Gold Rush at The Half Moon (19 Oct 25)

I was always going to see Gold Rush on their latest return to The Half Moon Putney and this time I made something of an afternoon of it by tackling some location-based challenges in two phone Apps.

I collect Gold Gyms in PokemonGo (I have 750) and this means making repeated visits to specific locations to battle the gyms there, gaining more points each time until you read Gold level. I had a few targets in Putney and Wandsworth that I wanted to revisit, two of them in particular. Over the afternoon I got points at seven gyms and went Gold at two!

The other target was walking new (unwalked) streets for my CityStrides LifeMap. I had already walked most of Putney but there were plenty of gaps heading towards and into Wandsworth. It is a non trivial task to walk out the best route to cover new streets, I had to walk down and back a few dead-ends, but in the end I was pleased to tick-off 19 streets. This raised my total for LB Wandsworth to 975 streets which is just a midge shy of 60%.

I had to look after myself too and that started very well with an All Day Vegetarian Breakfast at Sweet Tooth in Putney, continued reasonably with a coffee in Black Sheep Coffee Wandsworth and finished correctly with another coffee and a cake at Nlack Sheep Coffee Putney.

I had not forgotten the main purpose of my trip and I duly arrived at Half Moon Putney around 6:30pm, in good time for a rest and a pint before the music started.

I do not have a lot to say about the Gold Rush concert that I have not said several times before, so I will mention Tom's guitars instead!

Tom have half a dozen or so guitars on stage and he surprised us on one song with a bright yellow one. He explained that he had been doing something else during the day (he is a co-founder of charity Electric Umbrella) and a helper had put the wrong guitar in the wrong bag.

He also had issues with his black guitar, pictured above, and had to swap it for a less iconic one for the last few songs.

Every Gold Rush concert is different, just as every Neil Young concert is, and my mood is different each time too, so different songs strike me harder each time. On this occasion my stand-out performances were Down by the River, Cortez the Killer (loved the keyboard intro) and Cowgirl in the Sand.

The night ended something over two hours after it started with some good news, Gold Rush had booked to play the The Half Moon four times next year. I will be there.

Gold Rush at The Half Moon (18 May 25)

Gold Rush, formerly Honeyslides, have the happy habit of playing The Half Moon in Putney every six months so I have the equally habit of going to see them when they do. It is easy to say it is because they play Neil Young songs (the rather obvious clue is in the name!) but it is more than that, they play an excellent selection of songs that covers more than just the greatest hits and they play them very well with joy and enthusiasm.

Every night is a little different and this time there were a few rows of seats at the front and thanks to my usual good queue management I was able to grab one in the middle of the front row.

Except for a couple of minor glitches, the sound mix and volume were superb. It is hard to compare when the gigs are six months apart but I think this was the best sound set up they have had. 

The set had a few differences, as it usually does, This time the new songs included Sedan Delivery which meant no space for songs like Powderfinger. and Sugar Mountain.

My highlights this time included Words, Cortez the Killer and Southern Man. Of course Like a Hurricane and Cinnamon Girl were blistering too.

It really was an exceptional evening and one I hope to repeat later this year.

My only regret is that the one decent photo I took that evening (of three) had just Tom Billington in it and while he is the main man they are a band and they all played a significant part in the success of the evening. 

Space rock at The Half Moon

I had never heard of Here and Now or Paradise 9 but a friend said I would like them and other people I knew were going so it seemed like a good idea. One worth investing £15 in anyway.

Lots of other people thought so too and the event was sold out.

The pub being very busy and it being a Sunday meant that my evening meal for the day was a packet or ready salted crisps. Not for the first time. The Young's Ordinary was a welcome accompaniment.

Paradise 9 were led by three guitars with one of them doing the electronic space rock stuff. They only played their own songs, unlike most space rock bands I have seen who play some or only Hawkwind songs, but they had a familiar space rock vibe and I liked them a lot.

