I have just got back from seeing the Animals and Spencer Davis, so here is the obligatory indistinct snatched concert photograph.I went out of curiosity but enjoyed it far more than I expected. It was every bit as much a Spencer Davis Group show as an Animals show. We got Keep on Running, When I Come Home, Somebody Help Me, Every Little Bit Hurts, I'm a Man and - as the encore even after House of the Rising Sun - Gimme Some Lovin'.
The Animals consisted of John Steel, the band's drummer since it was formed (he was playing in a jazz band with Eric Burdon as early as 1957), Mickey Gallagher, the keyboard player who first played with them in 1965 after Alan Price left, Johnnie Williamson on lead guitar and Pete Barton on guitar and lead vocals.
Spencer Davis is perhaps beginning to look his age - he is singing songs at 70 that Steve Winwood sang for the Spencer Davis Group when he was 17. But Pete Barton gives him good support on vocals and Gallagher, in particular, is superb, making I'm a Man and Gimme Some Lovin' every bit as exciting as they should be.
I can recommend the show to any fan of the British Blues scene. As well as House of the Rising Sun and the Spencer Davis Group tracks, you get other Animals songs like Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, Don't Bring Me Down, It's My Life and (dedicated, to cheers, "to soldiers everywhere") We Gotta Get Out of this Place. All that and some Blues standards too.
Goodnight Market Harborough, wherever you are.
It's a bit like Pete Best touring as The Beatles.
ReplyDeleteThat's a bit unfair: John Steel was the Animals' original drummer and played on most of their best known sixties hits.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think Spencer Davis is entitled to tour as Spencer Davis.