Pink Floyd at Pompeii MCMLXXII

I have no idea why someone thought to update 1972's Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii in 2025, missing the fiftieth anniversary in doing so, but I welcomed the chance to see it again, this time on a big screen with big loudspeakers.

To save travel time, I chose to go to the Odeon in Kingston and duly paid £25 for my seat. There was some confusion on the day as it was moved to another screen, technical problems, and I ended up in the back row (K) of Screen 4, which was fine.

I am pretty sure that I bought Live at Pompeii at some point in some format now defunct , probably VHS, so I had not seen it for quite a few years and while I could remember some of the songs included I knew that there were gaps in my memory.

They opened with Echos which was an excellent start. A live version of Echos is on my iPhone and I play it several times a year. The sound quality was as good as expected and the video was as good as I should have expected which was good for its time but seriously behind today's standard. That did not matter though, I was there for the songs and they were great.

This was 1972 and Pink Floyd played a selection of their then most known songs including classics like Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Careful with That Axe, Eugene, and A Saucerful of Secrets. They also played Mademoiselle Nobs!

Despite being described as "live" with some post production work in the studio the songs sounded very much like their studio versions, which was again fine.

The film did little other that show the band and the only surprising thing about that was the amount of time spent on Nick Mason who impressed with his casual virtuosity. There were also a few scenes of the band in the studio talking which did not add much except that it gave us a glimpse in to the genesis of Dark Side of the Moon which would change their world for ever and have a big impact on lots of other people too.

As a film, Pink Floyd at Pompeii was not great and was rescued by the copious amounts of music which made it a good experience of any Pink Floyd fan, like me.

Echoes back at The Fox and Duck

It is always good to see Echoes play anywhere and it is even better to see them in The Fox and Duck in Petersham as it is easy for me to get to (I could walk but I usually take the bus) and there is always a great atmosphere there.

The buses were unkind to me and I did not get to the pub until just before Echoes started playing. By then the pub was pretty packed and any hope I had for getting a comfortable place by the bar had long gone. It was hard enough to squeeze up to the bar to get my first Doombar of the evening.

Beer acquired I tried to find somewhere decent to stand where I could both see the band reasonably well (I am only little) and would not be jostled too much by people trying to get to the toilets or the bar. That meant I was pretty near the front for most of the evening, which was fine with me.

Echoes opened, as usual, with In the Flesh? from The Wall with its loud refrain, "So ya, Thought ya, Might like to go to the show." and took it on from there with more songs from, mostly, The Wall and Wish You Were Here. I like the way that they play a combination of the shorter poppier songs, such as Another Brick in the Wall, and longer proggier songs like Shine on You Crazy Diamond.

After an hour Echoes decided that they needed a rest and took a break from half an hour or so.

When they came back they gave us Dark Side of The Moon in its entirety. Not surprisingly this was very well received by everybody there, even the people who looked far too young to know the album,  and there was a lot of singing along. I may have been guilty for some of that.

How do you follow something as brilliant and as famous as Dark Side? Echoes chose to do it with Echoes, though they trimmed it down a little to a mere fifteen minutes. It was my highlight of the evening (again).

Echoes played until just a little shy of the midnight curfew, and remember they started spot on nine. That was one long and very excellent set that went down very well with an enthusiastic audience.

It is hard to fault an evening as good as that, so I shan't. It was perfect.

Echoes, without Echoes, at The Berry

Sad events kept me away from Echoes for a while. They lost their guitarist, Lee, in a car accident last year and then when they got back on the road and played at a local pub, the Fox and Duck in Petersham, I was at a memorial for a friend of mine who died recently.

The ill winds finally dissipated on Saturday 13 April when I was able to catch Echoes at The Berry in Surbiton. I last saw them play there two years ago.

Obviously new guitarist, Doug Lean (far left),has had an impact on the band. His style is a little more forceful and aggressive than Lee's and he does not use a slide guitar (yet). Doug has not yet learnt the full set so this was the band Echoes without the track Echoes. Of course Echoes was missed but the Pink Floyd catalogue is not exactly small and the set survived without it.

There is still a heavy reliance on The Wall, and there is nothing wrong with that. This is obvious from the very beginning and the shows opens with the traditional song In the Flesh?,the words, "So ya, Thought ya, Might like to go to the show" and a solid blast of sound that announces to the pub that the band are on and they mean business.