Here and Now were similar but different. They were led by two guitars and keyboards. Their heritage is very space rocky going back to '74, includes a splash of Gong and their leas guitarist used to be in Hawklords (he was with them when I saw them in 2017), but they sounded less space rocky than Paradise 9. Indeed I struggled to identify any bands that they did sound like, the odd riff sounded like something from the early '70s but it was a loose connection to the music of that period but nothing more than that.

Most of the people there, certainly those all around me standing at the front, were there for Here and Now who were technically the headline act but it felt like a double-headliner to me, they played for about the same length of time, and I preferred Paradise 9.

Gold Rush at The Half Moon (6 Oct 24)

Once upon a time Goldrush were called The Honeyslides and I saw them whenever they played at The Half Moon in Putney (which was every six months or so) and I have been carrying on that tradition under their new name. The only difference over the years of seeing them is that they had a new dummer this night and the occasional female backing singer has not been at any of the recent concerts.

There have been other small changes, Luke (on the left) now plays piano too, some of the songs have changed and the music technology has had several upgrades but their concerts essential remain Neil Young and Crazy Horse playing Live Rust, and that is all I could ever ask for.

The Honeyslides (abridged) at The Half Moon (20 Jun 21)

It is a slow start moving somewhere back towards "normal" and The Honeyslides at The Half Moon was my first foray back into gigs. The Honeyslides have been a must-see band for me for a while 

Covid restrictions meant the venue was all seating and I was quick to book a table for four and to confirm that I wanted the one just to the left of the centre of the stage where I usually manage to sit thanks to careful planing and long queueing.

The timing of the concert meant that it made sense to eat at the pub beforehand which I had not done before. The vegetarian mock-chicken burger with katsu curry sauce did the job nicely as did the pint of Young's Ordinary (apparently it is called Original now but everybody who knows beer ignores that).

Covid had an impact on Honeyslides too and the previous four piece band plus backing singer was abridged to just Tom Billington, who plays Neil Young, and Luke (surname not found on Google), who plays everyone else.

Covid had also given time for Luke to hone his piano playing and the keyboard was a new feature for Honeyslides. 

With the reduced line-up it was no surprise that the set focussed on Neil Young's acoustic songs, of which there are a great many. Many, like Needle and the Damage Done and Sugar Mountain, were already established in the Honeyslides set and these were joined by songs like Thrasher (from Rust Never Sleeps) which I was particularly pleased to hear.

They also managed to play all of After The Gold Rush along the way, complete with a short break to allow the record to be turned over.

Being acoustic did not mean that they could not rock and we had powerful versions of Like a Hurricane, Powderfinger, Cowgirl in the Sand and Rocking in the Free World.

The Honeyslides are all about the quality of the songs and the quality of their delivery; the quantity was an impressive bonus with the set running for well over two hours.

Covid restrictions brought many changes to the venue, band and setlist but this was still a Honeyslides gig and an excellent one at that.

The Honeyslides at The Half Moon (18 Feb 18)

The Honeyslides have officially become a tradition on my fourth time of seeing them at The Half Moon in Putney since April 16. Now, as with Kew Gardens, the blog posts have the date in the title to differentiate the similar entries.

Things went much the same as usual this time, a 85 bus from Kingston at 6:45pm got us to The Half Moon just before 7:30pm. The doors were due to open at 8pm and there were already three people in the queue. We grabbed a couple of pints of Ordinary and joined them.

The wait was uneventful and we passed some of the time attempting the pub quiz questions. The biggest excitement came when a heavily laden and slightly flustered bass player turned up at 8pm. He obviously did not need to be part of the sound check!

The doors opened more of less on time. As previously one of the two central tables was reserved and the group in front of us claimed the other so we took the one on the left of the stage, as we had done in September.

The Honeyslides started just after 8:30am with just Tom Billington on stage doing an acoustic set. As expected this was very much a greatest hits selection and the mood of the evening was very much Live Rust, which is still the best introduction to Neil Young's music. That meant that it was not too long before we had the full band on stage and the acoustic guitar was swapped for a black electric one.

