I must admit that the longer the pandemic went on, the more I began to fear that many of the acts from rock’s original golden era who we are lucky enough to still see performing might not resume touring, Wishbone Ash founder member Martin Turner being a case in point.

At the same place where in 2005 he launched the current phase of his career (and newly a Football League venue!) it was a relief to see the 74 year old looking sprightly. Despite, or maybe because of, most of the crowd falling into the triple jabbed category there was a good turnout for his band, all the more healthy considering they had played across South London in Chislehurst the previous night.

They opened with a Wishbone classic in ‘The King Will Come’, improvising on the original by taking the pace to a near standstill mid section before a nifty mini bass solo from Martin. However, this was not a night for ‘Argus’, but instead its 1971 predecessor ‘Pilgrimage’ which was being played in full, in line with the theme of his shows in recent years to focus on a classic album from Wishbone’s heyday. Indeed a very long two years ago at the start of this tour I’d seen it performed at Under the Bridge.

While the band are noted for long instrumental passages, this album went a stage further with relatively few vocals so is perhaps not the most digestible listen live. They began with the scat singing of ‘Vas Dis’, which Martin revealed he and his brother discovered through their father’s love of jazz, segueing into the lengthy ‘The Pilgrim’, in which their musicianship was as impeccable as normal, notably Tim Brown giving his drumming the required subtlety.

Then, moved out of its traditional position as an encore, ‘Jailbait’, featuring guitarists Danny Willson and Misha Nikolic moving in together to pull the right poses to those twin leads, had a slightly bluesy feel stripped of the usual mid-song chatter, though there was still an entertaining call and response section.

It was back to a mellow mood with two more instrumentals in ‘Alone’, those harmony guitars at their finest, and the folky ‘Lullaby’, before ‘Valediction’. Martin seemed a little sniffy about the song but it was hard to see why, as this beautiful song was done justice by Danny and Tim’s vocals, the latter surprising with his command of the higher range, and a tasteful solo from Misha, incidentally one of his relatively few all evening. The rock-a boogie of ‘Where Were You Tomorrow’, a bit shorter than the album version, sent us off to the break on a more up tempo note.

In patterned jacket and trousers, and with an enviable head of hair Martin still carries off the rock star look, but is also an amusing raconteur. While even he cannot predict what is going to come into his head at any one moment, it will be delivered with a glint in his eye. It still bemuses me how, despite being the primary vocalist in his time in Wishbone Ash, other band members led the between song chat.

The second set opened with an original band composition in the title track from 2015’s ‘Written In The Stars’- while the rest of the album seems to have quickly been forgotten, this came over as nothing less than vintage Wishbone with three way vocal harmonies and those melodic guitars singing in unison.

After again showing their instrumental prowess on ‘FUBB’ came the surprise of the night in ‘Sorrel’, the folky harmony guitars an appetiser for the next leg of the tour when Wishbone Four gets the treatment. Martin’s introduction that it was a meditation on the death of a house plant showed that songwriters took inspiration from the unlikeliest of sources in those seventies days.

‘Argus’ favourites took a relative back seat this night but ‘Sometime World’ was a glorious exception- as Danny, playing as well as I’ve seen him, matched the remarkable soloing of the original and did it justice. He continued to excel on the solos, plus a share of the vocals, as the gig heated up nicely with the pair of late seventies crowd pleasers in ‘You See Red’ and ‘Living Proof’.

‘Doctor’ was superbly aggressive before a closer of ‘Blind Eye’- Martin telling the story of an elderly relative. I was also amused how his facial expressions would sometimes almost exaggeratedly mime lyrics as if he was a children’s entertainer.

There was time for just one encore, a rollicking, if inevitable, ‘Blowin Free’ with the crowd letting themselves go and some fine slide work from Danny. The only downside was Martin signing off his thank yous with his much used ‘Sharon from Essex’ jok e- I was rather hoping he had used the pandemic downtime to develop some new routines.

Nevertheless it was great to see him in such fine fettle and the band in such good form doing justice to those Wishbone classics. My overriding impression of his shows is just how much fun they are – a word perhaps not historically associated with the band. They are ones I could recommend to more casual fans as well as Wishbone diehards – those of us who fall into the latter category have a double helping of ‘Four’ and ‘Argus’ to look forward to in early 2022.

Review and photos by Andy Nathan

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)