Before all this ILLNESS began, The Bands On My Bill found time to go and see a ROCK SHOW!
For LO! Mr John Otway has a new album out, Montserrat, and we had booked ourselves tickets to the LAUNCH GIG. We rolled up at the 100 Club at 8:30pm and were VERY pleased to be told the show was just about to start. It's a delicate operation, getting to gigs at the right time, and we got it SPOT ON, being able to get in, get beers and find a spot JUST as the Big Band took to the stage. We were quite pleased with ourselves!
I have seen Otway at LEAST 50 times, since i first saw him at The Princess Charlotte back in 1989, and so I have heard some of his jokes at least 50 times also, but they remain EXTREMELY funny. It's the way he does his ACT with such happiness and enthusiasm, especially when he plays with the Big Band who gently CHIDE him throughout as he carries on relentlessly. It's a wonderful show to watch, everyone looks so happy to be there even when they're pretending not to be.
They played two sets and, despite it being an Album Launch, did ALL of the hits in exactly the same order, with the same introductions, and the same mucking about, as they ALWAYS do, and it was BLOODY GRATE. With the extra time they also played about half of the songs off the new album, missing out some of my favourites (like "Five Kisses" which I think is FAB) but IMPROVING some songs (like "Dancing With Ghosts") WAY beyond the album versions.
The highest praise I can offer was that, over the course of two sets of about an hour each, I was never bored and could happily have watched an hour more. I say this as someone who is pretty much ALWAYS BORED within twenty minutes of watching ANY band and desperate to go home after half an hour. Around song 3 of most sets I start trying to use my PSYCHIC POWERS to make the singer say "This is our last one" but when Otway said it I was DISAPPOINTED. That pretty much never happens with anybody else!
We emerged onto Oxford Street with achey faces from all the grinning and brains buzzing with all the fun we'd had. If all gigs were as GUARANTEED to be GRATE as Otway gigs I would be out every night!
