Sunday 3 May - It was a busy weekend. Yesterday we had a suit fitting for my youngest daughter's wedding, an opportunity for me to strut my stuff in jeans and an Edwardian frock coat. Very fetching. Then we took lunch at The Happy Valley Chinese café, the best Chinese food in York, and ended up at mine to watch "School of Rock" as we frittered the remainder of the day away. Sunday was bookended with bacon and eggs for breakfast and a Sunday roast for nine people for dinner (that's tea if you're not as posh what I am). Then I kicked everyone else out of the house, because tonight we had a full turn out down at The Duchess for "A Night For Heroes" a charity event in aid of Angela's Gift in memory of Howard Sparnenn who died aged 55 at 2pm on Sunday 4 May 2008 of a brain tumour.
Six bands, all of which Howard had been involved with, had come together in a celebration of his life, and there were a fair few faces in the crowd that were familiar as well. The event kicked off with Smart Move, a band set up by vocalist and guitarist Dave Smith and Howard shortly before he fell ill. In fact SM seem to consist of mostly Mojos, with John Greenwood on bass, and Andrew Bone on vocals and lead guitar. Non-Mojo Steve Jackson was on drums and I think another Mojo, Mark, was on Keyboards. They turned out a short set of classic covers such as: Genesis Turn It On, Dire Straits Sultans of Swing, Queen Tie Your Mother Down, Whitesnake Here I Go Again....
Next up were a band that we'd seen on a couple of occasions, initially when Howard was drumming for them, Freeway. These played a heavier set, stuff like: Thin Lizzy Jailbreak and The Boys Are Back In Town, Black Sabbath Paranoid, UFO Doctor Doctor, Judas Priest Breaking The Law, and a Deep Purple medley of Hush, Strange Kind Of Woman, Black Night, and Woman From Tokyo.
Apparently Howard's favourite band were Free, I thought he raised his daughters on a diet of Thunder but hay hoe. Anyway, another band that Howard was involved with was Free Spirit who consist of Garry Barrett (vocals and guitar), John Simpson (lead guitar), Gavin Paradiso (bass), John Halder (drums), and Simon Waggot (keyboards). These played covers by Free Wishing Well and Stealer, Bad Company Running With The Pack, Seagull, Bad Company, and Can't Get Enough Of Your Love, and Frankie Miller Jealousy. There were others but the pints of Landlord were beginning to rot my brain cells.
Back in the 70s, when Howard first met his wife-to-be, Jeanette, he was drumming for a band that he co-founded called Flight. The original line-up then consisted of Mick Adamson (vocals), Pete Martin (guitar), Kevin Nickson (bass), and Howard (drums). After two singles they changed their name to Bulldog Breed and Howard was supplanted by Steve Roberts. So for our fourth band of the evening Flight had re-formed, for one night only, and played some of their original material, including the 1974 singles What Am I To Do With You and It's Only Money, plus some of the Bulldog Breed material.
As a drummer Howard contributed to a number of bands including Flight, Rocket 3, Freeway, Inivitro, The Occasional Band, Free Spirit, and sometimes Breathing Space whose lead singer is his daughter, Livvy. BS were fielding a few substitutes in their line-up tonight; Livvy and the brothers Jennings were joined by Andy and Bryan from Mostly Autumn, and Gary "Harry" James from the legendary Thunder on drums. They were also joined by Anne-Marie Helder on flute for The Gap Is Too Wide. My daughters insisted that I got a picture of Harry (Thunder is our favourite band) but for all my efforts all I managed was a shot of him wiping his face with a towel. Such is life.
The headline act was Mostly Autumn who interrupted their current tour (2 May Holmfirth, 8 May Lincoln) to be here tonight and provided a full hour from their current tour set. They gave an impressive and powerful performance ending with Heroes Never Die. By this time my legs were aching from having been standing for over six hours. There was no encore but the audience were asked to move back a bit and a screen was put into position. The evening was concluded with a clip of film from the 80s showing Howard performing a drum solo lasting over 5 minutes. A great end to a great evening.
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