Another Special Night.

Another packed house at the Navy Club!                                       Report Tues 29^th Jan. 

Words Dave Whiteman, pictures Laurence Gale

“All the snow has turned to water, Christmas Day has come and gone” sang country singer John Prine in his song ‘Souvenirs’. 

I was reminded of this as I walked though Victoria Park just a few days ago, remembering that last week scores of kids were sledging down the small hills and now it is back to its normal green. Christmas Day has come and long gone and as we enter February, once again flood alerts are across the whole county. One thing you can be sure of though, is that whatever the weather, there will always be a decent crowd of live music lovers at the Royal Naval Association in Bellman’s Yard for the weekly Newport Open Mic.

After a quick sound check under the watchful eyes and ears of Adam the sound man, Barry Hollyhead was first to entertain the house with a couple of cracking songs, ‘Kisses sweeter than wine’ and a lovely ‘Railway Hotel’ done originally, I think, by Mike Batt, of Wombles fame.

Olly Flavell, this week without his regular partner Jake, was next up and treated us to a great version of the Michael Jackson hit, ‘Man in the Mirror’…..not simple to do with just an acoustic guitar, but he made it look easy. Following this with ‘When you Say nothing at all’ it’s now clear to everyone just how much his singing and playing have improved. 

Time for a Scratch House band next and Dave Blue assembled regular Andy Clarke on bass, Olly on guitar and Keith Johnson on drums to fire up the crowd with a classic blues set which featured ‘Crossroads’,  ‘Mr Bartender’ and my personal favourite, ‘Black Country Blues’…..which definitely sounded more Tipton than Mississippi Delta! 

Slowly making a name for himself is new(ish) local tennis coach Darcy Crawford. Tracey Chapman’s ‘Talking ‘bout a revolution’ was followed by a couple of superb Paulo Nutini numbers, ‘Last Request’ and ‘Candy’.

We pride ourselves on having quite a wide age group at the Open Mic, and you could say that next act, Jimmy Bremner from Telford, at 70 years young is one of our more ‘senior’ members. He sang solo on his last visit a while back, but this time he brought a four piece to entertain us. Tom McDonald on lead guitar, Paul Vince on drums and our own Ed Young standing in on bass supplied the backing as he rocked though songs from Johnny Cash and Hank Williams.

Vinyl Tap played a super set last week and they were back at the club again with new songs and a new guitarist. Brad Taylor has joined the band and his guitar and vocal contribution will, I feel, be a big asset. A set that included Soft Cell, Radiohead, Chris Rea and Amy Macdonald is quite a mix, but the band pulled it off brilliantly. 

Next up, Richard Thomas, who is always original. He seems to have an endless supply of quirky versions of familiar tunes, and he delighted again this week with ‘We could have been anything that we wanted to be’ which was, I think, from the musical Bugsy Malone. His next song was definitely familiar but it took me a while to work out that it was an Abba’s ‘Mamma Mia’ done in his own inimitable style….half of it in Swedish! 

If anyone can fill the room with her voice, it was next act, Mellissa Walford. Although still only 16 she has the stage presence of someone much older and has become far more confident over the past few months. It is now quite difficult to separate her covers from originals….in between Ed Sheeran’s ‘A team’ and ‘Too Close’ by Alex Clare, she treated us to one of her own compositions, ‘Stick Like Glue’ which she has just written, and it sounds good enough to be recorded. 

In what has been a good night for bands, with Mark Langford and Steve Smith, half of local rockers ‘Bang to Rights’ in the house it seemed only natural to recruit a couple more to make up a final group to close the evening. Simon stepped up on drums and Dave Whiteman provided vocals for a couple of lively tunes from first Bryan Adams and then a classic Eagles number, ‘Hotel California’.

  All too soon the lights were coming up bringing yet another brilliant evening of live music to a close. Four bands, three singer guitarists and two very talented singer songwriters, where else can you get entertainment like that for a quid? The Navy club, every Tues, from 8pm is the place to be whether you want to play, sing or just listen. Come on down…you know it makes sense!