The set continues with more from The Wall and a smattering of songs from the likes of A Momentary Lapse of Reason, e.g. Sorrow and The Dogs of War) and there was Arnold Layne too.

There was nothing from The Dark Side in the first half as they saved that up for the second. This is the album's fortieth birthday and to celebrate Echoes are playing it in its entirety.

To be honest they used to play all of it before but not in the right order and with other songs interleaved,

Dark Side is still a brilliant album (I bought it in '73 and several times since then) and was warmly received by the enthusiastic audience.

Money was an obvious highlight because it is such a great song and another was Great Gig in The Sky because the saxophone did the part of the screaming vocals so well. Despite that, Us and Them was my favourite song on the night as Echoes skilfully pulled all of the meaning out of the song. It was impossible not to sing along.

Now that Echoes are back on the road I expect to be singing along to them again once or twice again this year. And yet again after that.

Echoes Part II

I would normally go to see Echoes play at the Fox and Duck without a moment's hesitation and the only problem this time was that I managed to double-book myself with a theatre date on the same evening. My bad.

Luckily I was able to recover the situation a little. The theatre ended around 10pm and my winged chariot (a.k.a. a number 65 bus) was there to whisk me a couple of miles north to Petersham. I arrived at the Fox and Duck during the interval, which meant that I was just in time for Echoes Part II.

The pub was pleasingly packed. Heaving in fact. I eventually managed to get served and fought my way towards the front where my mate Pete was already stationed. I was a bit worried that we might have been in the mosh pit zone but what dancing there was ended with the group of women just in front of me. From then on back it was a bit of gentle swaying and arm waving only.

Echoes did just what I expected and wanted. They played a fair amount of very old stuff, including Echoes, as well as a lot of merely old stuff, such as large chunks of Dark Side.

Part II ended around midnight in the usual manner with Comfortably Numb and Money after a thoroughly uplifting and joyous hour and a half or so. That's why I keep going to see them.

An echo of a distant time

Echoes are a band that I am happy to see at any time and so its was that I found myself back at the Fox and Duck for another evening of excellent music.

It may be almost forty years since Dark Side of the Moon started its World Domination in album sales but the memories are long and pleasant and so the pub was packed to relive the music of Pink Floyd.

I've said before that the pub is not really the right shape for them, the stage area is too narrow and is in the main bar, but they manage to overcome these obstacles.

The narrow stage means that the saxophonist, Guy Smith, is banished to the corridor that leads to the toilets and then outside but this works fine. Guy even manages to wander in to the centre towards the end as the climax approaches.

Being in the bar means contending with bar chatter but that's an easy problem to solve. Just play loudly.

The mark is set at the very beginning with a raucous, "So ya, Thought ya, Might like to go to the show" that demands attention the same way that a two year old child does.

From there things progress much as expected with large dollops of Dark Side and The Wall mixed in with a smattering of other songs from See Emily Play through to Sorrow, the closing track from A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

In that blend a particular favourite of mine was the track that we were informed that Pink Floyd named after the band.

That may not be true.

Great Gig in the Sky was another highlight mainly thanks to the clever use of the sax to do the female vocal line. It was magic.

Somehow the pieces came in to place from my vantage point behind a bench and I managed to get all the band members in one photo. I don't think that I've managed that before.

They are (L-R): Guy Smith (Saxophone), Peter Bamford (Keyboards), John Vassar (Lead Vocals), Simon Melvin (Drums), Oran Halberthal (Bass) and Lee Deal (Lead Guitar).

And it's good to be able to name-check them all as the whole point of Echoes is that they play as one unit.

There were no surprises in the evening but I went expecting to thoroughly enjoy myself and so no surprises was a good result.

It really was a very good evening. Again.

Roger Waters' The Wall at the O2

Dark Side of the Moon was one of the first LPs that I bought and, a few years later, The Wall was one of my first CDs. I have all their other albums too and I still love them.

I never got to see Pink Floyd live and while the tribute bands do some justice to the majesty of the songs they do not pretend to be anything other than talented musicians playing somebody else's great songs.

The closest that I got to the real thing was a commemorative performance of The Wall in Prague in 2009. There the size of the arena, the grandeur of theatrical show and the freedom being commemorated made it a very special event.

