early seventies because the audiences just weren't listening to him. It was a tour of colleges - not the best venues to find an audience willing to listen to his gentle, introverted songs. He just didn't have the kind of personality that would allow him to shout, 'shut up and listen'. How sad that he wasn't around to see the audience in last night's programme sitting in silence hanging on every word and every note of his exquisite songs.

April 13th 2010

The annual Hastings Beatles Day was simply amazing. It took place on Sunday 11^th April at the White Rock Theatre on the seafront. Starting at noon and continuing until 11pm, over 250 artists appeared on two stages raising £15000 for Macmillan Cancer Support. I can't imagine there being another town of a similar size that has so much musical talent. The standard from both young and old was brilliant. Beatles songs were performed in an astonishing variety of line-ups - heavy rock bands, punk bands, guitar duos, a symphony orchestra plus rock band, a large choir - and not just cover versions, but highly individual and original arrangements. I didn't get to see everyone that performed but here are some of the acts I particularly enjoyed…

• Dead Calm - a brilliant heavy rock band who played an extended medley, often deliberately wrong-footing the audience by playing the intro to one song and then going into a completely different song.
• Brooke Sharkey - a unique and supremely talented singer - stunning versions of All My Loving and Across The Universe, plus I Wanna Be Your Man performed in the style of Peggy Lee's Fever.
• Lianne Carroll with the Hastings Horns - a highly talented and popular jazz pianist/singer who was as brilliant as ever, with jazz/funk versions of Eleanor Rigby and Day Tripper.
• Claire Hamill - dressed for the occasion in Mary Quant gear, performing Norwegian Wood with a group of female singers also in authentic 60s gear (her singing pupils, I think).
• The Hastings Stage Schools - dozens of youngsters of all ages singing and dancing magnificently to Twist and Shout and Let It Be.
• The Blue Devils band with members of The Cranbrook Symphony Orchestra playing Here Comes The Sun. I think I spotted an elderly cellist later twisting vigorously in front of the stage as The Electric Beatles played Twist And Shout.
• The Phil Gill Band - fronted by Pete Prescott and some other singers whos names I didn't catch. Great versions of While My Guitar Gently Weeps and My Sweet Lord.
• The Electric Beatles - dressed in circa 1963 Beatles gear, with a front line who looked remarkably like Paul, George and John. Sounding very authentic too. I had to smile when the band were setting up and one of the stage crew moved a mike stand to centre stage for 'George' to sing into. 'George' moved it out of the way, walked over towards 'Paul' and said, 'it's OK, we share a mike'. Now who wouldn't know that!?

Pete Prescott was the main organiser and the whole thing ran like clockwork, with hardly any gaps between the bands. It was just a magnificent day that I feel privileged to have played a small part in. My own contribution was a solo piano/vocal performance of Things We Said Today, Something and a medley from the With The Beatles album. Hopefully I'll be back next year - by which time I should have a few other musicians alongside me.

April 9th 2010

I wish I was somewhere else tonight - the Cadogan Hall in London for a concert of music by one of my favourite composers Dmitri Shostakovich, conducted by his son Maxim Shostakovich. Maybe I would have got to meet him as my wife's niece plays violin with the orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic. If you think the only musicians that have interesting lives are rock musicians, you should google Dmitri Shostakovich and read about how he was constantly in fear of being imprisoned and killed by the soviet authorities. This was because his music often contained carefully disguised sarcasm, sometimes aimed at the regime. He withdrew his fourth symphony soon after he had written it and only allowed it to be performed years later because, as his son Maxim once told him, 'Papa, they will shoot you for this'.

April 8th 2010

A welcome return - in August last year I teamed up with an excellent drummer, Ian Roberts. Then, after only a couple of gigs we had to split up for various reasons. But now we can get back together again, so I'm looking forward to some great gigs and hopefully recording my songs.

I recently discovered some video clips on YouTube of Garth Rockett and The Moonshiners. Garth Rockett is actually Ian Gillan taking a break from Deep Purple in 1989. The drummer is Lou Rosenthal, who was the drummer in White Myth, the first band I played with (and now playing with The Merseybeats). Worth a look - just type Garth Rockett in the YouTube search box.

Another welcome return - after a long, cold, miserable winter I was walking on the West Hill in Hastings at about 5.40 on this perfect spring evening when I looked up and saw a swallow fluttering in from the English Channel - the first one I've seen this year. A sign of approaching summer. He must sense that there are prospects of warmer temperatures here in England - warm enough to tempt him to fly here from Africa.

April 7th 2010

I've just watched an interesting DVD - 'Bob Dylan World Tour 1966 The Home Movies'. The 'home movies' that the DVD is based around were shot by Mickey Jones who was Dylan's drummer at the time. He is interviewed throughout the video and provides some fascinating insights into that historic tour.

I have roughly the same feelings about Bob Dylan as I have about Bach - both geniuses of course, but they do go on a bit!

