What a night!
Firstly a lot of us met at the Pillars of Hercules for a drink or two. It
was good to renew acquaintance with old friends, put faces to email names
and make new friends. It was heart warming to see so many Bonzo fans. One
highlight was Dave Williams bringing Viv Stanshall's hexagonal gl*****.
Lots
of trying on and taking photos of ourselves with them on. Riley was there
giving out free copies of the Talking Pictures DVD despite the fact he
couldn't get a ticket for the show for himself. What a good guy. Jonathan
was there with lots of goodies for sale and, due to various arrangements,
I
found myself arriving there with 10 CDs and leaving with 20. We resembled
a
bunch of drug pushers, dealing surreptitiously in the corner of a pub.
Outside the touts were pleading for tickets to no avail. A man gave away
flyers for the forthcoming "Prehistory of the Bonzos" CD. He was miserable
as he didn't have a ticket either.
The gig itself was incredibly good. Fred Pipes has listed what happened
but
I was too busy laughing to really remember the order, especially as there
was so much disorder. It began with Neil Innes saying "Shall we bother to
tune up?" after which all hell broke loose. Wherever you looked someone
was
doing something crazy. It didn't all work but that was hardly surprising
considering how much mayhem was happening. Some highlights of the first
half. Vernon Dudley Bohay Nowell's version of "Falling in love again"
complete with saw solo. He hardly moved all evening as befits a
septuagenarian but played exquisite saw and occasional banjo all evening.
Roger Ruskin Spear's loud aside to the woman who brought out one of his
machines "Don't milk it, *****" which reduced the band and audience to
hysterics. Sam Spoon's inspired spoon playing and general clowning. He was
dressed as a reject from Play School and behaved like a demented nursery
child. Roger again playing "Whispering" on an artificial leg fitted with
theremin. In between was a generous fifteen songs you knew and loved from
their earlier days immaculately.
Some of them never left the stage during the interval as I suppose they
would never have made it back again. This also meant it was mercifully
short. The second half was far more rock music and included the awaited
guest appearances. Ade Edmondson was obviously thoroughly enjoying himself
and labelled the Bonzos as his heroes. He wandered the front of the
audience
dressed as a parrot saying "Hello". Phil Jupitus, presumably standing in
for
Bill Bailey, played "Mr Apollo" (dedicated to John Peel) and "Canyons of
your mind" with gusto. Stephen Fry looked like a child locked in a sweet
shop and performed "Rhinocratic oaths" superbly. Paul Merton did "Monster
mash" but everyone's eyes were fixed on the tableau the boys in the band
were presenting. It was inspired to finish with "The intro and the outro"
played over the PA system, leaving people to file out during "Slush".
There
was no encore. How could you follow that?
We all floated out to a freezing winter's night oblivious to the cold,
missing any planned rendezvous in the euphoria of a night spent blissfully
--
Roger the Saurus
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