Having had one taste of The Wall I wanted another and signed up to see Roger Waters show at London's O2 Arena, a.k.a. The Millennium Dome.

This was my first time at the O2 and getting there proved to be easy but getting food less so. I settled for Armadillos as it had the shortest queue and while it's not my sort of place the food was reasonable enough and it did the job.

The arena bit of a disappointment. It was even more brutally functional than I expected and my seat may have folded easily and had a drinks holder for my non-existent drink but it was quite uncomfortable and was facing the seats opposite rather than the stage that was about 45% to my left.

But these gripes got quickly forgotten when the show started, and what a show it was.

The Wall that was built gradually through the first half of the show acted as the screen for some insanely good projected graphics that moved constantly and realistically.

This allowed the whole nature of the set to change to suit the mood of each song.

Against that backdrop Roger and the band were rather dwarfed but that did not matter either.

What did matter was some of the talking. I paid £75 to hear music not morons talk. Luckily most of the music was loud enough to mask the worse excesses and the biggest offenders got dealt with at half time and were not allowed back in.

The songs are the same but the show has been updated and is now even more firmly anti-war and anti-establishment. This was a concert for us lefties.

This was flagged early on when the list of names and faces of war casualties included Jean Charles de Menezes. Later on we saw the wikileaked video of two Reuters journalists killed by American soldiers in Iraq and when the animated bombers came they dropped Shell logos.

All this was loudly cheered.

The were several familiar images to complement the new ones. We saw a lot of the original Gerald Scarfe animations that were welcome despite looking very dated alongside the modern pyrotechnics.

And there was a flying pig too.

Musically it was much as recorded in 1979, which is what we wanted. There were some changes for a live set with a different group of musicians but nothing that I could easily point to.

The ending was as per the album too with the band gathered at the font of the stage in front of the demolished wall playing Outside the Wall on acoustic instruments. The melody continues as they walk off one by one with Roger announcing their names. Then Roger himself leaves the stage and that was it.

No encore but none was expected or needed.

Echoes back at The Berry

Echoes and The Berry go well together so when they went back there so did I.

What makes The Berry so good for Echoes is the performance space that they get and the quality of the sound this produces in the lower bar. There are some downsides, such as the lack of space for the audience, no bar in that section and the behaviour of some of the locals but on balance the strengths far outweigh the weaknesses.

One of the nice things about Echoes is that they vary their set each time. It's still, broadly, a quarter Dark Side, a quarter The Wall and a half everything else but there is room for manoeuvre within that.

The main surprise this time was See Emily Play, which I had not seen them do before. Mind you, I still tend to think of this as a David Bowie song thanks to his version on Pin Ups.

The set order was also different this time with nothing from Dark Side until the very end of the first half of the set. I was actually a little upset by this as I had convinced myself by then that we were going to get Dark Side in its entirety in the second half. Perhaps next time.

And there will be a next time. When Echoes play one of my local venues again I'll be there again.

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.

secondSight back in Croydon

Amazingly it is almost three months since I last saw secondSight when they rocked the Scream Lounge in Croydon at the end of December. Deep in to March they returned, and so did I.

The routine worked well last time so I repeated it this; wore smart-casual to work, went to The George for a beer and some food before hand, went for the Nachos and walked to the venue early to get a good seat.

Then I turned tradition on its head and went to the right of the stage instead of the familiar left.

My main motive for this was to take get a different view of the stage so that I could photos from a different angle and of different band members.

Unfortunately Julian Veasy (keyboards) anticipated this and moved from his usual front-left to back-right where the lights could not get to him and so my point-and-press camera could not get any decent close-ups. I'll get you next time Julian!

The other advantage of being on the right is that I could see lead singer, Chris Baboon, without having to peer over the music stand he uses to remind him of some of the lyrics.

The only problem then is to try and catch when he is not moving too much, which is not easy. I have lots of rejected photos with blurred head, arms and legs. But that's fine, I'd much rather an active hard-to-photograph front-man than somebody in the Val Doonican mold.

On the far right you can just about see Norman Leader on lead guitar, sadly playing his last gig with secondSight before moving on to other projects.

That leaves the flamboyantly dressed Nick Loebner on bass at front-right and Mike Lane on drums in his new position behind him.