I was particularly interested in this video because Dylan's band at the time contained Robbie Robertson, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Rick Danko. Mickey Jones relates that a planned tour of Russia had to be cancelled when Bob Dylan had a motorbike accident. The four other musicians later teamed up with drummer Levon Helm to become The Band - and they produced some of the greatest music of the late sixties and early seventies.

Mickey Jones shared a hotel room with Garth Hudson, who is one of my keyboard heroes. There's a sequence where the camera slowly pans across a view from the balcony of their room at the Princess Kaiulani Hotel in Honolulu. I think my wife and I must have had almost the same room when we stayed there on holiday a few years ago as the view is pretty much the same. He relates how the two of them acted like tourists in the various places they visited. I must say I was always the same on tour. While some other members of the band would be prowling round record stores and musical instrument shops or recovering from the previous night's excesses, I would be out being a tourist - walking for miles along the beach of San Francisco Bay, ascending the Sears Tower in Chicago, taking a train up the Jungfrau in Switzerland and witnessing the sad sight of people standing on a viewing platform in the Potsdamer Platz waving to their relatives on the other side of the Berlin Wall.

When I was in New York city with the Paul Brady band, I went for a walk in Times Square with the band's other keyboard player - and encountered probably the worst example of customer-service I've ever seen. He wanted to buy a camera, so we found a shop with shelves up to the ceiling laden with cameras. The guy at the counter was getting rather impatient as he came down from his ladder for the third time with a camera for him to examine. As my colleague handed it back and said politely, 'no, I don't think so', the shop assistant smiled at him and said (in a broad New York accent), 'hey, that's a real nice T-shirt you're wearing. Let me just feel that material.' He leaned forward, grasped his skin through his shirt, twisted it hard and shouted, 'Get outa here, do you think I got all day to spend going up and down that ladder.'

April 6th 2010

I'm hoping to go to the Barbican Centre in London in May to see Ian Hunter and The Rant Band. I saw him in Brighton in 2007 and he was brilliant. To be perfectly honest, I enjoyed it from the musical viewpoint more than I enjoyed the Mott The Hoople reunion shows. I loved the Mott shows, but seeing Ian playing his own material gave me more of a buzz, because here's a man who has been making music for his whole life and still has a real cutting edge and desire to create new stuff.

On the subject of long-lost road crew members (see April 5th) - in April last year I went up to London to be interviewed for the forthcoming documentary The Ballad Of Mott The Hoople. Phil and Richie, who had served as roadies throughout Mott's career, were also there being interviewed and I discovered that Phil also lives near me in Hastings. So my wife and I have been in touch with him ever since.

Great audience reaction at the Hilton in Eastbourne last night - particularly to my own songs. I really must do something about recording them. I'm running out of time!

April 5^th 2010

My first entry on this page - I don't know why I didn't think of doing this before. I'll use this page for any musical memories that spring to mind, and anything I think might be interesting.

I was in the supermarket a few days ago when a man with long curly hair walked up to me and said, 'is your name Mick Bolton?'. He was a member of Dexys Midnight Runners road crew on the 1985 tour. I didn't recognise him and I'm surprised he recognized me, the way I look now! He was Billy Adams' guitar technician. When we were on tour I remember that the young lady who took care of the stage clothes rather caught his eye - well, he was pleased to tell me that she is the mother of his children! After Dexys he went on to tour with the Kinks for several years and later the Beautiful South, and before Dexys he had been with the Damned. No doubt we will be meeting up for some reminiscing - probably next weekend when I'm playing at the annual Hastings Beatles Day at the White Rock Theatre - it's a charity event where local musicians each play a few Beatles songs. It should be fun - I'm going to play Things We Said Today, Something and a medley of songs from the With The Beatles album. I was 15 years old when it was released and it was just the coolest thing you could own in 1963, with the black and white cover photo of the four Beatles unsmiling in black polo-neck sweaters - very different from the usual show-bizzy album covers of the day. Many of the songs on that album were cover versions. I suppose they had only just got into song writing at the time. So my medley will be made up of some of those covers - Twist And Shout, Money, Till There Was You, Please Mister Postman and Roll Over Beethoven. I was thinking of performing the song I co-wrote with Linda McCartney - Endless Days. It would be very appropriate as the Beatles Day is in aid of the Macmillan cancer charity. But each musician only gets fifteen minutes so I think I'll just play stuff that people know.

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Here is my own review of a gig by Ian Hunter in Brighton, UK - written for Two Miles From Heaven, the Mott The Hoople fan club magazine.

Ian Hunter and The Rant Band. The Komedia, Brighton. Tuesday October 30th, 2007.
Brighton - ah, bitter sweet memories of 1985. Onstage at the Brighton Centre with Dexys Midnight Runners. Dear old Vincent Crane hammering away at the Steinway grand. Kevin Rowland marching across the stage in his brogues demanding: "Give it to me, give it to me" as the band chant: "R-E-S-P-E-C-T." The 11-piece juggernaut shudders to a sudden halt. Kevin turns to the audience and pleads simply: "Respect - you know?!" A couple of weeks later the band split up and Kevin had to wait well over a decade till the Don't Stand Me Down album was re-released and finally got the respect it deserved. I seem to remember that Kevin had a lot of respect for Ian Hunter - in fact it was because I had played Hammond organ with Mott the Hoople that he gave me an audition.

