Memento at The Cavern

Various factors, including the impact of covid-19 and the gentrification of some pubs, have led to be going to vastly fewer pub gigs than I used to and now the only place I go to regularly (but not frequently) is The Cavern in Raynes Park. It's about 6km away so it is a decent walk to get there and a couple of buses to get back so it has to be a good band to drag me out that far.

Memento are a very good band. I've known this since April 2016 and I have taken every available opportunity to see them since then.

While other pub bands have very good musicians and include keyboards, two things make Memento exceptional; the lead singer and the setlist. Almost all other pub bands have an average (at best) singer and play the same rock standards, like Sex On Fire by Kings of Leon.

One song helps to make my point. The band started playing and before the song was recognised this was clearly a Black Sabbath number because Memento sounded just like them. Then comes recognition and it is not an obvious song, like Paranoid or Iron Man, but it is Heaven and Hell from the 1980 album of the same name. That incarnation of Black Sabbath had Ronnie James Dio on lead vocals (for the first time) and Memento's front-man, Tamas Csemez, does Dio very well.

I was also impressed by Tamas' t-shirt which I guessed was John Byrne's cover for X-Men issue 122. I was wrong, it is actually issue 125 (September 1979).

Memento really are an exceptional band and there is only one other band on the circuit that comes anywhere close to them, and that is Rainbow in Rock which is the same people with a different setlist.