The minor tweaks to the staging were echoed in the set with one small change making quite a difference. Gone was the one Yes song, Siberian Khatru, to be replaced by another Pink Floyd song, the marvellous Wish You Were Here. It is a great song but it made most of the set a battle of the bands between Genesis and Pink Floyd (Pink Floyd won!).

The battle was broken up with songs by King Crimson, Radiohead, Jethro Tull and The Cardiacs. Of these The Cardiacs song, The Whole World Window, is the one that I know the least, though it is becoming more familiar. It also got the most positive reaction from the crowd who needed no encouragement to sing along.

Oddly, the same people were equally enthusiastic about Supper's Ready.

The final surprise of the evening was the guest appearance of a saxophonist for Money. Good plan!

One of the best things about secondSight is that they play some of the less expected songs of the famous bands.

So, for example, the Pink Floyd numbers included Dogs and Echoes. We had Money and Comfortably Numb too, but nobody is going to object to that.

Add to the evening the opportunity to mix with the band, to be part of an appreciative audience, the opportunity to catch up with some other fans and you have another great night out.

The only disappointment was having to leave very promptly at the end to catch my train to Clapham Junction, which I made with just a minute or so to spare. So even that worked well.

I'm not sure what happens next with secondSight with Norman's departure but I hope that they get back on stage before too long. And I hope that I'm there too.

secondSight delight in Croydon

secondSight get better with every gig and comfortably exceeded my already high expectations at the Scream Lounge in Croydon.

First some logistics. Travelling straight from work meant playing with the smart casual stuff again so as not to be too conspicuous at work or play. It also meant eating out beforehand which a trip to The George for some nachos and seasonal beers.

Fed and watered I then used Google Maps on the iPhone to guide me to the Scream Lounge, a walk of some ten minutes. Arriving a little early I managed to bag a table at the front, which is where I prefer to me.

The Scream Lounge is a nice little venue. The stage is well appointed for sounds and lights, the cosy room has a few tables and benches at the front and standing room at the back and, right at the back, a small bar to avoid the walk to the main bar downstairs.

This was the fourth time that I had seen secondSight in just a few months but it probably counts as the first proper gig the others being woefully short or partial dress rehearsals for the real thing.

The set was no great surprise, opening with The Knife and including many songs that I had heard them do before, e.g. Aqualung, Epitaph, Dogs and Supper's Ready.

There were some small surprises to further enliven the evening, Pink Floyd's Echoes and Radiohead's Lucky.

Clearly there was no problem for me with the set list and there was no problem with the band either. The stage, sound system and lighting suited them well and their playing rose to the occasion. The slight roughness and looseness of the warm up at The Old Explorer were gone and precision and polish took their place.

The drummer (Mike) and tune-smiths of secondSight (Norman on lead, Nick on bass and Julian on keys) do not move a great deal but that does not matter as the band's energy in funnelled effectively through vocalist Chris who is incapable of keeping still.

When not singing, Chris bounds around the stage bashing a tambourine with gusto against, well, almost anything including his head and heels.

It's hard to find any fault with a gig like this and the worst that I can come up with is that somehow I missed the last train to Richmond so had to catch the bus instead which must have added all of a quarter of an hour to the journey home. I'll know better next time.

And there will be a next time as the promoter liked the gig too and secondSight will be back there on 11 March.

Echoes in Berrylands

I love the music of Pink Floyd and I love the way that Echoes present it.

This love affair only started a few weeks ago when they played the Alexandra Tavern just down the road and went through a rough patch a couple of weeks later when they pulled out of another local gig (blaming the snow) but more than recovered when they played the following week at The Berry in Berrylands.

Berrylands is a nondescript part of Surbiton occupying the enviable position between the main line to Southampton, Bournemouth and Weymouth and the A3 to Portsmouth. It has its own railway station, that only the most local of services stop at, which has a few shops clustered around it. And a pub.

The Berry (formerly The Berrylands) is much better suited to bands than the Alexandra. The latter is long and thin which traps the band and their music at one end whereas The Berry is refreshingly wide allowing the music to run riot throughout the pub.

It's also conveniently situated next to the bus stop where the K2 links you to Kingston town centre.

This time I had the presence of mind to make a note of the songs as they played them
but while I am unable to do a direct comparison between the two sets it is clear that they were very similar and they may even have been the same. No problem there, it's a great set.

