This show was a nice gathering of friends in a cool bar near Turnpike Lane, that has good sound and a good live room, this was our first visit to Jam In A Jar and with the right promotion we will be happy to go back.
We sat and had a chat with Paul-Ronney and Slim Cyder before the show, once he was ready Paul-Ronney opened the show playing solo, nice and slow on Lullaby his deep raspy vocals adding emphasis and getting to the heart of the song. Like always Mr Angel likes to claim that what he is drinking is Just Like Water, no matter what evidence we might have to the contrary and this had enough pathos to really work well.
Paul-Ronney introduced the next song as having been written for his London Texas Lockdown album with Linda Gail Lewis, 2020 (You Been A Pain In The A$$) takes us back to that dreadful year and all the pain we went through, this had the first singalong chorus of the evening. Paul-Ronney then introduced his first friend for the evening Slim Cyder who was also the evenings DJ, who sat down at the venues upright piano for the Orphan's Lament that had a more downbeat feeling to how they had played it with The Urban Voodoo Machine at the weekend.
For the first cover of the set Paul-Ronney told us a tale about playing a song at a funeral and then asking his dad afterwards what song he would like him to sing at his funeral and his dads choice was the rather dark Green Green Grass Of Home and Paul-Ronney asked us all not to join in, so he could get to the root of the pain in this lyrics and make it a heartfelt tribute to his dad, that this rather slow mordant version was.
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The next friend to join in the fun was Alex McGowan who joined in on You've Gotta Move as second harmonica to Paul-Ronney's lead, they added foot stomps for the rhythm with some gentle tinkling from Slim making this a very cool rendition. Paul-Ronney then invited Pete Bailey up on Clarinet for a very cool slow version of Ray Charles early hit Alone In The City that they performed like it was a Tom Waits classic.
It was time to fill the stage adding Kit Swing and Joni Belaruski on backing vocals with Captain Future on Tambourine for a cool rambling version of Two Ships. The went back to duo at the start of Cheers For The Tears, No Paul-Ronney ain't dead just yet, as they got to the chorus Alex McGowan, Pete Bailey and Joni Belaruski joined in on backing vocals and shakers, tambourines and bodhrun, with most of the audience also joining in this was great fun for a dark tale.
Joni then switched from Bodhrun to Tuba for a great fun version of Goodbye To Another Year that felt like we were at another wild party. They then closed the night with one final guest Duncan DeMorgan joining everyone else, to close with a great gospel rave up through I'll Fly Away that had a couple of false endings and got everyone singing with them to close a great fun night out.
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