The King’s Head Hotel Louth

Not only was it Sharon’s birthday, it was also a bank holiday weekend, therefore it was almost guaranteed to be special and to leave us a lot lighter in the pocket!

First up on the Friday night was the ever-popular local band The What complete with entourage from The Waggon and Horses. Balding Bloke had them sounding as good as always as they ploughed through Beatles, Who, Rolling Stones and Van Morrison. Interestingly their second set contained, I think, only one Beatles number and one of my favourites from 1968, “Back In The USSR”. A great start to the weekend from really nice guys and they’ll be back on Saturday September 17th.

Saturday night saw Scunthorpe’s superb Joker take to the stage for two sets covering classic tracks from the likes of Deep Purple, Robert Palmer, Kinks, ZZ Top, Steppenwolf, T. Rex, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Kings of Leon, Free and Queen. For me the volume seemed to be a little low at first, up the front by the stage it was fine, but the sound didn’t seem to be travelling all the way down the bar which is unusual for these guys however as the evening progressed some tweaking soon had them sounding excellent as they finished the evening with a great rendition of “The Time Warp” from the 1973 rock musical The Rocky Horror Show complete with all the bar staff up on the bars dancing.

Joker will be back for the next bank holiday weekend on Sunday August 28th.

To Sunday night and Sharon’s birthday for the third time:-) The last time Stolen Fridays played I missed them so this was inevitably going to be interesting since I was told the girls really enjoyed them whereas the guys wanted more rock stuff. I have to say, as a guy, that I must agree, this is not my preferred type of music although, in their defence, it’s a league ahead of drum and bass and all that moronic, electronic dancey stuff that some bars continually blare out plus the sound engineering from Balding Bloke was spot on.

I completely missed the first set which, I am told, had a much better set list (from a bloke’s point of view!) than the second which included covers of Robbie Williams, Take That, Abba, Ritchie Valens, Dire Straits, Elton John, Status Quo, The Jam and Oasis Their encores included a lengthy “Mustang Sally” medley and finally Robbie Williams “Angels”. Sharon obviously likes them since they will be back in a couple of months on Saturday August 6th.

I wasn’t there so I’m going on a little bit of Chinese whispers however I’m told they had to turn the volume down it was that loud, nevertheless from what I’ve been told it was a good gig thereafter, although very short with two sets and a break and finishing by 11.20!

I’m also told that Jackhammer actually performed a very good “Freebird” and if it was a 9+ minute version that was a definite first-timer, and I missed it, oh well, next time. If anyone would like to add any comments please feel free to do so.

It’s always good fun to have a new band and hear their selection of classic tracks and the Moodrats certainly scored several first-timers on their debut at the Kings. Their entire first set was a homage to one of the greatest British groups  ever and comprised of no less than 14 Kinks tracks starting with “All Day And All Of The Night”, “Sunny Afternoon”, “Tired Of Waiting For You”, “Waterloo Sunset”, “Days”, “Where Have All The Good Times Gone”, “David Watts”, “Everybody’s Gonna Be Happy”, “She’s Got Everything”, “Dead End Street”, “Dedicated Follwer Of Fashion”, “You Really Got Me”, “Lola” and finishing with “Till The End Of The Day”.

The sound from Balding Bloke was up to his usual high standard however, and outside of BB’s control, the lead guitar was too loud and quite often drowned out the vocals and other instruments.

After a seemingly very long break the band reappeared for their second set starting with The Who’s “The Kids Are Alright”, probably a first-timer with The Beatles “I’m Only Sleeping”, “Can’t Explain”, “Substitute”, “My Mind’s Eye”, “We Gotta Get Out Of This Place” from The Animals, a very unusual Beatles song selection and definite first-timer with “Rain” followed by two more first-timers with Oasis’s “Half The World Away” and The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes”, a couple of Rolling Stones numbers “The Last Time” and “It’s All Over now, another first-timer with The Who’s “La La La Lies”, “Echo Beach”, The Small Faces “Whatcha Gonna Do About It”, “In The Midnight Hour”, “Heatwave” and finally another Who track, “My Generation”.

The band came prepared for more and what a great rock ‘n roll medley it was and, without doubt, their best performance of the night commencing with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates “Shaking All Over”, Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock”, the classic Chuck Berry “Johnny B. Goode” and finally another track featuring J. B. Goode and performed extremely well, “Bye Bye Johnny”…believe me, the bar thoroughly enjoyed that! I suspect the Moodrats will be back later in the year.

The Friday night of THE wedding kicked-off with a great,  electric, acoustic set from no less than Stunz and Harpman, a.k.a. Mick Stones and Kenny Mayle. I’m told this is the first time they’ve ever done this in public and it was superb. Following on, The Legendary Night Owls provided us with a fantastic two sets lasting way past midnight and featuring for the first time a keyboard player who fitted-in as though he’d been playing with them for ever. I just love this style of music and evidentally the very busy bar do as well.

I didn’t manage to get in for The Modernaries on the Saturday night however I’m told their sound engineering was much better this time with a good mixed, couple of sets of covers including, I’m told, a tremendous “Superstition”.

Sunday night had the BackStreet Blues Band complete with wobbly drummer, strong stuff that poitin you know!  Two sets of classic rock ‘n’ blues ensued with covers from Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, Chuck Berry, Rory Galagher, Freddie King and Led Zeppelin, plus the only band which has covered him at the Kings, Tommy Castro. A great way to finish the long weekend and Monday was definitely needed to play catch-up…the BSBB are slated to be back on Saturday November 5th.

Eventually I’m getting around to posting! Normally a trio, Rough Trade brought with them a wind-up extra drummer with them so when Tony got tired, Carl took over, and they even played together at one stage towards the end of the night…and talking of stages we had a first with the drummer(s) creating their own raised stage area and it worked extremely well.

If you’ve ever seen a Rough Trade set-list you know it’s a nightmare to decipher however these guys let their music do the talking with songs such as “Lil Devil”, “Smoking In The Boys Room”, “Black Night” “Ace Of Spades”, “Paranoid”, “Smoke On The Water”, “My Sharona”, “Whiskey In The Jar”, “I Hate Everything About You” and “Breaking The Law”.

Rough Trade are still the only band to have appeared at The Kings performing the legendary “Hocus Pocus” from Focus and there’s no dount that Dave’s yodelling is getting even better and naturally they did a Status Quo medley including a first-timer with “Big Fat Mama”. The guys will be back for the Cadwell Park, Superbikes weekend on Saturday August 27th, now that could be a manic night!