I did not attempt a set list this time, nor did I take any notes, as I wanted to concentrate on the music and I was not expecting surprises. While there were no surprises there were some changes. The most obvious omission (to me) was Words which was balanced, I think, by a couple of new songs including Farmer John. Some of the absolute classics seemed to be longer and even more energetic before, particularly Cinnamon Girl. There were some sequence changes too with Like A Hurricane and Cortez The Killer both coming almost at the end just as I was starting to worry that we might not hear them.

As before there was a pretty hard curfew at 11pm and if you do the maths that was almost two and a half hours of uninterrupted Neil Young music played with a lot of skill and even more passion. That's why seeing The Honeyslides at The Half Moon has become a tradition.

More Neil Young wonderfulness from The Honeyslides at The Half Moon

My excuse for seeing The Honeyslides used to be that it was a rare opportunity to hear some Neil Young songs played live and while that is still true I can now add that I wanted to see The Honeyslides.

This was my third time seeing them and after the first two I was very keen to see them again. So much so that I was happy to make the epic journey to Putney (two buses) and pay £10 for the privilege when I have plenty of opportunities to see covers bands for free within walking distance.

The 8pm start meant a 7pm bus which then left time for a first pint of Wimbledon Somethingorother before the doors opened at 8:15. I had two more later.

The waiting was enlivened by the chaos of the pub quiz in which the golden rule of writing your own questions was broken leading to much confusion and some comedy.

The timely arrival and some astute defending of my position got me into the music room first. My plan was to take a seat just to right of centre of the stage, as I had been left of centre last time, but the two table on the right were reserved for family members so it was the one just left of centre again.

I was not clock watching but I think that it was around  8:45pm that they started playing and they played non-stop until just after 11pm in a blistering set that went electric, acoustic and then electric again. It was a typical, for them and for Neil Young, mix of greatest hits and some surprises.

As last time I just noted one word from each song for the set list to save time writing and this is what I wrote: tonight, palomino, winds, cinnamon, hurricane, winter, river, alabama, revolution, words, highway, gold, moon, comes, old, rose, sugar, loner, thrasher, needle, castles, powder, cry, walk, cowgirl, dance, ohio, tonight (reprise), southern, rocking. This time my standout track was thrasher for several reasons.

There were a few technical snafus, a bit of technology broke and so did a guitar string, but the band kept playing until things were sorted and everything was fine. Better than fine actually.

It was another excellent evening thanks to Neil Young for writing the songs and The Honeyslides for playing them so well and for corralling them together into a great set.

Another brilliant evening with The Honeyslides at The Half Moon

It was almost a year since I last (and first) saw The Honeyslides at The Half Moon in Putney and it was an easy decision to see them play there again when they finally returned. A lot of the details were the same as my previous visit and perhaps the most significant difference was that I dug out a check shirt for the occasion, as did several other people. No jeans though as I do not own any.

Again I was too busy enjoying the music to do anything other than note a few words, words that will mean a lot to any Neil Young fan; Cinnamon, Pocahontas, Words, Alabama, River. Cowgirl, Ohio, Cortez, Hurricane, Southern. To which I would add the word Brilliant.

The Honeyslides played for the best part of two and a half hours until the 11pm curfew meant we all had to leave and find another pub to drink in (Willoughby was still open, of course). It was a stupendous two and a half hours and while I occasionally wanted some of the songs to last a little longer that would have meant playing fewer of them and I think that they got the balance right.

The Honeyslides were somewhere between sitting at home alone listening to Live Rust on headphones and being in the front row of a concert with Neil Young and Crazy Horse, and that was a might fine place to be.

Update: 18 hours later and I'm still singing Cinnamon Girl to myself, and sometimes to the rest of the office too.

