Venue:
Koko, Camden Town, London
Date: 17/04/2015
Blimey the place was rammed for this celebration of most English of eccentric 60s pop geezers. The cover band’s cover band The Rutles kicked off proceedings with a snappy set of toe tapping tight trousered Beatlesque tunes. Not the full band as Stig was delayed on a stopover in Pakistan and Dirk recovering from an overdose of royalties. Gems like ‘Doubleback Alley’ , ‘Cheese & Onions’ and Barry Wom’s solo spot ‘Living In Hope’ made the good times roll away. The genius ‘Back In 64’ from their much underbought ‘Archaeology’ project (Back in 64 before you were born \ People were not concerned with pouring scorn (or scoring porn) \ No one was obese and only tight trousers were worn) ended the set beautifully>
After a couple of sips of tea (and biscuits) Most of the Bonzos appeared to run through Mr Slater’s Parrot , a delightfully bizarre vent act for Sir Little Echo and an aborted take of ‘I’m The Turban Spaceman’ Despite their advanced years the energy and silliness was undimmed.
A short film starring a v young Viv directed by Neil Innes whilst at art school proceeded a fuller accompaniment of Bonzo’s plus the man behind the live show of Sir Henry at Rawlinson’s End , Mark Livesley, standing in for Viv and doing a bloody brilliant job on ‘My Pink Half Of the Drainpipe’ and Busted. Urban Spacemen, Equestrian Statues and Mr Apollo appeared to wrestle alligators with their bare mitts. Before the Intro was over, the Outro had begun and the evening was at an end.
Tonight there was a room full of people in North London singing lustily ‘All the people in the blood rush choir/ Come on Fish Face, you’ve got the power’ – that is A GOOD THING
The audience:
Old crumblies a bit alarmed that there was no seatage and they would have to stand for the next four hours and some younger people too. Naturally bumped into Mark Ellen outside the venue post gig as heard his laugh from 40 paces. We agreed on how very bizarrely wonderful it all was and were later found dancing topless and kipping on the beach.
It made me think..
My pal Spencer saw a barperson look up at the screen showing the activity onstage which might have been one smartly dressed gentleman bouncing another equally distinguished fellow like a basketball before tearing off his trousers. “They’re a bit touched, aren’t they?”
I was wishing I’d been there until the bit about dancing topless.
I’m so bloody normal, yet I’m one of nature’s freaks
Can peelie-wallie men sing the whites?
Ahem, sorry to but in, that sounded like a good show DFB, as you were.
Splendid
Unfortunately couldn’t make it, Friday night in London (didn’t realise that I could have done as the 19th was still part of my Easter hols). However there is rumour of a tour later in the year.
But I have booked for this; Mike Livesey’s Tribute evening for Vivian at the Bloomsbury.
https://www.thebloomsbury.com/event/run/14379 (hope this is OK to put here)
Yes they plugged this at the gig. I hope to make it along to the Bloomsbury
That’s a brand new scratch on that piano…..
Please have a care…. we got into a Bonzos quotefest in the FB group and the lust it generated in the womenfolk was nigh-on uncontrollable. Any mention of separate gorillas, 59-minute cleaners or Horace Batchelor will have our fragrant sistren panting with man-hunger.
Apparently all this nonsense will be happening again at the Indigo @ 02, London on 3rd December. Hope for non capital people that they do some other dates
I have to say this was one of the most disappointing gigs I have ever been to. The Rutles were ok but there were a couple of boring songs from Archaeology. The you got what was billed as The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band but without Neil Innes. Finally it was The Rutles with Rodney Slater on Sax. It gave the impression that Neil Innes doesn’t want much to do with the others. Sound was terrible view from the ground was awful, in the end I was in the top deck looking through a letterbox.
At what stage should we ask for our money back when a gig is as bad as this?