Seeing how this New Year's Eve seemed to be different to most others in that several of the big events we would have normally go to were not held on New Years Eve! This made the decision to go to the Gypsy Hotel New Year's bash an easy one.
We arrived to do battle with the woman in the cloakroom/box office to actually get in even though our tickets had been scanned at the door!! Still once inside this didn't matter too much as we were in time to see The DALSTON DEVIL TRIO open tonight's proceedings in 2012.
They opened with the Gambling Bar Room Blues and manage to avoid yodelling all over it. Instead, Lady Ane Angel's sousaphone provides the rhythm as Paul-Ronney Angel sings this sad tale of Bar room despair. But to be a real gambler you need a walking stick that you can tap on the floor when you need to. Love Me Or Die I think was the tune where Paul Snakecraft finally sorted out the problems with his 8 string Lap Steel and really got twanging good and proper as I'm sure it was fine for Dead & Lovely: the old Tom Waits classic.
They then added some grit to Sleepwalk that was nice and dark with a fine twang coming from both the slide and the acoustic guitars. We then got the band's tribute to Joe Strummer in a brilliant version of Guns of Dalston where they use the sousaphone for all the dubby bass parts and P-R switched to Banjo. Or was that later for the version of Midnight Special they did in a nice slow style?
It was soon time for the Ballad of Frankie & Johnny that they do more like Big Bill Broonzy than Jimmie Rodgers and only leaves time for a spiritually uplifting finale of Jesus On The Mainline. As ever they are preferable to Aerosmith singing this classic and it also featured guest trumpet from Lady Phoebe Gomez De Ville. The ideal close to the first act of the night.
Now my memory is a bit hazy as to what came next but I think it was TRIXIE SPARKLE doing her very fetching dance routine which was then followed by the URBAN VOODOO MACHINE Redux septet, well that's the easiest description of the band members who were present at that point in the evening.
They brought in the new year of 2013 with a good sing along to Auld Lang Syne in proper voodoo style that went into Goodbye To Another Year. Well they had to get up to sing that tune at the start of another year, didn't they?
After a short break it was time for tonight's headliners, NIGEL BURCH & THE FLEAPIT ORCHESTRA and it has to be said that Nigel was about as sober as I've ever seen him while performing, which was quite a shock in itself!!
Still they were in fine form opening with This Journey and soon joking about as they did the classic Save my Sorry Arse, which featured a great fiddle solo from Dylan Bates. Trouble & Strife had some very cheeky and funny lyrics as they were getting into their stride. Even if soon enough everything would be going Horrible once more, Nigel was looking for some divine intervention to Turn His Wee Wee Into Wine: a song that put a smile on most faces around me.
A Lovely Day For a Heart Attack was next. It found Nigel duelling with (I think) John Edwards on the upright bass before we were all off to The Pub With No Name which is almost this band's signature tune. Not certain what the next two tunes were before they treated us to a very irreverent version of Mack the knife.
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They closed there set by showing us how Little Boxes can be a cool tune to hear when not on an infuriating advert, before leading us into I Used To Be Mad which if you ever heard Nigel heckling from an audience is all too easy to believe.
The encore was a good sing along to You Are my Sunshine: a song I'm pretty sure everyone knew the words too.
After this we had a bewitching little routine from LALLA MORTE who was wearing very little indeed but wasn't eating any fire.
The final entertainment of the evening came from a band Paul Ronney Angel put together on the night alongside Jary and Slim from the Urban Voodoo Machine along with Dylan Bates and various other audience members who came and went during the set.
They opened with a storming ragged version of London Calling that had us all singing with them on a song that no New Year's Eve party in London is complete without. The next thing they did was Little Girl. This saw lots of interplay with the band as they tried to figure out where the song was going next.
Next up for the all-stars treatment was Carmelita. It got treated more like GG Allin's version than Dwight Yoakam's with some very bruised vocals as Paul-Ronney sang about taking Heroin on the outskirts of town. Having fished another guitarist out the audience they got everyone to sing along to Stand By Me: a song I wasn't expecting to hear them do!!
Next for this wonky jam treatment was See That My Grave Is Kept Clean wherein Paul-Ronney tried to sing deeper than Diamanda Galas and I think he might have almost made it. As they found an extra drummer in the form of Joe Whitney, we then got a good hoe-down version of Go East.
Theere was only time left for only two more songs most of the band didn't know in the form of what sounded like C'mon Pretty Baby that they vamped up good and proper and then they closed the show with a full on sing along to the Orphan's Lament by which time only the most dedicated of the partiers were still standing and going.
We stumbled out soon after the live music ended leaving DJ Scratchy to carry on blasting out great tunes as we got the tube home at the end of another great Gypsy Hotel night.
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