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Blog: The First Otway Of The Year
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For LO! we were off to see Mr John Otway playing at The Lexington. Otway is almost definitely the person I have PAID to see the most often out of anybody EVER - there are probably PALS I've seen more often, but that's usually been when I've been playing WITH them, whereas I've been paying CA$H MONEY to see John Otway for about 35 years now. I think the first time I ever saw him do a gig was at The Princess Charlotte around 1989 or 1990 and he was SO AMAZING cthat I have been to see him at least once a year on average ever since.
On that first evening I was surprised to see him hanging around in the bar of the Charlotte and asked him why he wasn't Chilling Out in The Dressing Room. He told me that he COULD do that, but then he'd be sat all on his own, whereas if he stood in the bar then people would come up to him and tell him he was brilliant and buy him drinks. This was one of those moments when you can FEEL your life changing around you, and I have followed this guidance ever since.
Thus when we arrived at The Lexington I was DELIGHTED to see him still following his own advice and sitting downstairs in the bar, this time with his BAND. The Otway Big Band has been together for about THIRTY of the 35 years I have been going to see him, and amazingly they have NEVER had a line-up change, which makes The Validators' mere quarter century without a personnel change seem PALTRY by comparison!
The gig itself was a thing of JOY. There's something really rather WONDERFUL about seeing a band who have been together for so long, as there's a RICHNESS and DEEP LOVE there that comes rolling out around the room. In Otway's case though there's also a) the AUDIENCE and b) the SET that has stayed constant too, so it feels like you're taking part in a RITUAL what SURPASSES normal one-off gigs and becomes part of a long LINE of them. During the gig Murray pointed out that this was Otway's 5,250th gig (again making my mere 1,014 so far seem LIGHTWEIGHT), and it's amazing to think of SO MANY performances stretching back through time, often with not only the same SONGS but an awful lot of the same JOKES as well!
A great part of the fun of an Otway gig is hearing these same jokes and the same PATTER done as if they were new each time, and it's even more exciting when you hear something NEW slide in as well. This time there was not only a whole actual SONG that I don't remember hearing before ("My body is making me") but a whole BIT about how they were going to be playing songs from the new album... which is a live album called (RATHER BRILLIANTLY) The Set Remains The Same. I of course purchased one at the first opportunity
It was a hugely delightful evening out, although possibly a rather high bar to set for OTHER gigs this year!
posted 6/1/2025 by MJ Hibbett
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