Archived Reviews

First up was Terry Fletcher giving us a fine 'Brother Can You Spare A Dime?' played with Hawaiian strum and picks, a great royalist joke, then the self penned 'Sometimes Love Is Not Enough' played well on capo 5. His cover of Joe Jacksons 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?' replicated Jackson's vocal twang beautifully, and was much enjoyed.

Next was a 4 piece of regulars - Jimmy & Carol took centre stage, assisted by Peter Cook and Allan Savage. They gave us 'Man Of Constant Sorrow', 'You’ll Never Leave Harlem Alive' and 'Bowling Green' - nice to hear Carol sounding so well on vocals, a bit more volume on the dobro would have been appreciated.

Main man Clements started off with the old Lindisfarne tune 'Working My Way Back Home' inspired by and dedicated to his friends in hometown Rothbury. It was to be a mixture of both 'Stomping Ground' material and older 'Farne' stuff - and his playing of slide dobro throughout most was exceptional, particularly the endings with slide... what style and delivery! First four songs saw great dobro style and resonance, including the new retuned 'Train In E Major' dedicated to an ex wife! 'Ballad Of Hattie McDaniel' was superbly picked, and then two local tunes - 'Charity Vein' and 'The Roads Of East Northumberland' - before he gave us, among others, newer material in 'All Grown Up And Nowhere To Go' from the forthcoming CD, 'Odd Man Out'.

In the second half, Terry was up again to knock out a popular Pete Scott tune 'Check Out Lonely' and a Ryan Adams cover which went down well. The 'Band' re-appeared with 'Sitting On Top Of The World' and a mellow cover of Katie Wolfe's 'Across the Great Divide'.

Rod Clements filled the last hour with 10 songs, from starting with a new song 'New Best Friend' (for Tony Blair?) to closing with an encore 'Road To Kingdom Come' - fabulously introduced with exquisite finger picking talent. Some later Lindisfarne tunes dominated this set including the lovingly reproduced 'Candlelight', 'Unfinished Business', and the bouncy 'Jubilee Corner' including a humorous account of its origin from parent nights at school! We also got an excellent cover of his times with Bert Jansch in 'Rambling Is Going To Be The Death Of Me', his own 'The Old Blue Goose' for guitarist Oscar Woods as well as the obligatory 'Meet Me On The Corner' and an overstrummed 'Cant Do Right For Doing Wrong'.

A most satisfactory night out, well worth it, and many CD sales followed. Get him back!

Mike Jessop