The Thin White Dukes gets the Fox and Duck singing and dancing

Saturday night gigs at the Fox and Duck do not get any better than those from The Thin White Duke who regularly bring their brand of Bowie covers to the venue. It is not just me that thinks this and they always pull in a big crowd. Conscious of this I arrived promptly at 9pm and the place was already very busy. Armed with a Doombar I squeezed into a space well away from the potential dancing zone.

The Thin White Duke opened their set around 9:20pm and the singing started immediately. It still surprises me how many people know the lyrics to even the less well known album tracks and it surprises me more how many of these people could not possible have been born when the songs first came out. I used to think that deep knowledge of Bowie was confined to old people like me who bought every album on the day that it came out and played it to bits.

There is just so much to love in the extensive Bowie catalogue and we were all singing loudly (and mostly badly) along to songs like Cracked Actor, Diamond Dogs, Young Americans, Lets Dance and Queen Bitch. This singing got even more exuberant for classics like Life on Mars and anything off Ziggy Stardust.

This was a slightly different Thin White Duke with a new bass player and drummer and that may have been one reason for the different sound mix (more rock than funk) and for the extended versions of Golden Years and Fame. I liked the longer songs as they stopped the set from being a relentless string of hit singles.

The only problem was that this took their set dangerously close to the midnight curfew but things worked out and we got the final four fanfare that was expected; Rebel Rebel, Jean Genie, Starman and Heroes are songs to get anybody singing and dancing, especially when warmed up by two hours of excellent Bowie music.

The Thin White Duke are due back at the Fox and Duck on 12 September. I'll be there.