Wallowing in the music of Neil Young with The Honeyslides at The Half Moon

I have seen many covers bands in the last few years, mostly at the Fox and Duck, and while they do the occasional Neil Young song it is not that often and it is almost always Rockin' in the Free World. So when an opportunity arose to see a Neil Young covers band I jumped at the chance even though it meant paying £8 (the Fox and Duck is free), travelling to Putney and missing the Sunday night pub quiz.

The band in question were the Honeyslides who get their name from a mysterious concoction known as a 'honey slide' that was heavily consumed during the On The Beach sessions. A somewhat obscure connection, I will admit, but they made up for it by putting Neil Young on their poster and going for a Harvest album cover look.

The doors were due to open at 8pm so Pete and I arranged to meet at 7pm and let the 85 bus take us steadily from Kingston to Putney. We arrived in good time and that allowed us to look in the windows of a books and a comics shop as we passed. It also allowed us to grab our first beers before going in.

I dug out my t-shirt from the NYAS London Convention in 2005, celebrating Neil's sixtieth birthday, and there were a few other NY t-shirts in the bar and quite a few people who looked like NY fans either because of their lumberjack style checked shirts or their general age and appearance.

There were a few very keen people standing near the door waiting for them to open and we were among them and so were able to claim a good spot. I was expecting it to be standing at the front but the room was arranged with tables and chairs at the front so we claimed a couple of seats at the table in the centre. Speaking to a couple sharing the table with us it appears that this arrangement is not unusual and I must admit that it was nice to have somewhere to put my beer, which encouraged me to have more beers than I might otherwise have done.

The Honeyslides took the stage soon after 8:30pm in a formation akin to Neil Young and Crazy Horse, a good sign. In addition to the four band members shown below there was a female vocalist who provided backing vocals on most songs.

I was not interested in compiling a full set list, just making a note on my phone of the songs that made be happy the most, and it became quite a long list. Normally in Neil Young circles, and elsewhere, songs are known by their initials, e.g. Rockin' in the Free World is RITFW, but I preferred to use key words and my list was; Cinnamon, Hurricane, Words, Alabama, River, Helpless, Heart, Sugar, Powder, Cowgirl, Cortez, Ohio, Southern,  Tonight, Rockin'. Remember, these were just my favourite tracks and there were fifteen of them!

As expected with Neil Young there was a mix of the rock and the folk with a run of four acoustic numbers (Helpless, Heart, Sugar, Powder) in the middle. The songs were not as long as NY has been known to play them but I timed Like a Hurricane at around ten minutes and some of the other songs, e.g. Cortex the Killer, were string out to a similar length with the extended guitar solos over the sympathetic rhythms of the rest of the band.

I was absolutely delighted with both the choice of songs and the way that they were played. My feet were tapping, my head was shaking and my lips followed the words. I was in rapture. It was that good.

The Honeyslides played for the best part of two and a half hours and were only stopped by the pub's curfew, they had more songs to play and they looked to have the energy and enthusiasm to play them.  I managed to get a few words with main-man Tom Billington afterwards and he was still energetic and enthusiastic as I explained how much I had enjoyed the performance.

There was so much to love in the music and, for reasons that I do not understand or particularly care about, it was Words (Between the Lines of Age) that rattled around my head for the next few days. A fitting tribute to a great evening.

The Lamb Lies Down in Putney

Somehow I never really got into Genesis in the way that I got into bands like Yes and Pink Floyd. Most of that was probably down to lack of exposure during my formative years and the first time that I really listened to them was at university in 76 with the Trick of the Tale album which I absolutely loved, and still love.

This prejudice has carried forward to the present day and when I see prog rock tribute bands like secondSight or INdisciplineD I enjoy the Genesis songs but I enjoy the other songs more.

That said, I did go and see Genesis tribute act Carpet Crawlers at The Peel in 2010 and that was alright.

It was through secondSight and INdisciplineD that I was persuaded to go and see ReGenesis. The common link was bassist Nick Loebner who has been in all three bands. It is Nick playing the double neck guitar in the photo below.