A quick scan shows a smattering of songs from Meddle, Animals, Momentary Lapse of Reason and Wish You Were Here but the bulk of the two hour set comes from Dark Side and The Wall so we get the crowd pleasing classics Time, Money, Great Gig in the Sky, Dirty Woman, Comfortably Numb and Another Brick in the Wall.

But great songs are not enough, you need a decent band too and Echoes are more than that.

From the opening blast of In The Flesh the rich sound pounds, probes, prods and pulsates filling the room and drawing you in to the unfolding story. This is not a band that plays quietly in the corner while the punters chat over their drinks.

The richness, warmth and depth of the music comes from having five, sometimes six, musicians and just a few tapes to provide the special effects that help to define the Pink Floyd sound.

A few weeks ago I had not heard of Echoes but now I'm determined to see them as often as possible. Next time should be the Fox on Duck on 25 March, as long as the snow has gone by then!

secondSight warm up on a cold night

This was bit of a strange gig but there's nothing wrong with that.

The venue was The Old Explorer just off Oxford Circus, and just a reasonable walk away from where I work in Victoria. First impressions are that this is a chain pub in the Wetherspoons mould with thick carpets, an assortment of tables and chairs and a bland corporate menu of meals prepared elsewhere. My choice, the Red Leicester and Spinach Burger, revealed this to be a Greene King pub.

The band were setting up downstairs when I arrived. This is an extension of the ground floor (same décor another bar) but was roped off a "private party".

The area assigned to, or claimed by, the band was generously wide which gave a lot of space for Chris Baboon to wave his tambourine in (he does that a lot) and for Nick Loebner to swap between his impressive collection of guitars.

The room being devoid of regular customers, I was able to grab a table in the centre of the room (somewhere to rest the occasional glass of Royal London) with the band just a metre or so away. It was just like having the band in your own front room.

The front room illusion started to fade a little as the secondSight groupies started to fill the room but the lack of privacy was offset by having other prog rock nuts to speak to about, er, prog rock.

But soon it was time for the talking to stop and the music to start.

I had seen secondSight a couple of times before so was expecting a selection of prog classics with a heavy slug of Genesis and that is what we got, starting with The Knife.

The important thing about secondSight is that they are tied to one band's catalogue so there sets contain more variety and more surprises than some.

This was evident early on when The Knife was followed by Aqualung then Epitaph; possibly my favourite two songs of the set.

Along the way we got some Yes (Siberian Khatru), Pink Floyd (Money, Dogs and Comfortably Numb) and loads more Genesis (Musical Box, Afterglow and Supper's Ready). There was some Cardiacs too but I'm not familiar with their stuff.

Some of these songs were clearly new and we were seeing them mid-rehearsal ahead of their big gig in Croydon so it was no surprise that there were a few fluffs (who was meant to say "A flower"?!) but, as previously, I was impressed by their musicianship (if not with Nick's Michael Jackson jacket!).

Another fine evening with fine music, fine playing, fine beer, fine company and a passable burger. Must do it again sometime.

Echoes of Pink Floyd

A mate in one pub alerted me to a concert at another one that led me going to see the band play at a third one; the three pubs being the Hand and Flower, Fox and Duck, and Alexandra Tavern.

The band are Echoes who play Pink Floyd covers but not, oddly, Echoes.

The Alexandra Tavern has gone through some changes recently so it was good to see it packed on a Friday night.

And it was even better to see quite a few familiar faces from the days when I lived around the corner in Kings Road.

But, the beer and pleasantries aside, it was the music that I went for and that worked out very well too.

Echoes opened with the familiar words "So you thought you might like to go to the show" from In The Flesh? off of The Wall and stayed comfortably in that zone for the next couple of hours or so to the clear delight of the fans and casual observers alike.

Echoes are a five piece band, rising to six when a saxophone is required, though the cramped setting meant that the poor drummer was only visible when he moved away from his cage for the interval.

They sound a lot like Pink Floyd too, which is definitely a good thing.

Their set plunders The Wall and Dark Side to a predictable extent but their are a few surprises in their too, like Pigs.

It was a lot of fun to be able to sing lines like "Hey you, Whitehouse, ha ha charade you are" once again.

