Reviews

Artist: Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash
Venue: The Brook
Town: Southampton
Date: 06/03/09
Website: http://www.wishboneash.co.uk

In my opinion, The Brook in Southampton is one of the best venues in the South of England. The sound system is second to none, though I must confess I have been there before when the volume was teetering on painful. It is has a high stage, so that wherever you stand in the auditorium, and whoever is standing in front of you, you still have a clear view of the performers. In addition, there is also a mezzanine, once the designated smoking area, but now there's tables and chairs up there for the more sedate concert-goer. The mezzanine floor runs round three sides of the building, allowing you to get right up above the stage and still get a brilliant view.

There's a bar on each floor as well, so you don't have to spend all evening running up and down the stairs.

The Brook attracts some pretty big names and many bands return again and again. Amongst the regulars are both Wishbone Ash and Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash

Martin Turner, original Ash bassist and singer, formed Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash in late 2005. All four original Wishbone members have rights to the name "Wishbone Ash", though Andy Powell continues to trade under that name. Both Andy Powell's and Martin Turner's line ups are equally brilliant. It would be very hard to say which was better, but if pushed, I'd have to say that Martin's has the slight edge. Andy Powell's band are still very much active, writing and playing a lot of new material so there's less time to keep the fans happy with older material.

Martin Turner's band though sticks to their original ethos: to play almost exclusively the classic tracks from Wishbone's back catalogue.

Trouble is, in almost fourty years, Wishbone have produced a vast wealth of absolutely beautiful songs, so there are far too many songs for one band to play in any one night. Martin Turner and his band have recorded two live albums from their recent tours, and yet hardly any of the songs that they played at the Brook are covered by either album.

If you ask anyone to list their favorite ten wishbone tracks they may include "Lifeline", "Cosmic Jazz", "Outward Bound" and so on. Well, all of those you'll find on the live albums.

Tracks that people will almost certainly list amongst their favorites, though, are "Phoenix", "The Pilgrim", "Jail Bait", and every single track from their "Argus" album.

And that was precisely what the band played on Friday.

There aren't many albums that are such classics that they would warrant being played live some thirty years later. Fairport Convention's "Leaf and Liege", and Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" are the only two other albums I know of where this has been done. Both of these, though, are one off events, whereas this is the second year now that Martin been playing Argus in its entirety to packed out audiences. In fact, Martin is calling this tour "NEAT", standing for Never Ending Argus Tour, and let's hope it never does.

Martin Turner exudes charisma. All four of them exude talent. Dave Wagstaffe, on drums, only recently joined the band, (December last year), and Danny Wilson, guitarist, joined last summer, but together, with Ray Hatfield, also on guitar, they are extremely tight. Yet they still had fun. At one stage, Danny came over and started to play Ray's guitar at the same time that Ray was also playing it. During a short percussion solo, Ray picked up a bottle and tapped that so as to join in. All very entertaining.

For the first set, they played various old favorites, then for the second set, rather than playing some Elvis, as someone from the audience wittily requested, they played Argus in it's entirety. They made one slight change to the running order, moving "Blowin' Free" to the finale, so as to end on a crescendo. They have recently re-recorded a studio version of Argus, released as "Argus Through the Looking Glass", and they've made the same change to the running order there too.

It was obvious how much they enjoyed playing, and the audience loved it. The applause after the first track was louder and longer than many bands get as a call for an encore.

Set list was:

Set 1
Why Don't We?
Lady Jay
The Pilgrim
Persephone
Phoenix
You See Red

Set 2
Time Was
Sometime World
The King Will Come
Leaf and Stream
Warrior
Throw Down the Sword
Blowin' Free

Encore
Living Proof
Jail Bait

Pete Bradley