While Carpet Crawlers covered the whole of Genesis' career, including the later middle of the road stuff, ReGenesis only cover the early period when Peter Gabriel sang and Phil Collins just played drums. Oddly, that period included the concept double album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway from which the song Carpet Crawlers comes from. And this concert by ReGenesis was The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in its entirety.

The venue for their first performance of their new show was The Half Moon in Putney, conveniently close yet far enough away from the station for me to get some steps in. I got there not long before the advertised 8pm opening time and fought my way through the busy pub to get a pint of something wet before going in to the concert area. The gig had sold out and the pub was very busy, lively without being unbearable. Unfortunately it was far too busy to wander around looking for familiar faces, I am sure that there were a few there, but I did manage to exchange a few words with Nick when he popped out to test the mood.

Without trying too hard I managed to get, and hold, a spot somewhere near the door to the concert room and so I was one of the first in. It surprised me that the very first ones in ran for some seats against the wall on one of the wides and so the space next to the stage, where I wanted to be, was free. I chose a spot just to the right of the centre.

I had not been there long when somebody came up and said hello. He followed this with, "You do not recognise me, do you?", which I had to confess was true. He quickly admitted to being formed secondSight lead guitarist Norman Leader, then resident in Dorset, who I failed to recognise despite having seen and spoken to him many time simply because he had gained a significant amount of hair and lost a significant amount of weight since I last saw him. We talked for quite a while about music and Dorset and that was a fine way to fill the gap before ReGenesis came to the stage.

I was not entirely sure what to expect. I had bought The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, eventually, but I knew it much less well than the albums either side of it. I deliberately avoided doing some research beforehand by playing it a few time as I was quite content to go into the concert knowing just the general sound of the piece, i.e. early Genesis, and some of the highlights.

ReGenesis tried to recreate the original sound rather than reinterpreting the songs their way and that meant matching the original band man for man. Obviously Peter Gabriel was the hardest role to fill because of his distinctive voice and with Tony Patterson they had an able frontman who sounded like Gabriel, engaged well with the audience and even wore a little makeup. ReGenesis also do full costumes concerts, this was not one of those but Tony's effort was appreciated.

For the next hour and a half or so we got The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and everybody in the packed room loved it. It was what we had all come to hear and that is what we got skillfully delivered to us.

There was an encore of two songs and the final one had to be I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe) from 73's Selling England by the Pound. My first exposure to Genesis may well have been seeing this on The Old Grey Whistle Test. We were encouraged, not that we needed much encouragement, to sing along and that was when by position in the front row became a liability and Tony's mike was thrust at me as I delivered the line "Getting better in your wardrobe" badly.

That one badly sung line apart it was a brilliant evening and while I am not yet fully converted to the Genesis faith I am enough of a fan to go and see ReGenesis again. Good music played well is always worth going to see.

Stackridge at the Half Moon, the beginning of the end

Stackridge were one of the few bands that I made a point of seeing at every opportunity and a concert just down the road at the Half Moon in Putney was a good opportunity.

The good news of the concert was twinged with the disappointment that this was announced as their farewell tour. Even more reason to go and see them then.

Seeing them was non-trivial as I had to work in Leatherhead that day but I managed to escape early enough to go home, drop the bag and swap the suit for something more casual.

The Half Moon is a pub with a music venue stuck on the side, there's little connection between the two other than you have to go through one to get to the other. In passing through the one I helped myself to a pint of beer.

Somehow I managed to get there before the music room opened and a little queue developed by the door. I was close enough to the front of it to get a place next to the stage when the door was released. The stage at the Half Moon was across one corner which gave it a lot of space at the front and not much at the back. The downside of that was that Stackridge spread themselves along the front, as they had to, so those on the far right and left sides were some way away from me and were almost side-on to me. I could live with that.

This was my first experience of the new tour and, as always, I was interested to see how the band sounded and what songs they chose to play. I was delighted with both.

