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.
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