The utter madness of the good old (sinner)boys...

So in my post - Stooges delirium what better way to spend my first Friday night off in a while than watching top Rory Gallagher tribute band Sinnerboy at Tropic At Ruislip? There could have, indeed should have been more people in attendance but the band didn't let that bother them (or if they did then they didn't show it) as they powered their way through two sets of the mighty Mr. G's finest work. Given the renowned excellence of Rory Gallagher as a live act (and if you don't know much about the man have a look at this astonishing performance of 'Shadow Play' from The Montreux Jazz Festival in 1979 - I saw him play around this time and he was absolutely incredible) it almost goes without saying that attempting to recreate his stage sound is a big ask, but the band made a great job of it. I was always a big Gallagher fan, and I must admit that I hadn't heard some of the songs for absolutely ages - time to dig out 'Irish Tour '74' methinks... and indeed it was a good day all round, as I spent the afternoon working on some potentially new song ideas for Ruts D.C. with Dave Ruffy. Yes that's right, new song ideas for Ruts D.C. - how cool is that?

Saturday evening Utter Madness played at a party in a Wandsworth back garden. I'd not met Paul the drummer before - he played with the band many years ago and was making his first appearance with them for a very long time, although you'd have been hard pushed to notice as he did an absolutely splendid job. Talking to him in the pub before the show he revealed himself to be an old mate of the afore-mentioned Mr. Ruffy; he also has played for the likes of The Alarm and Then Jericho which gives you some idea of the high standard of his playing. The show itself was a 75 minute long blast of Madness hits and assorted ska favourites which went excellently well, with everyone on top form and much audience merriment throughout. A good night's work - and it was a good afternoon's work yesterday when I depped with The Good Old Boys at another garden party, this time in Sunbury. Our two sets seemed to last no time at all - always a good sign - and while I was aware of a few mistakes on my part the rest of the band seemed to be pleased with my efforts, which can only be a good thing. Oh and I got to play 'Pick Up The Pieces' with Richard Hudson of Hudson Ford and 'Hush' with Nick Simper of Deep Purple. Excellent!

This coming Saturday Big Al Reed and The Blistering Buicks visit The Dolphin in Uxbridge; they're also out gigging the night before but my good friend Pete is stepping in for me as I'm depping in The Repertoire Dogs. I haven't played with them since last February, and the last time I did I was violently sick after the show. Hope that doesn't happen this time...

(Deep) Purple Hayes

So there I was, minding my own business sometime around twelve hours ago, when my phone rang - it was Alan Barratt, lead singer with local rock 'n' roll legends The Good Old Boys. The conversation went something like this :-

ALAN - 'Are you working tomorrow night?'
LEIGH - 'Er, no.'
ALAN - 'You are now.'

- which means that I'm playing at Hayes Working Mens Club with The Good Old Boys tonight. Original Deep Purple member Nick Simper is on bass, Richard 'Hud' Hudson from The Strawbs, Hudson Ford and all those other famous bands is on drums, amazing country rock guitar comes from ex - Renaissance man Simon Bishop and the afore-mentioned Alan (ex - Jo Jo Gunne) is on vocals. Their usual guitarist Pete Parks isn't well - he played in Warhorse with Nick. Do you ever get the feeling that you could be out of your depth? Oh and I don't know any of their material. Attempts to point this out to Alan received a response along the lines of 'it's easy, it's just rock ' n roll'. I've got their album 'Live At The Deep Purple Convention' playing in the background as I type this - what they're doing doesn't sound too 'easy' to me. Still, I'm not going to learn any of it by sitting here typing am I? Better get the guitar out - this should be a very interesting evening...