Echoes in Petersham

My third experience of Echoes in about as many months was at The Fox and Duck, just a mile or so up the road in Petersham. The 65 bus takes you door-to-door.

The venue can work well for music, as it did when I saw the Bowie tribute band The Thin White Duke, but it's a little awkward for a band as numerous and popular as Echoes.

One outcome of this was that Guy Smith (Tenor Saxophone) was banished to the corridor that runs alongside the stage area. Hardly ideal but it just about worked.

The other outcome is that the pub was so packed that even sitting at the very front in the middle my view was obscured at times by people standing around me. Again, no big deal, just a minor annoyance.

I managed to secure the good seat by arriving before 8am and just before the pub really started to fill. The poster outside the pub promised an 8pm start, the one inside was more honest and claimed 9pm. Not that I minded sitting in the pub for an hour particularly as I was able to grab a few words with some of the band as they fought with cables and boxes.

Come the appointed hour Echoes launched straight in to the familiar, and expected, In the Flesh? from The Wall, chosen because it opens with, "So you thought you might like to, Go to the show."

And we were off!

What followed has almost an hour and a half of Pink Floyd classics, a short break for drinks, and another hour and a half of songs.

My front-row seat put me almost in touching distance of front-man John Vassar on Lead Vocals, Electric and Acoustic Guitar. In the middle here is Oran Halberthal on Bass Guitar and on the right it's Lee Deal on Lead Guitar, Slide Guitar and Acoustic Guitar. Lee was celebrating a year with the band.

Hidden at the back was drummer Simon Melvin and off to the left was Peter Bamford on Keyboards. Guy Smith was even further left.

The set was obviously very similar to the last two times that I saw them, it had most of Dark Side and highlights from The Wall, but there were also some nice surprises.

Added to the set were Have a Cigar and, from the very easiest days of the band, Arnold Lane. Also added was the eponymous Echoes (from Meddle), an absolute favourite of mine even when played alongside other great songs.

Evenings do not get much better than listening to three hours of live Pink Floyd music played with skill and enthusiasm in a local pub.