I've looked under chairs, I've looked under tables, I've tried to find the key, To fifty million fables

Friday 25 February - no original music this week, we are happy to settle for decent beer and a covers band, so that'll be at The Roman Bath then. Apparently there's a band called The Pepperhearts playing tributes to The Beatles and they certainly seemed to be popular as we have to queue up to get in as the pub was so full. After fighting our way to the bar and coming away with an armful of beers we took up station to watch/listen to the band amid a constant river of folk streaming in and out of the front door, and en route to the rest rooms. The Pepperhearts were good, they certainly recreated the sound of the Fab Four as far as humanly possible, but the material began to sound a bit samey and it dawned on us that they didn't seem to be able to break through 1965. It was all the very early stuff, which is OK if you like 2-3 minute songs, but 1965 was the year that The Moptops spread their musical wings and transcended every other band. Maybe the later years were to be featured in the second half of their performance, but by half-time we were jaded and decided to move on.

As so it was that we found ourselves in O'Neills to watch The Mothers. Now we've seen these before on a couple of occasions but tonight they are sporting a new vocalist and a chap on keyboards that looks suspiciously like a refugee from Hijack Oscar. Nonetheless, we were treated to a fine selection of old and (relatively) new covers including Take Me to the River (Al Green), You Really Got Me (The Kinks), Superstition (Stevie Wonder), The Seeker (The Who), Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine (James Brown), I Predict A Riot (The Kaiser Chiefs), Back In The USSR (the Beatles) which segued into Jumping Jack Flash (The Rolling Stones), In The Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett), Paranoid (Black Sabbath), Tainted Love (Soft Cell), The Jean Genie (David Bowie), and many more. Top stuff.

Johnny's in the basement, mixing up the medicine / I'm on the pavement, thinking about the government

As a self-confessed rubbish blogger it's time for me to play 'catch up' again with two outings rolled up into one blog.

Friday 15 October - saw a well attended outing to The Punchbowl in Stonegate to see Adam Dawson singing / playing his acoustic thing. We were treated to a variety of covers, performed in Adam's own personal style, as well as some of his original material. Of the covers we had songs recorded by such diverse acts as Lady Gaga, Damien Rice, Newton Faulkner, Coldplay, Ralph McTell, Mumford & Sons etc. But I particularly enjoyed his own songs; Lazy Susan, I'm Coming Home, and the fantastic Silver Skies. Very highly recommended.

Friday 22 October - and we pass up the opportunity to see Adam again, he might think we were stalking him, to see The Mothers at O'Neills. Now we've caught them before, 10 March 2009 actually, and on that occasion we only saw the first half of their act before moving on to watch another band. Tonight we had the same option but relented to watch the entire performance, which was really very good indeed.

I haven't been able to find out much about the band members themselves. The vocalist is Jon Stewart who also sings with The Supermodels and the bass player is Stuart 'Stu' Fletcher (ex-Seahorses, The Blueflies, The Yards, Rick Witter and The Dukes). Of the lead guitarist and drummer I'm afraid I have no details. Jon has a superb voice and they rattled off a string of covers. To the best of my recollection we had; Take Me to the River (Al Green), I Heard It On The Grapevine (Marvin Gaye), Mr Brightside (The Killers), You Really Got Me (The Kinks), The Seeker (The Who), Sex on Fire (Kings of Leon), Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine (James Brown), I Predict A Riot (The Kaiser Chiefs), Back In The USSR (the Beatles) which segued into Jumping Jack Flash (The Rolling Stones), Subterranean Homesick Blues (Bob Dylan), In The Midnight Hour (Wilson Pickett), Valerie (The Zutons) Paranoid (Black Sabbath), Tainted Love (Soft Cell), The Jean Genie (David Bowie), The Snake (Al Wilson). Basically an excellent set delivered by a top notch band. Highly recommended.

Looking out my narrow window/I'll tell you what I see

Friday 6 March - tonight we're split; do we go to The Roman Bath and watch the Travellin' Barras, who we think we've seen before, or do we see a new (to us) band, The Mothers, at O'Neills? In the end we decided to sit on the fence and start in O'Neills then nip to The Bath at half-time.

Now O'Neills is an OK sort of venue. I'm not a fan of the 'black stuff' but Caffery's is passable as a drink. The stage area is at the back and I'm always amazed at how crowded it can get. There is nowhere to stand where you won't get continually buffeted, unless you are stood behind a huge pillar, and then you can't see the band!

I can't find The Mothers on t'interweb or FaceSpace, but basically they are a four piece covers band from York performing soul (Wilson Pickett et al), Northern soul and some slightly rockier stuff. They were very good and I would definitely like to see a full set.

As planned, we elbowed our way out at half-time and trotted across to The Bath where the Travellin' Barras were just starting the second half of their set. These were not a band we've seen before, and given that there was only two of them, they probably don't qualify as a band at all. The TBs consist of Chris Watkins (slide guitar) and Dave Ward (semi-acoustic and vocals) and bill their act as covers of Rock, Country, Disco, Reggae, and R&B classics.

OK, they covered stuff like Money For Nothing (Dire Straits), Mustang Sally (Wilson Pickett), and Smooth (Santana), and if you closed your eyes, they sounded pretty good. There were two problems for me; one was the use of a drum machine, but much worse was that David was wearing shorts (probably for the AC/DC numbers). All a bit disturbing to be honest. Needless to say, we hadn't seen these before and probably won't be putting ourselves out to see them again. Sorry chaps.