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dsearchwer Goodlookingstrippedsingers pa Goodlookingstrippedsingers ksearchng Goodlookingstrippedsingers up we just strolled to the front and sat at one of the tables in front so we had a grandstand view. Stan's bass and guitar player acted as roadies to get the stage ready and with Pete Feenstra absent for the evening there was no intro and the band just strolled onto the stage and started the usual Chicken Shack opening number.

What made this gig different was that a sax player had been added to the line-up. Jim Rudge on Bass and Gary Davies on rhythm guitar were standard but Mick Jones had been replaced on drums and there was the sax player. He was middle aged, a bit chunky and quite florid. He as obviously not totally au fait with the band as he didn't really know where to stand. He was very good though and went at it from the word go. He had a good line in a shaky right leg thumping out the tempo when he had a solo and quite quickly settled into his role.

Gary Davies was a metronomic as ever and Jim Rudge played with his usual competence. As usual halfway through the intro number Stan strolled on stage to good applause and quickly got into his work. It was nice being so close (about 6 feet away) to see his great Les Paul showing just a bit of wear and tear but we were on the right and got a good earful of the rhythm guitar.

Stan was in a very unchatty mood for a change. We normally get a fairly constant stream of comments on the world and some bad taste jokes in between songs but he said very little apart from naming the songs. But he does sort of make his own entertainment as he goes along. At one point he reached over his head and his hand hit the lowered ceiling (it's not a high place and the 2 foot high stage makes it a bit dangerous for tall players. He then realised that the ceiling tiles lifted up if you pushed them and he had some fun playing to the crowd by lifting them up occasionally.

We didn't get anything radically new from his set but he was as grateful as ever for the audience turning out for him. The sax did give another dimension and he got his fair share of the action but I'm not really sure why he has been added to the band. Stan told us he couldn't be bothered with all the end of the set, go off, come back with the applause malarkey so he just went into the encore of I'd Rather Go Blind. He did his usual trick of handing the Les Paul to the roadie, take the mike of its stand and go for walkabout in an attempt to embarrass as many women in the audience as possible. In this he succeeded.

Then came the biggest laugh of the night. When he put the mike back in its holder it loosened it and the mike kept drooping. He tried bending down to sing into it and Jim on bass nipped over and tightened it up. It didn't work which was a bit of a surprise as I actually saw the bass player set it up and he did tighten it up well. Having tried once or twice Jim Rudge gave up and left it. Then a teenage girl came up and had a go. Unfortunately she was very girly and kept loosening it before working out which way to tighten it. Even when she seemed to have it sorted it slowly drooped.

Stan played along with it as he seems to quite like something going wrong to give him an excuse to ham it up. It didn't really affect the music but it did give the band a really good laugh and it's always good see the good humour between band members. Stan was sufficiently moved to boogie over to Gary Davies on rhythm s few times and synchronise movements with him. That isn't really very difficult as Gary hardly moves a muscle during the set.

Sitting where we were we got a full blast all night and it was great to be so close and see the workings of a band at work. The merchandising for Stan was hopeless and they seemed to be just pushing his last double CD. It was all very good though and the only thing missing was a load of nonsense from Pete Feenstra. He really does add to the occasion with his silliness. At 11 at night the drive back was nice and easy but seeing the young women of Sutton on their way out in the cold with incredibly short skirts reminded me of up North.

Oli Brown _ Beaverwood 19 March 2009

The Oli Brown Band
Chislehurst
Thursday March 19th 2009

We would have preferred just to pootle down the road to the Half Moon at Herney Hill to see Oli but we are away in April when they play there. Chislehurst was not a bad alternative though and far easier to get to than the Boom Boom at Sutton. Pete Feenstra’s website said that doors opened at a rather unfriendly 7.30 so we went down to get there about a quarter to eight.

Once in and with stamps on the backs of our hands we grabbed a couple of chairs to sit just behind the two or three round tables at the front. With no regimented rows it wouldn’t be a problem to see round anyone sitting in front of you. The set up was not the silly stage in the centre position that Feenstra often favours but up the end in front of the back bar that had a back cloth to hide it.

With an early opening we rather assumed a support band and dreaded the worst. Having said that the first time we saw Oli Brown he was playing support. It turned out that there was only Oli’s mon on display so we had a bit of a wait before there was any action. Luckily Pete Feenstra was on pretty good form with odd (very odd) announcements from the stage.

As usual he thanked us for coming out and then told us that the PA had blown up. But we were not to worry as by Herculean efforts they had got another one. It was obviously a bit last minute as there was still some testing going on and that included some quite painful sonic booms. Feenstra explained that the lack of PA meant that the grand intro for the band couldn’t happen (we had no idea what this was supposed to be) but soon enough the band would be on.

It was a touch ramshackle as the band actually walked through the crowd to get onto the stage. The lack of PA turned to the band’s advantage as there were a lot of jokes flying around and it helped relax the atmosphere. They started up and were the same pretty hard driving blues band (with a hint of jazz all the time) that we had seen before. Oli was looking thinner than usual but was still in his trademark pinstripe suit. The drummer, Simon Jones looked the same but Fred Hollis the bass player looked different.

Teresa agreed and he looked like a young brother of the old one. As time went on his obvious prowess (and he is good) made us think that he might be the same bloke but he didn’t look the same. Maybe he had lost weight and done something different with his hair but something was amiss. I clobbered Feenstra on the way to the toilet and he agreed that there was something strange and said he’d check up at half time. As I would see him the next night I thought I’d wait till then to find out.

The band certainly doesn’t lack confidence and Oli continues with his master plan of conquering the blues world. He really is very good and his ‘Vanquish Oli Brown "Signature": Solid’ guitar performed admirably. His amp though was a different matter. Along with the blown PA it was giving problems but once again his chatty, up front & amiable personality did him proud and he got all the audience on his side about it. The amp did make a few odd noises but luckily no great thumps or squeals. He did explain that it had been playing up but they hadn’t had time to fix it.

He does a good mix of old & new with some B B King, Freddie King (Big Legged Woman – Oli said he was a fan of them but he looked too frail to handle one) and some ones he had written himself. He had his little fan club in the front seats. There were 2 guys who were Dumb and Dumber and 2 women who Teresa ungraciously dubbed Godzilla and the Swamp Monster. One of then had a delightful mole or wart behind her ear and had her hair tied back to give it a good airing.

As intimated earlier there was an interval cum gear repair break and a second half of more hard driving blues. He is such a confident (some would say cocky) young man that he actually moved to the centre of the stage to sin away from the mike. One song – Psycho – was about a woman who followed him from a gig and he woke up to find her staring at him through the window while he was in bed. It was a very good show and at the end we had an encore and Black Benny Bam A Lam thrown in at the end for good measure.

The audience loved it and so they should as it was very entertaining. Well done The Oli Brown Band. The next night we have the other end of the blues age spectrum with Stan Webb so that should be an interesting contrast.

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Goodlookingstrippedsingers W Naked Good It 1 Good Looking Stripped Singers Blues and Views

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Oli Brown _ Beaverwood 19 March 2009

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