Gig review: MARTIN TURNER – 100 Club, London, 16 September 2023

September 20th, 2023 by andynathan

After a number of tours celebrating classic Wishbone Ash albums, founder member Martin Turner and band have now spent most of 2023 marking the 50th anniversary of ‘Live Dates’- their first live album and the swansong for the first era of the band with Ted Turner on guitar. Interestingly, the current Wishbone line up is also doing the same this autumn.

Then, as now, the classics from ‘Argus’ formed much of the band’s repertoire and they opened with a trio of them. ‘The King Will Come’ is always a good primer for Wishbone music with harmony lead guitars and a superb use of the wah-wah pedal from long time cohort Danny Willson on the solo.

There was also an improvised section in the middle where the band took the place down to near silence and Martin played a brief solo. That said, most of the songs stuck fairly faithfully to their original counterparts with latest drummer (and member of a famous rock family) Sonny Flint having something of the swing and subtlety of original drummer Steve Upton.

‘Warrior’, with some excellent lead work from Misha Nikolic, led into ‘Throw Down The Sword’ where just as notable as the beautiful closing twin lead passage was the way the crowd broke into singing along ’der-der-der’ to the guitar intro – the first indication that after an unseasonally summery September day, many of a Saturday crowd were already well refreshed.

The man himself remains a great character with his colourful stage clothes including a Samurai style headband for the first part of the set, and even a lucky Buddha cat perched on an amp behind him. He told stories behind the songs with a raconteur’s entertaining manner and a twinkle in his eye or tongue in cheek never far away, suggesting the spoken word circuit awaits (not too soon hopefully!). That said, his voice also seemed stronger than on recent outings and able to carry the songs, even those that do not rely on harmony vocals.

Arguably the stand out pair from ‘Wishbone Four’ gave Danny a chance to shine, first with lead vocals and slide guitar on ‘Rock And Roll Widow’ then sharing, as Andy Powell used to, vocal duties with Martin on ‘Ballad Of The Beacon’ and taking an exquisite solo, as did Misha.

Most of these songs are familiar through those trips through the band’s back catalogue, making the Jimmy Reed song, as popularised by the Everley Brothers, ’Baby What You Want Me To Do’ the odd man out. The band did a decent enough job with bluesy solos from both guitarists, Danny on slide and harmony leads, but it was simply less interesting than Wishbone’s own material: an epic ‘Phoenix’ which Martin dedicated to the people of Ukraine proved the point.

After a decent break, the second half began with more Live Dates tracks in ‘Lady Whiskey’ with a fiery solo from Misha who really seems over the years to have come into his own and ‘The Pilgrim’, where the guitar solos were unexpectedly heavy. However partly to create a longer set and partly to save some crowd pleasers to nearer the end, the set then departed from a strict format.

Instead ‘F.U.B.B’ was a second instrumental which, though lengthy, never dragged with the guitars fairly singing, followed by a lively ‘You See Red’ where Danny in the latest instalment of what became a running joke assumed the vocal role of Laurie Wisefield.

The atmosphere was unusually raucous for a Wishbone-related crowd and as the songs became more direct and uptempo the atmosphere came to boiling point with ‘Blind Eye’, the Mark 2 Wishbone’s finest song in ‘Living Proof’, and- preceded by a story about the famous Swedish girl who inspired the song – reached a peak with ‘Blowin Free’, concluding with more excellent slide work from Danny.

Introduced by the now familiar anecdote about the former socialite sent to their hometown of Torquay to clean up, ‘Doctor’ illustrated how Martin’s distinctive and intricate bass lines, weaving around and over the slashing twin guitars have been almost a third lead instrument in themselves, before the usual lengthy finale of ‘Jailbait’, the two guitarists trading leads and pulling poses with the sense of fun that characterises this line up, and even Martin trying a couple of new ‘Dad jokes’ on the audience.

It was a evening of wonderful music, as you would expect, yet also a thoroughly entertaining one with an uptempo crowd responding to the band’s own joy on stage. And the good news is that ‘Live Dates 2’ – a number of whose songs were teased tonight – is to be their theme in 2024.

Review and Photos by Andy Nathan

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Power Plays w/c 28 October 2024

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