The Thin White Duke at the Fox and Duck (April 2014)

Let's get the bad news out of the way first as that rather clouds my view of the evening.

I was feeling rather run-down and not really in the mood for a good time. That also made me more susceptible to the irritations of the livelier people in the pub, one of whom was equally loud and annoying the previous week at Echoes. Let's hope that this is not a trend.

The good news is that the bad news stopped me from dancing and everybody else should be grateful for that.

The Thin White Duke are extremely popular and despite arriving well before the 9pm start time the pub was already full and I had to wait a little to get my first of several Doombars. It always helps when the pub is full as the lively happy atmosphere is as important as the music.

There was a change in the ranks of The Thin White Duke this time with the arrival of Sally Knight on backing vocals. Bowie usually had female singers with him so the move made sense though.

Along with Sally came some new songs. We were promised four but only Absolute Beginners was announced as such. The other news ones may have been Sorrow, Sound and Vision (who wrote "Sounds" on the set-list?), and Young Americans, but it would not surprise me either to learn that these are all stalwarts of the band's.

The Thin White Duke did what they always do and that is to get everybody singing and quite a few dancing. Who could possibly resist getting involved with classics like Life on Mars, Starman, Oh You Pretty Things and the set-closer Heroes? Though I would still like to see them do the German version, Helden, one day.

The moans about some of the audience do not detract from the simple fact that The Thin White Duke are a good band playing great songs and this was a fine performance.

Sadly there is some bad news to end with too. They have had to cancel the gig scheduled for August so they will not be back to the Fox and Duck until 6 December. It's in my diary.