Stan Webb Boom Boom 20 March 2009

Stan Webb and Chicken Shack
Boom Boom- Sutton Friday 20th March 2009

This was a bit of a bonus gig. I'm not over fond of trekking to Sutton but Teresa was out for the night and Pete fancied it. We got down there about 8 and after a sophisticated meal of fish and chips while we walked back to the club where we were assaulted by the support band.
Sometimes you can dislike something more or less instantaneously and that was the case with the support act. With as couple of pints of Bombardier as sustenance we settled against a wall to decide why we disliked the band. It wasn’t balanced to start with. There was the main man on electric guitar and vocals, a second guitarist playing an acoustic, the bass player played an electric upright bass, the drummer also sang and there was an absurd harp player.

He looked like Hugh Griffith, was wearing a silly big floppy hat and had a bandolier style harp holder for all the harps in different keys. At first they sounded like a jug band. They did all covers and even songs that I knew I couldn't recognise. The bass player had to stare at his instrument to make sure his fingers were going in the right place and the 2nd guitarist had such a hard time keeping up with the volume that at one point he put his foot on the PA to try and get some more purchase on the strumming.

In case you haven't got the message I didn’t like them. They actually gloried in the name of Obviously 5 Believers (http://www.o5b.co.uk/ tells you how great they were at the Boom Boom). When we got in there were some of the sparse crowd at the front at the tables and all the rest were at the back near the bar. This gave it an odd feel as there was nothing in the middle. The band mercifully finished and while the band were packing 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.