Rocking the Rafters
And it was Rockin’ Robin who rolled in to kick off the evening in fine style with a rip-roaring medley of songs, tightly wrapped around the “Belle of Belfast City”. Joining him, south side of the microphones, were John the Bass and Tom the Mandolin.
The Rocking continued with Richard’s “City of New Orleans” and “All You Ever do is Bring Me Down”. Then John Bass took to his acoustic to sing Dewey Bunnell’s soft rock classic from the 70s, “Horse With No Name”.
Joe Lyon took a break from his Liverpool themed songs this week to doff a cap at the seasoned rocker Joe Brown, with “Picture of You”.
Joe makes no secret of being a avid fan and will be in the audience at New Brighton’s Floral Pavilion on Wednesday (16th) to watch the ‘Chirpy Cockney’ who began his Rock and Roll career in the 50s and still belting it out today at the age of 75.
Tom Degney got his teeth into Grateful Dead’s “Catfish John”, whilst Lynda demonstrated her yodelling skills in “Bluegrass Music”.
Enid and Neil slowed things down a pace with the beautiful “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” and Elvis’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love”. Cath’s set included “Carey” by Joni Mitchell and Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”.
Glyn sang “Steal Away” (The Fureys) and with the lyrics of the Stephen Foster folk song, assured us that “Hard Times Come Again no More”.
Penni sang about that “Dirty Rain” we’d all been wading through on the way to The Feathers, before suggesting, in the words of Bob Dylan, that we have “Just One More Coffee for the Road”.
There was a new face at the club this week and it belonged to young Harri Owen from Rhewl. Accompanying himself on guitar, Harri delivered two cracking songs “Candy” and the Oasis classic “Half a World Away”.
Both songs elicited an well deserved enthusiastic response from the audience.
Another new face was Hamish Sennett, not
as a performer however, Hamish is a sound engineer and runs his own business, Dark Knight Audio, in Rhewl. He called in to say hello and took a turn on the mixing desk.
Then just before the end of the evening, Harri took to the stage once again, accompanied this time by his dad Bov Owen to sing the Welsh song “Strydoedd Aberstalwm”.
Occupying the finale spot this week was John Williams. We’d had a great version of Cindy Lauper’s “Time After Time” in his earlier set. Playing his cello mandolin he sang “Don’t Wake Me Up Until Tomorrow” but then for an encore, he woke us all up with the Bob Dylan/Ketch Secor “Rock Me Mama Like a Wagon Wheel”. A great sing-along earworm to send us rocking our way home.
Fifteen performers in all, doing up to three numbers each, made for yet another blisteringly good evening of music.