It's hard to fault a band playing good music well; so I won't. They were spot-on with their song selection and their delivery and it was an excellent evening. So much so that I will be doing it all again in a couple of weeks.

Next time I'll try and pay more attention to the set list and less to the singing!

A short burst of SecondSight

Live progressive rock in a good local pub has to be worth going to. So I did.

The venue was the Grey Horse just down the Richmond Road that has a justified reputation for delivering live music for many years and the headline act was SecondSight who I had seen play there before.

I arrived a little early to give time to mix etc. and made the mistake of seeing some of the penultimate act whose rambling Texas rock did absolutely nothing for me.

Somebody asked me who I was there to see and when I said it was SecondSight he moaned that they were useless old farts, or words to that effect, before confessing to being their lead guitarist! Nice one Norman.

Not liking the music I retired to the bar with fellow prog rock fans Pete and Adrian to pass the time with musical conversation and some decent beer.

Time passed and so did the official start time and it was quite late before we were back in the room ready for SecondSight to entertain.

The late start meant a reduced set of around forty minutes which, being prog rock, meant only around five songs.

Genesis got us going and popped up again in the middle. Not my favourite band but good enough and SecondSight do them well with two guitars and keyboards.

I felt that the Yes song, Siberian Khatru from Close to the Edge, was less successful but that's because I associate the voice of Jon Anderson so much with Yes and few other singers sound anything like him.

Jethro Tull's Aqualung was another strong song and a welcome addition from the previous set that I had heard.

And all too quickly the cruel curfew fell and that was it. Nick (bass) then said how angry the band were with the reduced timing but it is to their credit that this anger was not at all apparent during the set and they played with obvious enjoyment, love and skill.

SecondSight may have been short-changed this time but they are getting out more now and I hope that they get a better crack of the whip when they play Central London in early December. A chance to hear the rehearsed but unplayed Dogs perhaps.

secondSight and friends

I almost decided not to go to the Grey Horse on Friday night, but what a mistake that would have been!

The only reason for going that I had was the promise of some classic prog rock delivered by secondSight, a band unknown to me at the time. Against that were stacked the formidable attractions of a quiet night in after a difficult week.

In the end the call of the prog rock pulled through and I walked through some light rain to the pub just in time to grab a pint of Guinness (I asked for Youngs!) before their set.

secondSight did what they said they would do and and played a selection of Genesis, Pink Floyd, Yes and King Crimson covers. Some were expected, e.g. Money, and others not so, e.g. Epitaph.


The balance of the sound was good with lead guitar and keyboards to provide the highlights and it would be a little churlish to say that a flute would have been good too.

It would be equally churlish to mention that the newish lead singer fluffed a few lyrics as that mattered little, we all knew them anyway.

Retired to the bar and was soon joined by Nick from the band and some other prog fans and the fun started.

This was helped in no small measure by the unexpected presence of three members of Hoaxwind. Even more conversions on music followed. The Cardicacs got a lot of mentions, not least because Adrian is writing a book about them, but I had to leave that debate alone as I've never managed to get in to the band. I did say that I would try again and must dig out their best-of CD that I bought the last time a fan of theirs said I must listen to them.

All too soon the bar closed and it was time to go home, or rather to head for the Willoughby for a night-cap. The pub was buzzing with familiar and friendly regulars and we were joined, unexpectedly for the second time that night, by some of Hoaxwind also looking for one for the road.

The last bus home made its journey just after 1am but it was too good an evening to leave early so I lingered and talked for about another hour before deciding that it really was time for bed.

So what could have been a quiet night in alone became a social night out with friends. Good call me.

Carpet Crawlers at The Peel

It's a well known fact that 70's music is the best and that prog rock is one of the reasons for this. Sadly most of the bands that played then are either dead, retired or too rich to play these days and so the many tribute bands are the closest that we can get to reliving those glory days.

So when the House of Progression at The Peel announced a show by the Carpet Crawlers it went straight into my diary.

Carpet Crawlers recognise that one of the things that made Genesis legends was the grand performances that they put on, starting with Peter Gabriel's costumes and acting then on to the light shows of Seconds Out, so this is a large part of what they do - even in a small place like The Peel.

Their act is in two parts with the early era first and then a short break and a change of tempo to the Phil Collins era with songs I'd never heard of before.

