Though Spike will always remain a proud Geordie, its London that is the Quireboys natural habitat, so it was fitting that their autumn UK tour ended with a date in the capital, albeit at a packed Highbury Garage, rather than their spiritual home and title of their last album ‘Wardour Street’.

To add to that connection, a three band bill was opened up by the Soho Dukes. After a number of friends had raved about them over the past few months, I was looking forward to my first encounter, though I had seen a couple of them with a special Mott the Hoople tribute earlier in the year.

They were a smartly dressed gang of raffish looking rascals, singer Johnny Barracuda even sporting a bowler hat and rolled umbrella, and opened with a winner. ‘Welcome To The Show’ had such a catchy hook that by the second time the ‘hello hello hello’ chorus kicked in, I was singing along as if I had known it all my life. ‘Elaine’ was another immediately memorable hook along with lyrics about a culturally mismatched relationship that namechecked figures as diverse as Dostoevsky and John Coltrane.

They even brought Spike on stage ahead of schedule to duet on a brilliant ballad, ‘A Stone’s Throw Away’ before he departed with a cheery ‘see you later, I’m off back down the pub’! Johnny’s cockney- accented vocals complemented their image, and lots of comparisons were popping into my head, from The Small Faces and Mott to a number of New Wave acts and even Madness.

Other songs that impressed included ‘Home Sweet Camden Town’, the R’n’B ‘Suited and Booted’ and ‘One Born Every Minute’. ‘Sunday Magazines’ reminded me of the early Quireboys and especially the barroom style piano while the ‘ooh sha la la’ was naggingly familiar, and there was a final trace of that geezer-ish humour in ‘Holloway’ (lyric ‘six months in Holloway, she’s been on holiday’…) Their combination of classic songwriting and a lively stage presence made a highly favourable impression on me- and I will be back for future shows.

The Karma Effect are a more familiar quantity to me: in fact I’ve followed their progression from early days and they are one of my favourites of the UK’s newer generation of classic rock bands. This was probably their biggest exposure yet to a wider audience, and indeed they postponed their own headline tour to into 2027 to take advantage of this opportunity.

Their new album ‘Cruel Intentions’ is their best yet but they held it in reserve to start as they opened with ‘All Night Long’ and ‘Wrong Again’: Henry Gottelier is a very confident frontman and the revised band line up had a swagger and tightness to match that would potentially look at home on larger stages.

They finally dipped into the album with the big hooks of ‘Dangerous Love’ which is one of my favourite songs of 2026, before the Aerosmith-like ‘Wild Honey’, ‘Waiting On A Miracle’ which began with a keyboard solo from Tom Pitt, and then the most direct number they have yet written, ‘Ride Or Die’, with Henry urging the crowd to dance and move.

A set which saw plenty of tasty solos, shared equally between Henry and Robbie Blake on their identical Les Pauls, ended in more familiar manner with the funked up ‘Doubt She’s Coming Back’ and ‘Steal Your Heart’ with Henry’s vocals soaring.

However there didn’t seem to be quite the warmth from the Quireboys home crowd towards them that greeted the Soho Dukes. I also thought that a singularly fast paced set would have benefited from one or two of their (excellent) slower and more southern sounding songs to break things up and make for greater variety. But with 40 minutes to play with something had to give and be held in reserve for that headlining tour.

Rather late on a Sunday night at 940, The Quireboys hit the stage to the strains of the ‘Meet the Gang’ song from ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’, which Spike said we were too young to remember (if only!) For as long as he is fronting the band with his chaotic bonhomie, you always know what you will get, but after all the line up shenanigans this version of the Quireboys is slightly different.

He and partner in crime Nigel Mogg provide the link with the days when they were a fixture in Soho, but this is something of a supergroup of late eighties Marquee hopefuls: with Thunder off the road, Terraplane old boys Luke Morley and Harry James offered their considerable services and keep the music tight as Spike goes off on his tangents, while Willie Dowling on piano seemed irked (possibly in jest) that Spike seemed fixated on his days fronting The Grip.

More significantly, this line up only features one guitar rather than the traditional two and the effect is to make those honky tonk style keys more prominent in the sound, openers ‘Jeez Louise’ and ‘Can’t Park Here’ being a case in point.

Quireboys struck lightning in a bottle with their ‘A Bit of What You Fancy’ debut and every set will feature it prominently, in this case starting with ‘Misled’, with hands waving, many holding pints in the air, and a ‘yee-haw’ from Spike heralding a singalong through ‘Sweet Mary Ann’.

Tugging his tribute polka dot scarf, he dedicated to Frankie Miller his song ‘Raining Whiskey’, which had a steady ‘Honky Tonk Women’ type riff, while the ballad ‘Under the Stars’ conjured up the image for me of something you might hear in a taverna on a Mediterranean package holiday.

It was back to the oldies with a huge cheer greeting ‘Hey You’ and Luke’s tasty slide guitar solos in particular, and ‘Whippin’ Boy’, a good example of where the current line up gives the Quireboys stronger backing vocals from Luke and Willie in particular. There was a final number from last album ‘Wardour Street’ in ‘I Think I Got It Wrong Again’, though I could not get out of my head the comparison with the Faces ‘Five Button Hand Me Down’.

As is customary now, Spike dedicated ‘King of New York’ to the memory both of Guy Bailey and his own Dad, and Luke breathed new life into it with a lengthy solo. In the surprise of the night there was a further tribute to Guy in a song from the Thirsty Quireboys project which was noticeably heavier than the rest of the set.

From then on though it was back to the debut album classics, starting with ‘Roses and Rings’, then the band seemed to take Spike by surprise as while he prepared for another anecdote, they raced into ‘There She goes Again’, before finishing with the inevitable ‘7 O’clock’ where Spike’s harmonica playing included a spot of improvisation that I don’t recall hearing before.

Despite the late finish there was time for one more signature song in ‘I Don’t Love You Anymore’, building from Spike’s almost whispered husk into a big power ballad, again benefiting from Luke’s ability to craft an epic solo.

Spike was keen to publicise that the band are recording a new album and will be touring more extensively in 2027. You can count me in for that one, but it will have to go some to match this night, one of the most enjoyable three band bills of rock’n’roll in a long time.

Review and Photos by Andy Nathan

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions,

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Josh now hosts “Taerk’s Tracks” as part of the Singer Songwriter Sunday sequence on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio.

This is the first show broadcast on 27 September. Josh presents some of his inspirational artists and tracks.

David Randall presents a weekly show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio, Sundays at 22:00 GMT, repeated on Mondays and Fridays), when he invites listeners to ‘Assume The Position’. The show signposts forthcoming gigs and tours and latest additions at getreadytorock.com. First broadcast 27 September 2026.

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Power Plays w/c 12 October 2026

TAKIDA – Lion’s Den (Drongo Records)
SCARDUST – Symphony (Frontiers)
ANBERLIN – Gravity (Rude Records/Equal Vision Records)
MISSING TOYS – Lifeline (Pride & Joy Music)
SWEET GORILLA – It’s Your Life (5000 Records)
ROYAL BLOOD – Dead Company (Warner Records)

Featured Albums w/c 12 October 2026

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Singer Songwriter)

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