Purple Spaceships Over Yatton

Stackridge were a band that I was aware off in the 70s but I head little of their music, mainly because there was just so much good music around in a wide spectrum covering blues, folk, prog, glam and heavy metal, that getting noticed was very difficult.

But somehow Stackridge managed to survive through my lack of attention and produced several albums that were worthy of a review in NME.

The band has been through a few changes since then but are now back on the road as a richly textured eight piece band (six old blokes and two young women, how did that happen?!) and I was tempted to see them live at the 100 Club in London. I'm so glad I went.

They played a long set, just over two hours plus a small break, which included a variety of styles, which is not surprising given the number of songwriters in the band and the number of years that they have been writing those songs.

A large part of the set was familiar sounding early 70s folk-tinged progressive rock, think of Barclay James Harvest and Jethro Tull, that was easy to sway along to even though none of it was familiar. I particularly liked two long instrumentals that they did, Purple Spaceships Over Yatton and God Speed the Plough.

I was less impressed with their "fun" songs, such as Dora the Female Explorer and Galloping Gaucho, but these were relatively short and small diversions from the main feast and were quickly forgiven.

In the few hours since the concert I've added Stackridge as a friend on MySpace, bought one of their classic albums from Amazon and made a note of their local gig in October. It may have taken 25 years for me to discover Stackridge but I am quickly making up the lost time!