The last time I had seen Ian was at the final concert of our UK tour in 1973 - yes, the legendary Hammersmith Odeon gig featuring a safety-curtain, an angry mob and a guitarist who didn't know when to run for his life. Thirty four years later, as he walked into the Komedia in Brighton for the last night of another UK tour, my old boss had hardly changed at all, but it took him a moment or two before he recognised his former employee. We talked for a few minutes before the gig and he told me that he had been having a great time on this tour. He had met a lot of old friends including Mick Ralphs and Verden Allen who had both joined him onstage a couple of nights before in Shepherds Bush. He seemed pleased to hear about the various bands I had been with and that I was still playing regularly.

A few acoustic guitar chords from Ian led into Ballad Of Mott The Hoople - a great slow-building opener with its comments about various Mott members. When it came to the line about Overend he changed it to "and Mick Bolton's still a rock and roll star". If only, Ian! Once Bitten Twice Shy followed without a break - surely one of the greatest rock and roll songs ever - and as the Rant band crunched into top gear for the first time it was like being run over by a truck, but a lot more fun. As the last chord faded Ian whipped off his guitar and said: "that's it, I'm off." If he had left the stage after just those two songs it would still have been worth the admission price - although I might have begrudged the fifteen quid I had to pay for the car park! Fifteen quid?!

Ian looked cool and relaxed in a casual short sleeved shirt with broad horizontal brown and white stripes - something he would only have worn in '73 if his stage gear had been lost in transit or if he was trying to avoid being recognised by the fans. In between songs he talked to the audience as naturally if he was chatting with an old friend, expressing delight and pride at the success of the Shrunken Heads album but not ashamed to admit that, except for a few songs, he didn't think much of his 1980s output. The superb Seeing Double was one of those exceptions. He told us the story of how a young friend of the family had given him the fright of his life by putting a large pet snake around his neck. What started as a funny story finally led into the tragic Twisted Steel - 'and if I cry it makes no difference, and if I don't I lose my innocence' - she died in one of the twin towers. I remember that Ian always dealt quite dismissively and efficiently with hecklers and tonight was no exception: "Ah, I see we have a wit in the audience. Listen mate, I played in Liverpool last week - there's nothing you can do to me."

The songs from Shrunken Heads showed that Ian's writing is as strong as ever - the powerful Soul Of America, the quirky Words (Big Mouth), the monumental title track and the brilliant single When The World Was Round.

That unique rasping voice was in great form throughout - aided by a packet of throat lozenges that he unashamedly popped in his mouth from time to time. They should employ him to advertise them - they certainly seem to work. At one point he hit a high note that he held so loud and long that it drew a ripple of applause.

Of the Mott The Hoople material my favourite was a swaggering performance of Angeline - quintessential early MTH; rough, ragged and gloriously devoid of any attempt at subtlety. Roll Away The Stone, the song that I remember getting a few moronic yells of "sell-out" when we first played it on the UK tour, was pure fun. Jesse Malin, who had earlier been the excellent support act, joined in on backing vocals. Ian stepped aside to allow him to sing the lead on one of the verses (which he did brilliantly) and he played the Thunderthighs role in the spoken section. The second biggest cheer of the night came when Ian hammered out the piano intro to All The Way From Memphis. I had played these songs many times but this was the first time I had seen and heard them performed from the audience's perspective. No wonder those who saw Mott The Hoople still rave about them if that's what the band sounded like. I lost count of the songs that had the audience punching the air and joining in on the chorus. It's a lethal combination really - a bunch of great rock and roll songs, with choruses you can sing along to, played very very loud by a great band. And the Rant Band are a great band, individually and collectively. Mark Bosch was mesmerising - just a stunning guitarist, knowing exactly when to stay faithful to the original, as in All The Way From Memphis where he captures Mick's guitar phrasing and tone perfectly in the opening verses; and when to cut loose, as he does later in the same song.

I must have been the only one in the audience who had never even heard the brilliant Saturday Gigs. I've got quite a lot of catching up to do. Finally the biggest cheer of the night greeted those famous descending guitar notes and a triumphant All The Young Dudes closed the concert with Ian's daughter Tracie contributing to the backing vocals. It was good to see his wife Trudy again too after all those years. She seemed to be very much involved in the 'family business' - taking charge of the merchandising counter and dealing with other matters backstage.

After a performance like that I expected Ian to be too exhausted to receive visitors after the show, so it was nice to be invited into the dressing room and even nicer when I went to shake hands and say goodnight along with the other guests but was invited to stay instead. We sat and talked for a good half hour about the old days, the break up of the band, the time they almost reformed and lots of stuff that I'm sure you would love to know…but my big mouth is staying shut.

What a great night. I almost felt able to forgive the car park attendant on the way out. But - fifteen quid??!!