Day 123, "no Stairway..."

Been to a few gigs at the Mucky Duck, or The Boardwalk as it inexplicably became known under the stewardship of that bloke that played guitar for Van Morrison. sub, check that name.  Oh yes, that’s his name*, he said something along the lines of “pretty good riffing” when I played there with my band, he then proceeded to ‘borrow’ our PA and play an indeterminately long** version of Brown Eyed Girl.***

* Herbie Armstrong

** Pretty sure it went on for a week, meaning our PA hire charges were extortionate.

*** Actually they finished in time for us to get the PA back before it turned into carnivorous creatures or an empty, pumpkin shaped box full of spoons, just before midnight.

Among the many bands seen there were a couple that these tickets were for.

This was 5 quid to see a Led Zep tribute act.  They were probably ok. One thing stuck out in my mind though and clouded my view of them, prejudiced my view in fact.  They played Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.  Now, this song contains a large amount of finger-picked guitar.  I’m no expert, and I’m a bit of a half-arsed, half hearted practice guitar player, I haven’t picked up the guitar in nearly 5 months due to a finger injury (possibly a torn nail, or bad bruising or even a mild fracture) but I can still make an almost recognisable attempt at finger picking this tune and I haven’t played it in years.  As I’d recently learned 50% of the song myself I was somewhat miffed, no, significantly miffed, that the guitarist didn’t make even the slightest attempt to finger-pick any part of the song and in fact just strummed chords all the way through.

What a cop out, five bloody quid!  I’d have played it properly for nowt.

So, they may have been great otherwise but they put a match to their methane filled, heavier than air ambition, stayed solidly on earth and burst into a ball of came crashing down in a ball of weedy blue flame leaving a strange smell.  Led Zep?  Flaming rip off.

I'm probably being a bit mean about them, pretty sure everything else they did was good.

So why on earth then, given that they charged a whole fiver, that it cost only the absolutely reasonable and bargain cost of 6 quid to see Wilko Johnson with Norman Watt-Roy on bass?

Wilko Johnson was so good I would gladly have paid four times as much, fucking excellent, and in fact it does cost about four times as much as that to see him now.  And with inflation that is still a bargain.  Energy, honesty, connection with the crowd, talent.

Sublime.

Wilko
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