No other gig I've been asked to go and review has ever caused me as much grief pre-gig as this one did. AS soon as I told my usual plus one who Police Dog Hogan's banjo player was, she threatened to disown me if I even dared to try to take her to see them!
I was also told in no uncertain terms not to bring any of the band's music home with me either! Now what could make my girlfriend react like that? Well, it is the presence of the Guardian's answer to Liz Jones in the form of one Tim Dowling: a writer she hates so much she offered to give me some eggs to take and throw at him!! Yes he really has that sort of effect in our house. So why did I agree to go along? Well mainly to see Neil Innes who was supporting.
So I got into a packed Jazz Cafe on an evening when they aren't even the best Americana or Bluegrass act playing on the Parkway in Camden as I'm sure Sid Griffin at the Green Note would have been a cooler gig. Not to worry; I had time to get a beer before Police Dog Hogan came on for the band's first set. I have never heard them before and am therefore guessing at the song titles.
They opened with a good song about a Foundling Boy who had "No Place to Roam" and it has to be said that James Studholme is a pretty good front man. Also,no matter how much I want to slag Tim Dowling off, he's wearing a very snazzy-looking suit and damn he can actually play the banjo pretty well. Was Devil Jim autobiographical? I'm not sure but it's a good country blues romp for sure and the crowd were eating it up.
Why Has Everything Got To Be So Hard worked really well and had some cool backing vocals which were just the right side of whiny. Still, some nice restrained drumming and good interplay between the fiddle and guitars on These Days Are Gone had a lot of people almost dancing - or was it swaying along.
They then did a Cornish song They Don't Say That Anymore featuring a fine accordion bit and again some cool backing vocals as well. They told us the fiddle player wrote the next song and indeed the ensuing 14 Roses was as romantic as they got: a pretty love song with some great fiddle in it.
The Fraserborough Tree was an old-fashioned folk song with a decent message to it; followed by the full-on knees up of The Galway Girl, a great rollicking dance tune. They closed their first set with Man In A Shed which was slow, ruminative and well, sort of a damp squib to end on which is why they left the stage to almost no applause.
Soon enough Neil Innes was on stage setting his stuff up and he really needed someone to come on and introduce him as a way of shutting up the half of the audience who only wanted to talk no matter what he did.
It's odd seeing someone as legendary as Neil Innes being totally ignored. As he starts to sing Eye Candy it was almost like he was an annoyance; obviously not helped by the Jazz Cafe's legendarily unforgiving acoustics but still.
Perhaps Neil donning a silly hat and singing Cock A Doodle Tato mid song would help? Apparently not. He tried it and he still got ignored so he went over to his keyboards and announced he was going to play some Rutles songs. That at least got a good reaction from the third of the audience listening to him as he played bits from Cheese And Onions, I Must Be In Love, You're So Pusillanimous and several others in a very quick 5 minute medley that was followed by a Jean Paul Satire song in a beret and false moustache that also seemed to go down like a lead balloon.
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Everybody Come Dancing seemed to grab a few extra listeners which - as it was one of the least jokey pieces - was a bit of a surprise. He also went all serious on In A Democracy, played for everyone who was going to vote. Before he finally got the audience to pay attention to his last song, Slaves OF Freedom, with it's call and response scat parts he actually got everyone to sing along and join in and it sounded great before he did his "Give me an S give me an o" routine to its' Sod Off conclusion and was gone.
A couple of minutes later and Police Dog Hogan were back as the crowd started to thin out a bit. They opened the second set with Judgement Day that seemed perfect for a Sunday night. No Wonder She Dances was rueful and good enough but things were starting to drag a little; for me anyway. Buffalo was ok and had a good bit of trumpet from "Gary" who is some sort of running joke in the band, though I don't understand the nuances of it.
We then had the horror of horrors moment when Tim Dowling switched to guitar and lead vocal on a song about what he Can see. Oh I could have done without it as his whiny vocals may have worked nicely in harmony with the accordion player but it was damper than a damp squib of a song. Much better was the raucous hoe-down of Avalon and no, it's not the Roxy Music song.
They brought Neil Innes back on to join the band for the first song as a guitarist. Not sure what it was called though. Neil then sang One Of Those People and, boosted by the full band, it went down a treat. Then after much joking during the tuning of Tim's banjo they played Moutard (I think?) from the band's Record Shop Day release and it went down a storm as most of the audience seemed to know it well.
Then it was time for Neil Innes "Medley of hit" as he described I'm The Urban Spaceman and damn, it still sounds great. The fiddle and banjo work very nicely on it. That was followed by One Size Fits All: a pretty decent show closer even though they stayed on stage before finishing with a nice version of I Saw the Light that had most of us singing along to it.
This was all far better than it might have been but I'm still in shock at seeing several women queuing up to get Tim Dowling's autograph at the merchandise stand after the show!!
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