Wreckless Eric opened the proceedings and wasn’t too happy about the sound. Neither was I. The Bloomsbury gets my vote for worst concert sound…ever. Using an acoustic guitar, there were so many rogue frequencies bouncing around the place, I could barely follow his lyrics. And this is a great shame because Wreckless Eric is noted for his lyrical content. At 50 years old, this guy still tries to push the punk ethic and belted out numbers from this new album Bungalow Hi.
Despite the sound problems, Eric settled into his stride after about the third song and things began to come together nicely. While not being the most technically proficient guitarist around, he attacks his instrument with such honest, brutal, vim and vigour that you have to give a nod of respect. After one particularly brutal song, he was left with only two strings left on his guitar. Rock ‘n’ roll man!
I am not that familiar with his work, but I shall be investigating further. He also gets my award for “Use of Anglo-Saxon” by using the word cunt in an introduction.
After this belting opening 45 minutes, I already felt exhausted, so we feasted on strawberry ice-cream during the intermission (go on, crack you albatross gags now) – it was that kind of venue.
So then The Rutles appear on stage an immediately open with Goose Step Mama. The sound was still terrible and I could barely hear the vocals. Even the drums were buried in the mix of guitar and keyboards. Despite this, I got behind the music and we lent our vocal talents to the proceedings. Songs from both “The Rutles” and “Archeaology” albums were played. I’ve devised a songlist (in the wrong order, of course) to demonstrate just how much music was performed.
Goose Step Mama
Number One
Hold My Hand
I Must Be In Love
With a Girl Like You
Living in Hope
Ouch
It’s Looking Good
Doubleback Alley
Good Times Roll
Piggy in the Middle
Cheese & Onions
Get Up and Go
Let’s Be Natural
Major Happy’s Up-and-Coming Good Time Band
Rendezvous
Questionnaire
Lonely-Phobia
Hey Mister!
Easy Listening
Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik
Joe Public
Shangri-La
Back in 64
So this was 90 minutes of Beatle-inspired musical parody and I loved every minute of it. I especially wanted to see/hear the great Barry Wom/Jon Halsey banging the skins, but my view was slightly obscured by the keyboard player. Not to worry, The Admiral Jon Halsey came to the front of the stage to perform one of the greatest paper-tearing solos I had ever seen (in fact it was the only time I had ever seen someone tear a newspaper to music and make it a solo…it made me laugh a lot).
It was a great evening of music (despite the sound and the butt-achingly bad seating) and well worth it. It makes you appreciate the phenomenal talent of Neil Innes and his fellow musicians for pulling this all together. Even better than the Beatles, I say, and better than the Beatles parodies that bands like Oasis or even Adrian Belew commit to record.

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