This was a packed, hot, brilliant night.
It's easy to forget how many absolute classic songs the Velvet Underground created, alongside the weirdest ones. It was so great to be invited to contribute to this night, which was organised by Drew and Alex Morrison in aid of Crisis, the homelessness charity. What a feat of organisation! Thank you both for putting it together!
Each act chose two Velvet Underground songs, and played a short set of their own that included them. It started really early at 5.30, with Drew Morrison and the Darkwood. This was to be a night of very swanky guitars and a lot of very snazzy guitar playing, and Drew's band kicked it off with aplomb. Next up were The Magic City Trio, one of only two bands that had a woman in it (not counting me). They not only played the Jonathan Richman song about the Velvet Underground, but also played The Black Angel's Death Song (really well, as it happens). It was great to see guitar whizz Jeff Mead playing again.
They were followed by David Ahmed and Bruce Beach and their Maccaferri-heavy guitar quartet. I thoroughly enjoyed their sound, and the fact that they could swap over who was playing lead with perfect ease. I'd say they were the revelation of the night, and they definitely have a new fan here. It was intriguing to see they way they blended their personalities on stage as well as their guitar sounds; they seemed very much like a group who spend a lot of time playing together for pleasure as an amicable jam.
I was on next and I played Three Cheers for Toytown, The Ginger Line, Temptation (see what I did just there in a minute), and Saturday Night with the London Set, which almost threw me when I got to the line 'the gaps appear within the crowd'. I was trying very hard not to think too much about James, because of course he would have loved the night (and probably been quite critical too!). The first of the two Velvet Underground songs was Temptation (Inside Your Heart) (see what I did just there). Lester Square came up to join me, and his guitar was completely out of tune, which was of course, completely perfect for the song. We condensed it into its necessary parts minus the ad libs. We then did the first ever outing for It Wasn't Me off the album. He's been away on the other London dates so it's never bene played before, and I think we did a decent job of it. Lastly, I played Femme Fatale. It really is so much Nico's song, but it belongs to my own musical pathway and was played at James's funeral too because both of us were huge Velvet Underground fans. Weren't all the punks? Ian Button, Darren Hayman and Lester formed a trio of male backing singers, The Manly Charms, and did a beautiful job of harmonising the 'She's a Femme Fatale' bits in the chorus. Well done, chaps!
After a break, Brian Nevill did a reading from his memoir about Nico and the mutual scorn between her and the audiences at the inappropriate support gigs she did. He told us about having to chuck her out of his house eventually because of her drug habit. Afterwards, Ian mentioned a show he'd been at where the young men were so rowdy that she turned around to them and growled 'Why don't you go home, you stupid little boys!'. I was thinking about that yesterday and it turned into a song. When women punks get asked who their heroes were, they often say 'Patti Smith'. But Patti Smith felt a bit famous-before-she-was-famous to me (although I loved her autobiography), and I didn't really like her music that much. Nico was my hero. She was all the things you weren't allowed to be- tall, rich, beautiful, surly, rude, independent, unique musically (how annoying for the men!) and she simply didn't care about anything, quite obviously. What an inspiration!
Next were Drew and Ian Craig. Drew did a simply beautiful version of Pale Blue Eyes (what a lovely song that is!), followed by Kieron Phelan and the Peace Signs, who had one of the other women in their band, an extremely talented piano player. Jack Hayter played some mean lap steel with them, too. They also had a bucketful of major sevenths, which is always a good peace sign.
Last but not least was Ian Button's band, Papernut Cambridge, which includes Robert Halcrow on bass and Darren Hayman on drums. Ian was really on form and clearly delighted to be in front of a band for a change rather than behind it on drums. The highlight of their set was White Light, White Heat, which was the perfect song to end on. I was invited to play tambourine and ended up with a rosy pink tambourine injury on my left palm, which is only now beginning to fade.
It was well over sold out. Both Offsprogs and Jaimie came, Little Bruv and Sarah came, and my nephew turned up late but it was still really good to see him. Caryne and Dave came, which made it feel like a proper gig. There were lots of people to say hello to. At one point a chap on crutches came up to Ian and said 'You've been the drummer in the last five bands I've been to see!'. I suppose it does get to a point where people help out on each other's music a lot. Maybe this is why I often play solo, although I do love it when I have other people playing on my songs, especially because they are such great musicians. It is a very supportive thing; I was really made up that Lester leapt in on Sunday. At some point this autumn, I'll invite everyone along to play the album again. That's in the pipeline.
Thanks to Lester, Ian Button and Darren Hayman: that really was lovely singing.
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