First off, a little bit of background. Newmarket is the flat racing
capital of the world, and they've been racing horses there since the time
of Charles II in the 1660's. It's also just about ten miles away from my house, so how could I not
go to a Roy Wood gig there :-) During the summer they often have Friday
evening meetings and follow it up with live music. I went there for the first time last
week and saw Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, and this
week it was the turn of the Roy Wood Big Band. The band play on a part
of the stand in the Member's Enclosure, and most of the audience have to
stand out front on the grass in the open air.
On to the music! The Thunderbirds theme opened the show, as usual, and the band came on stage, all dressed in camouflage gear, and went into "California Man", before the Naylor twins introduced Roy - the way they do it always reminds of the opening credits to the 1931 "Frankenstein" film with Boris Karloff; "Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Carl Laemmle would like to introduce..." (or something like that, anyway). The rest of the set was pretty much the standard set (see below) with one fascinating exception; Roy introduced one song as "a new song - we've never done this one before; you're the guinea pigs, so if we mess it up, it's your fault!" and proceeded to do "Beautiful Daughter", with just himself on guitar, Colin on bass, and Sharon on keyboards doing the string bits. Roy, it was wonderful!! Please keep this in! I'm sure most people there didn't know the song, but so what... It was marvellous!
The other interesting thing was that he made two references to "the
new album", so I hope this means that "Alive" will get released before
too long (but don't hold your breath!)
Anyway, the set list, in approximate order (I didn't write them down at the time, I was too busy having fun! Apologies if I missed any):
California Man
Fire Brigade
Forever
House Of Love
Kiss Me Goodnight, Boadicea
Angel Fingers
I Can Hear The Grass Grow
Beautiful Daughter
Lion's Heart
Rescue Me
and the encore:
("We don't care what time of year it is, do we, boys and girls?")
I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day
Great gig!!