You don't get up to much. And nothing comes of it. And nothing ever gets you down.

Friday 24 June – now we almost never watch a band on consecutive occasions, but there’s a first time for everything as we find ourselves headed to The Golden Lion in York to watch Dream Of Apollo. I think I’ve only been in this place once before and it certainly didn’t strike me as the best place for listening to live music, but what do I know? There was a square-ish area towards the back where a band could play, a bar down one side and the rest of the floor space was taken up with pews, tables and stools. There was no natural area in which we could stand to listen to the band so we started off as far away as it was possible to get but directly in front, hoping to get the best from the speakers.

It was a miserable night, middle of an English summer, with a chill wind blowing through open window, and later pouring down with rain. The set kicked off with Vicki doing a solo spot of three songs; Mine, For My Lover (Tracy Chapman), and Boats And Birds (Gregory And The Hawk). Don’t be fooled by my encyclopaedic knowledge of the set-list, I snapped it on my ‘phone at the end of the gig. By this time we were frozen and had moved up into the central body of the pub. It has to be said that the acoustics weren’t great and the majority of the punters were desperately talking louder to make their conversations heard of the noise of the band, or watching the tennis on one of the screens dotted around the place.

The full band started their set with Anatole, a song very much in the style of The Decemberists with powerful, story-telling lyrics. I remembered this one from the first time we saw the band and thoroughly enjoyed it. Whilst they do throw in the odd cover, most of the material they play is original and absolutely excellent. The set continued with Sanctuary, Someday, In A Manner of Speaking (Depeche Mode), Leander, Home (when Andy Murray won his match and a huge cheer went up), Jolene (Dolly Parton), and the epic Free with which they closed the first half.

During the interval band-friend Marteen took to the stage and gave us another three songs in which I detected Radiohead’s High And Dry.

For the second half we had managed to move a little closer still and had an unimpeded view of the stage. The sound quality was also much better closer to the band, who played; Regrets Of The Devil, Children, Hold Me, Too Lost, Folsom Prison Blues (Johnny Cash), and my personal favourite, Sandman.

I was half expecting an encore, well one does these days, but the rest of the audience didn’t seem bothered so it never happened. The venue did the band no favours. They are good, stonkingly good. Vicki’s voice is great and the rest of the band are enthusiastic and technically excellent. Best of all, they really seem to enjoy themselves. They undertake a mini-tour in July, full details on MyFace, ending up at Fibbers on 10 July which sadly I will miss as that’s the day after I get married. They pop up again in August at the Galtres Festival at Crayke, but I’m sure we’ll catch them again before then. Very highly recommended.

I bet I'd move just a little further down the line

I've been pretty rubbish at keeping this blog up-to-date, basically because I'm in the throes of selling my house and there are too many other things that need doing. Once that's out of the way I can concentrate on my forthcoming nuptials so please bear with me and I'm sorry if updates are a bit patchy. On the plus side, The Druid is doing a fine job of blogging on behalf of our little group.

Friday 27 May - and we found ourselves in an old haunt, The Old White Swan, to watch Marc Atkinson. We last saw Marc ages ago in The Terrace when we had youngest daughter and her now-husband with us. On that occasion he was letting the audience shout out the titles of their favourite songs and, if he knew them, he played them. Now he has a pre-printed and laminated list of songs that cover a huge number of genres and tastes, so there's something for everyone.

What Marc doesn't do is play and sing in the style of the original artist, instead he puts his own spin on the songs and makes each one his own. He plays the guitar very competently and his voice is big enough to rise above the general hubbub of a busy pub. The audience appreciation for Marc was such that he played well past his allotted time and it was half midnight before we spilt onto the street and headed home. The Druid has a full set list of what Marc played. Highly recommended.

Friday 3 June - We were struggling to find anything of interest but Andy was wanting to go somewhere so we took a bit of a punt with a band we'd never heard of at a venue not formerly noted for putting on live music, Dream Of Apollo at the Yorkshire Hussar.

From memory, the Yorkshire Hussar was only notable to me as an infrequent lunchtime haunt that sold a variety of different meals served in giant Yorkshire puddings. The front bar is cramped at best, there is a snug with room for up to four people, and I could only imagine that a band would have to fit into the back bar.
When we arrived we saw that about half the back bar was taken up by the band's kit. We started the evening leaning on the bar but quickly moved over to the fireplace so that we weren't impeding any drinkers. The lead vocalist, Vicki Mack, started the ball rolling by singing five song, just her and an acoustic guitar. Four were covers, the fifth, appropriately called Mine, was her own. She looks like Sheridan Smith and sings a bit like Stevie Nicks, great vocals.

The rest of the band then took to the stage… area; Winston Sanders on guitar, Rhys Bevan on bass and Jamie Bradley on drums. The tone of the music changed dramatically with the band putting out full-blown rock, and even a bit of prog-rock on a track with more signature changes than I could count. I especially liked their Sandman which I had heard briefly on MyFace and which, after encouragement from the audience, they played as part of their encore. There were a couple of covers thrown in but most of the material was original and extremely good. I rarely like tracks on a first listen but was spellbound by their entire catalogue. For a full set list head over to the The Druid's grove. I would definitely like to hear the band again soon and can't wait for them to put out an album.