Report by Jude Paton

 

I recently went to see Pearl Jam at Milton Keynes National Bowl. If you haven’t been it’s definitely the best thing about Milton Keynes except you still have to negotiate the Mecca of roundabouts to get there....MK boasts over 300 and 1,000 if you include the painted bumps! As an outdoor live music venue The Bowl is superb with a capacity of 65,000. Blessed with glorious weather, a full moon to boot and a three and a half hour performance by one of Seattle’s “famous four” (Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden being the other 3) Pearl Jam brought the hardcore punk and heavy metal grunge sound to the masses in the late eighties and early nineties and to the crowd of followers in their thousands to the Home Counties in 2014. Looking round I reckon I was the oldest person there as most of the audience I would say were in the 30 to 40 age bracket! There must have been a playlist of over 30 Pearl Jam classics sung by Eddie Vedder and for the beginning of their encore they created a unique moment with son of George Harrison, Dhani, joining them for a version of the Beatle’s song “Rain”.

A more intimate evening of live music always awaits at Newport Open Mic in Bellmans Yard in Newport Shropshire, every Tuesday night, and this week names old and new appeared on the board boding well for a splendid open mic session.

 

Heidi Browne made a long overdue return and enchanted the early birds with an opening set of her own songs from her albums. “Necklining” recently at NEWfest14 and appearing for the first time at our Open  Mic in 2006 she recently won the accolade of National Open Mic winner in the over 21 category and listening to the song “Girlfriend” which won her the title it is hardly surprising.

Youngsters, Jay Harris and Liam Anslow (both 11) had Jay on the Roy Hodges bass guitar, a big Vintage for a small lad. Playing together and solo they brought songs old and new to an enthusiastic audience. 

The O’Chets were Sand Kumar and Scott Thompson cleverly using the name from their usual band Ricochet with “This Love” by Maroon 5 my favourite from their lively set.

The third duo of the evening was Skyfoil with Simon Heywood on guitar accompanying his friend Tim Cartwright on vocals. Simon’s instrument of choice is the drums but tonight nerves were jangling because this was the first time he had played his guitar “live”.  An accomplished musician and songwriter, Simon could be proud of Skyfoil’s first outing.

In Dave Whiteman’s extended absence, holidaying in Spain, Thom James and Steve Hammond were in charge of the sound desk but in time honoured tradition they got together to form a high octane scratchband together with Sand Kumar on drums. Another first as Sand has never played drums in public before. Songs from the Who, Beatles and B52s had the audience up on their feet and shouting for more.

Good to see the crowd of young people back for the second week running with Dylan Evans accompanying Harriet Sutton-Green, appropriately wearing a tartan dress for those who have been following the Commonwealth Games,  singing a Nina Nesbitt song. What a beautiful pure voice she has. Dylan sang a couple of original songs and unique a refreshing sound he has too. Tom Miles back too this week with songs by Frank Turner and post-grunge Canadian band Nickelback. A lesser known Dylan song “Blackjack Davey” was Dan Walton’s opener and his acoustic version of the Who’s “Don’t Get Fooled Again” was outstanding a complete contrast to the earlier Who numbers from The Hammond Scratch House Band. 

What a treat in store for the late stayers as singer/songwriter Chris del Mans brought the evening to a close playing keyboards and singing songs by David Bowie, Bonnie Tyler and of course his musical hero Elton John as well as a great selection of his own songs which included his signature tune “Captain America” and another inspired by his purchase of a £1 Shirley Bassey LP in a Birmingham record shop called “Shirley Saved Me”.  Time was fast approaching midnight and Elton’s “Your Song” was as good a finish to any evening of live music as was  “Alive” and  a crowd of 60,000 singing the Pearl Jam mantra “I’m Still Alive”.

60,000 at Milton Keynes or 60 at the Navy on another hot Tuesday night......  all there to keep music “LIVE”!    

See you all next Tuesday.