We got into The Water Rats just as opening act The Sidewalk Bandits, who had come over from France for the bands current UK tour, were just starting the bands last song, The 4 piece had a great blues punk edge and really went for it, even if the guitar solos might have seemed a touch long, they were super tight and had everyone going.
After the break it was time for Georgia Crandon an Essex Blues woman and her trio who opened with a great version of Janis Joplin's Take A Little Bit Of My Heart with Georgia letting rip both on vocals and Roland keyboard, making clear she had the vocal chops to take on the song, her new guitarist Gloshkin Alexander ripped into it on guitar, a great opener. First Class Devil In Disguise the first of her own songs had the sort of lyrics of betrayal and bad behaviour you'd expect, Georgia made clear her thoughts on what had gone down.
I guess the next song was Best Day Of My Life or at least that's what it was about, Gloshkin's guitar added some guts to her full throated vocals. Was the next song about an Overthinker not sure, but her Reflexes were tested and the keyboard line worked well. Her barefoot dancing while claiming I Only Wanna Be Your Lover made it more seductive.
Georgia introduced Relapse as being her current single, we all hoped she didn't have one. She then went fully northern Soul for a cool version of Gone With The Wind Is My Love the Glorias Jones stomper, that was followed by a cool version of Amy Winehouse's Back To Black that almost had as much sadness to it as Amy's original.
Georgia kept with the covers for Psycho Killer that made me feel that she needs a bass player, along with a songwriting partner, no matter how good her covers were, I'd have liked more original material like Told Me To Go Home a suitably bitter look at someone giving Georgia the brush off in the cruellest of ways.
She then closed with two more covers Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You at least avoided a good few of the karaoke cliches it could have leaned on, before she finished with Sid Vicious' My Way, a song there really is no need to ever cover, She really needs to find her own monumental set closer, hopefully Gloshkin can help her write it.
After the break Ian Griffiths welcomed the current line-up of The Dirty Strangers to the stage, who kicked off with Special Girl that had ALan Claytons normAL cheeky grin to it. R U Satisfied was driven by John Proctor's super steady bass playing.
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After AL welcomed us ALl they blew through Liberty Smile as if they had just been freed from jail. TALk To Me was a conversation punctuated by John Rollason's intense guitar. As usual AL encouraged anyone who didn’t own a copy to buy Hunters Moon before he sang the title track from the bands most recent ALbum. He then chose to assume we ALl knew the story behind writing She's A ReAL Botticelli in Keith Richards kitchen with him, he may be right, it's still a very cool tune though. Cold Night had a chilly back beat from Lorry Fox driving us out onto the wastes again.
Baby was as much fun as ALways before most of us joined in on Hands Up we'd ALl been caught in the act again. AL dedicated recent single My Girl's A Getaway Driver to his wife Jackie, that was followed by La La La I Couldn't Care Less that had a good sing ALong to it, with plenty of help from Ian Griffiths as guest backing vocAList.
It was then back to the classics for Diamonds that had the two John's both hamming it up on Bass and Guitar. Then once again AL was caught Slap Bang in the middle up to no good once more, as if. Why are they still touring, well mainly because Pirates Don't Get Pensions and we ALl need to hear some proper Rock & Roll.
The next tune should have been for ALl the cab drivers in the audience, too many of them really, as South Of The River wasn't met with any rudeness or refusal, they took us into the barrio's once more.
Bad Girls went down a storm with the odd Bad Girls attempting to give some of the older blokes a heart attack dancing with them, before they closed with a joyride in AL's Gold Cortina screaming up the Euston Road like they had taken all the cameras out.
Of course, they came back for a well-earned encore and made absolutely clear they felt this was like a House Party, we were all expected to have a blast, which I'm pretty certain everyone in the audience had.
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