I popped down to London to see John's gig last night featuring Jay from the last La's line-up (playing bass and a bit of guitar) + a new drummer (listed as "Swee" on John's website but thought to be Steve Pilgrim ex-The Stands - see below). I've seen both The La's (T&C, Mean Fiddler, Cambridge, Shep Bush, Glastonbury) and Cast (New Cross, 100 Club, Glastonbury) play live a few times so thought it would be interesting to see a solo John gig. Cracking 1950's coffee house venue in a L shape with a capacity of 120 - every one of these pictures was taken sitting down just holding the camera up!
Great show, only new John tunes, no La's/Cast/covers, lots of energy. Whatever you think of John as a songwriter vs Lee both the band and crowd obviously enjoyed the gig. The odd vocal slip up but the tunes were pretty tight. Sadly this is/was not always true with the The La's - much as I hate to say it they were (and still are from what I've seen) often a bit hit and miss live.
The songs were mostly from his new album apparently, a couple of older tunes from that Happening for love CD, at the end he did one called "Mariner" (?) solo and then the band came back for an encore of "Give It To Me" (?). About an hour all together. Support was from poet Michael Smith - The Giro Playboy http://www.giroplayboy.co.uk who was interesting. They had apparently played & practiced the new tunes "below the radar" via poetry/literary gigs - hence the new friendship made! There was another guitarist supporting who played and sang OK but the material was nothing very original.
For La's fans the good news is he looked relaxed and enjoying his music, he and Jay combined well, the set was medium-tight considering - I think John said they had only practiced with the drummer for about 10 days. Anyway he didn't stand up, knew how to play, chipped in with backing vocals and had a wide smile on his face for most of the night. He enjoyed it - and so did I.
Uploaded a short clip @ Youtube: http://youtube.com/watch?v=JaR_7Gwy1lM
A few pictures - enjoy!
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(Alhough my husband, my sister and my mates won't go with me...if anyone is going...I'll be the bird stood by herself!!!