The line-up had settled down in the last few years to a five-piece band of Andy Cresswell-Davis on, guitars,  James Warren on bass, Glenn Tommey on keyboards, Eddie John on drums and Clare Lindley on violin. Other instruments were played at times including a trombone (evidence right) and far too many ukuleles than any band has a right to deploy (evidence below).

The mix of instruments were just right for the folksy and progy sound that, for me, defines Stackridge. A sound firmly routed in the early seventies and proudly so.

The set-list had settled down too, presumably because the line-up had. We all have our favourites and it was good to see some of mine included, they are listed here as God Speed and Spaceships.

I liked all of the other songs too, though I have to admit that while most fans seemed to put Dora first I would put it last, but even last in that list is pretty good.

Several of the songs, especially the newer ones like Red Squirrel, I only knew from seeing Stackridge live and I had seen them live often enough to learn and love these songs too.

Everything went as well as expected. The band played well and with obvious delight (evidence above) a set of fabulous songs that got everybody singing, cheering, swaying, clapping and, above all, smiling. It was a wonderful concert by a band in top form.

It ended all too soon, i.e. after a couple of hours, and we were forced back into the pub which had gone through a transformation in the meantime with the arrival of a disco, lots of young people and bouncers on the door to keep things orderly. I found a quietish corner for a quick pint before heading back to Putney station and a train home.

There was a reason that Stackridge were one of the few bands that I made a point of seeing at every opportunity and they proved why again at the Half Moon. A faultless evening.

Echoes at the Half Moon

I had seen Echoes play several times before in three different venues but this was the first time that I had to pay. And I was glad to.

I do not understand the economics of local bands that means that I can see them in a small pub for free or pay £7 to see them in a reasonably sized venue.

The other thing that I do not understand is why so many people are happy to pay £7 to see a band only to stand at the back talking to their mates all evening.

The combination of the talkers and my natural inclinations took me to the front of the stage. The Half Moon had a wide stage set in to one corner (much like the Grey Horse in Kingston) so I had to choose which half of the band to see. I went for guitar, keyboards and sax with a hint of drums.

I chose that side, rather than the possibly more glamorous lead guitar and bass,  because I felt that Guy Smith's saxophone was the defining sound of the band. It was often used to fill in the gabs that Pink Floyd filled with other musicians and singers and this is most notable in Great Gig in the Sky where the sax takes the vocal line but it is the little touches that the sax brought throughout the show that I liked.

On this occasion another highlight was the interchange between sax (far right) and lead guitar (far left) in their friendly rivalry to add the most colour to some extended sections.

It was also good to get a decent view of Peter Bamford on keyboards.He is the leader of the band but he normally hides himself away behind the guitars. On the wider shallower stage at the Half Moon he could not do that. The point of seeing the keyboards up close is to match the fingers to the sounds, which I like to do.

The sound quality was excellent. Echoes were able to make use the Half Moon's professional level equipment (I've seen the likes of Arthur Brown and Strawbs play there) and this showed. Oran Halberthal's bass benefited from the better sound system the most and was my second favourite instrument on the night.

Echoes always had played all of Dark Side of the Moon across the evening but as individual tracks. This year they were celebrating forty years of the album by playing it in its entirety.

With Dark Side the main point of the second half of the show the first got a good dollop of The Wall.

The new lead guitarist, Terry Finch, still learning some of the songs the set list was slightly reduced and we did not get any of the more recent songs, e.g. from Momentary Lapse of Reason. I did not mind too much.

It was good to hear Echoes (the song), it always is, though it was a little odd to hear it immediately after Dark Side; I think that I would have preferred it the other way round and to have Dark Side end the show.

The evening ended on a very high note and I managed to have a few, very complimentary, words with most of the band. It was nice to put £7 in their pockets for their efforts and nicer still to tell them how much I enjoyed their show. Again.

The talkers and the order of the songs were very minor gripes in what was another excellent evening of Pink Floyd music. I love this bands to bits and have plans to see them again very soon.