Part 1 was, as expected, a joyous ramble through the early catalogue with songs like Watcher of the Skies, Supper's Ready (all of it!) and a medley from the Lamb Lies down on Broadway (oddly without Carpet Crawlers).

Part 2 was all new to me but I appreciated the extended instrumental sections that clearly descended from Genesis' progressive origins. I was rather expecting to hear at least one of the classic ballads from Trick of the Tail, i.e. Entangled and Ripples, but all we got from their last great album (my personal prejudice) was Los Endos which, not surprisingly, closed the show.

There is a great deal going for Carpet Crawlers, the show is well planned and delivered and they really do look and sound a lot like Genesis. But that is their problem too because thirty years on the Genesis songs do not stand-up to close examination in the same way that, say, those from Yes and Pink Floyd do.

Space Ritual rock the Inn on the Green

Where does the time ago? Apparently it is three years since Space Ritual last played at the Inn on the Green in Ladbroke Grove. I saw them play twice there in the tail end of 2006 but since then my immersions into their version of space rock have mostly been at the 100 Club, so it was nice to go back to this intimate and friendly venue.

The stage at Inn on the Green has quite a narrow, if reasonable deep, stage which could pose problems for a band with some many members. Space Ritual got round these restrictions by pushing Chris Purdon forward to the dance floor where he was joined by the Fabulous Ms Angel.

This left the stage to (L-R) Mick Slattery, Nik Turner, Terry Ollis, Jerry Richards and Thomas Crimble.

It was great to see Thomas Crimble facing front and with so much space as he is sometimes the secret member of the band hidden at the side behind his keyboards. Here the secret member mantle was passed on to Terry Ollis whose drums where very evident but the drummer himself was right at the back in Nik Turner's shadow.

A band with seven (sometimes eight) members is always going to have problems fitting on to any stage but they did very well here and the loss of one drummer, though regretted, was a good compromise.

The set was a strange mix of the expected delivered unexpectedly.

Expected was the collection of Hawkwind classics, including Brainstorm, Master of the Universe and Orgone Accumulator. Incidentally, none of these featured in the recent Hawkwind tour.

A little unexpected was the emphasis on Hawkwind songs at the expense of their own. Previously we had been treated to most number on Otherworld but there seemed to be much fewer on this occasion. Pleasingly, the title track was included.

The songs had the expected extended instrumental breaks in the middle but they sounded a little different, a little less rocky and a little more funky. I was firmly reminded of Pink Floyd's Money in one song with its staccato theme.

It may have been the song selection or the way they were presented, or even a combination of both, but the flute was rarely used as the saxophone won the battle for Nik's attention. The prominence of the saxophone kept the funky feeling going throughout the set. I was almost dancing at times!

It's hard, and unfair, to compare Space Ritual to Hawkwind, or to Hoaxwind or any of the other bands that feast on the rich harvest of Hawkind's back catalogue, but I'll have a go anyway. Hawkwind rock more, experiment with new songs more and put on a better show overall (because they can afford to) but Space Ritual have more respect for the heritage of the music and for the society that spawned it. There is much more of a community feel about them.

But the best thing about the differences is that both bands are worth going to for different reasons. In the space of a month I saw Hawkwind twice and also two concerts by Space Ritual/Hawklords, without once getting anywhere near thinking that I had had enough of space rock for the moment. And I'm sure that I'll be listening to a lot more space rock in 2010 too.

In fact I may even venture to Darkest Ruislip to see Space Ritual on 5 February but I'll definitely see them on home territory at the Boom Boom Club in Sutton the following night.

Remembering The Wall

Two of my favourite things are the music of Pink Floyd and the culture of Prague so I was not going to turn down the opportunity of spending a long weekend in Prague during which I could see a performance of The Wall.

Some brave Czech musicians had chosen to stage a spectacular version of The Wall to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.

The venue for this extravaganza was the O2 arena in Ceskomoravska, just two stops on the metro from where I was blagging free accommodation in some friends' apartment.

They know the venue very well as it is also the home to HC Slavia Prague ice hockey team. This familiarity enabled them to buy me a decent ticket even though I was not able to confirm my attendance until just a few days beforehand. A lot of other people must also have made late decisions as the place was all but packed on the night with only some of the more remote seats left unsold.


I know the music of The Wall well but had not seen it in concert so I was not too sure what to expect.

