Christmas cheer at the Navy!   Words: Dave Whiteman, Pictures: Matthew Thomas

It wouldn't surprise many of my friends to find out that my favourite band of all time is The Beatles. Amazingly they were only together for around ten years….which is actually a good bit less than our Open Mic has been running, but in that time they sold more than 600 MILLION albums worldwide and over 1.6 BILLION  singles in the US alone. So when bands talk about world- wide success these days, their sales figures are really only a fraction of the fab four. Fifty years ago this week their double A side of Day Tripper and We Can Work it Out was released and of course went straight to number one with sales of over 1,000,000. It is very rare at any Open Mic to go through the evening without hearing a couple of Beatles covers and this week was no exception.

First on stage Kieran Cahill was making his final appearance at our Open Mic after a successful spell in Combat Stress. Kieran admitted to me that the music and the friends that he has made here has been great therapy for him, and I am sure that we will see him perform again in the future. A lovely melodic  set was capped off with a self-penned song simply called ‘Thank You’ aimed at the club and its members and was sang with real emotion.

It has been a long time since we saw Luke Drew on stage at the Navy. His Mum, Wendy, was a regular for many years and often got up to sing, but we never saw a lot of Luke. His self- penned set was at times reminiscent of Leonard Cohen, with lovely rhythmical finger-picking underpinning his soft haunting voice. ‘Euphony’ was the stand out song from a very nice set.

Nice to see Robbie’s in Rehab back at the Navy. They disbanded a few years ago, but a series of local gigs have enthused them again. Guitarist Roger Clark and bass-man Alan Middleton enlisted the help of soundman Jon Newton to give us a fine selection of covers from Stereophonics, Bryan Adams and of course, The Beatles.

Next up Laurence Gale and great pal, Rob Bryon, trying out a new set of songs. Country number ‘It’s five o’ clock Somewhere’ by Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett was a great choice, but singalong ‘Wagon Wheel’ ….a new song for them, stole the show.

A real treat next as Alexandra Jayne gave the best performance of the night, marrying old and new with consummate ease. ‘It ain’t me Babe’ was originally released the same year as Day Tripper, 1965, and has been covered by many artists from The Byrds to Johnny Cash.  AJ’s version was simple, energetic and quite superb. Even better to my ears was listening to another one of my favourite numbers ‘Love the one you’re with’ by Stephen Stills… a brilliant set from a very talented young lady.

One of the best guitarists to ever grace the Navy stage, Steve Hammond from Shrewsbury was itching to play and assembled the only Scratch House Band of the evening, with Al Middleton on bass, Jon Newton on drums and yours truly on rhythm guitar. Steve always chooses slightly different songs, so ‘On the Road Down’ by Robert Cray was certainly an interesting choice, but Steve pulled it off with a terrific guitar solo. Yet another Beatles song, ‘I saw Her Standing There’ closed another excellent set.

Time was getting on as Olly Flavell, back for the Christmas break from University in Manchester, took to the stage for our final act of the evening. Olly almost always plays songs from his vast self- penned repertoire, but tonight it was, unusually, a cover from Maroon 5. Released in 2004, ‘Sunday Morning’ was their fourth single to be released from their debut album, ‘Songs about Jane’ but as he does with any song he covers, he put his own slant on it and made it his own.

So once again, a great night of local live music to bring the Newport Open Mic to a close for 2015.

It has been another superb year for our weekly Open Mic and a huge thank you to the hundreds of performers who have turned up to play, and the enthusiastic audiences who have supported week after week. Look out for a review of 2015 in the next edition of the Advertiser, and don’t forget the Open Mic Christmas Party on Tues 22^nd Dec with terrific local band Lost the Plot…..get there early if you want to be sure of a seat! So to readers and supporters of live music everywhere, have a lovely Christmas and whatever you do in 2016 remember…. keep music live!