The first thing that was obvious was that there were a lot of musicians involved. Most of these, I am told, are well know Czechs but the name Harry Waters (keyboards) was rather more familiar and gave a semi-official stamp to the occasion.

I was amused to see that The Wall was sung in English with Czech sur titles, a reversal of what I am used to at operas in this country, and I wondered what the translators made of phrases like "toys in the attic" and "somebody must have taken my marbles away".

The show was a real performance as the story was told through acting and film montages, as well as the words of the songs. The wall itself was gradually added to through the performance until it completely covered the front of the stage and hid the musicians from us.


But it came down soon after to the ringing chants of "Tear down the wall." I was not alone in joining in heartily.

As originally conceived, The Wall is about one person's struggle against their own daemons but has been slightly modified over the years to accommodate the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Roger Waters solo song, The tide is turning, from Radio K.A.O.S., has been adopted as the new ending.

The enthusiastic standing ovation after this was long, well deserved and rewarded with an encore.

First up was the unexpected, but relevant, Who needs information, also from Radio K.A.O.S. then the quadraphonic jingling announced the arrival of Money. This rock anthem featured three guitar solos, two keyboard solos, a saxophone solo and a scat piece from the three backing singers.

The Wall was played and presented brilliantly and was made the more meaningful by the anniversary of that other wall. Without any doubt it was one of the very best concerts that I have been to. Simply wonderful.

The Italian Job (2003) is fun

It is bit of a cheek to call the 2003 film The Italian Job as it really has little to do with the 1969 original, but if we put that aside and judge the film solely on its merits then it stands up on its own right as a high-action heist story.

The minis are there from the original film but they play a lesser role this time and, instead, we get a well thought out and enacted plot to rob a security van and so recover gold bars that .... who cares about the plot, focus on the action!

The best bit is at the end, as it should be in an action film, when the robbery takes place and the current owner of the bullion tries to get it back.

The Pink Floyd music at the end, the predictable, appropriate and masterful "Money", adds a nice touch too.

I think that the best way to judge a film is by its rewatchability (good word that) and I'm writing this as I watch The Italian Job for the third or fourth time so far this year. Great stuff!

Careful with that sax Eugene*

Friday night served up another great night of music from Space Ritual at the 100 Club in Central London. I have seen them play there a few times now and each show is a little different so I'll start by describing what was different this time.

The band were arranged unusually in a fairly flat formation with, from left to right, Chris Mekon, Sam Ollis, Mick Slattery, Nik Turner, Terry Ollis, Jerry Richards and Thomas Crimble; almost a mirror image of their usual line-up. Eugene (from tribute band Hoaxwind) guested on sax for a couple of numbers jamming with Nik.

The lighting was from the front which meant that I could take a lot of clear pictures of the band but I did rather miss some the effects that I got with the back lighting at previous gigs. Finally, and this was probably caused by the revised formation and the fact that I was right at the front (as always) but I could hear little of the bass or keyboards.



While the little differences added interest to the gig it was the things that were the same that really mattered, i.e. fantastic music played by skilled musicians who were clearly enjoying themselves.

I again failed to note the set list but Space Ritual seem to have moved on from the album (and period) that gave them their name. The set did end with Brainstorm and Masters of the Universe but these were the exception rather than the rule and, instead, we were treated to several tracks from their recent Otherworld album, including Bubbles, Sonic Savages, Time Crime, Walking Backwards and the masterful title track, er, Otherworld.

Also most welcome were the Hawkwind tracks from the late 70s, particularly Reefer Madness and Steppenwolf, which always take me back to the time when I first started getting into Hawkwind seriously after seeing these songs performed by Bob Calvert.

To round of an excellent evening I was able to say hello to Chris Mekon before the gig (I still do not understand why setting up the electronics takes so long, don't you just switch them on?!) and to several members of Hoaxwind afterwards. These later conversations will continue next month when Hoaxwind, who live in my area, play a gig in a local pub.

There is also more Hawkwind music to come in December when Hawkwind themselves do a short tour (assuming they carry on after the sudden death of Jason Stuart) and I also hope that it is not too long before there is another Space Ritual gig in my diary too.

* Of course you knew that this is a Pink Floyd song but it was also recorded by Nik Turner for the 1995 compilation Saucerful of Pink: A Tribute to Pink Floyd.