ARTS CENTRE, BRENTWOOD, 16 September 2006

Graham 'Purple Jumper' Weston reports:

I went to the Ayers gig at Brentwood last night (16 September). There were quite a few old Kevin Ayers fans there so I suspect you may get others to comment as well (the organiser of the gig stated he had last booked Kevin Ayers for a gig in 1970 and felt it was time to book him again.

Brentwood was an unusual choice for the gig (I thought Kevin might have got it confused with Brentford scene of his live album triumph). As an ex-honorary Essex man (lived in Loughton for 25 years) I know the place reasonably well and have some fond memories of Brentwood for reasons which I won’t go into here. However even the town’s biggest fans could not call it the rock capital or even the arts capital of the U.K. The town is actually run by some extreme right wing Christians. It was with relief I saw the ancient long haired guys looking somewhat the worse for wear (apart from the long hair they probably thought the same about me) which confirmed I had come to the right venue.

The theatre itself was a nice venue. By the signs all around I would guess it’s usually used for drama rather than music. It was not full but it seemed to be well attended. The support acts were from the local folk club and they were enjoyable. Perhaps in line with your comments on the website following the inclusion of the Kevin Ayers track on their last Mojo CD perhaps he could try and align himself with the faux folk revival going on at present.

The set list for the gig was Too Old to Die Young, Lady Rachel, Eleanor’s Cake, Didn’t Feel Lonely, Shouting in a Bucket, Something in Between, Thank You Very Much, I Don’t Depend on You, When Your Parents Go to Sleep, Blaming It All on Love (part), Encore- Whatevershebringsweswing

During the set Kevin forgot words (Too Old….), left out whole verses (Shouting… and Whatever), played wrong chords (Lonely) and on Blaming It All on Love aborted the whole song half way through with a cry of ‘fuck it’ because of his arthritic thumb. But I have to say it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and the whole thing was carried out with great good humour. At one stage Kevin had to get his spectacles out to read the set list and muttered about getting old. A member of the audience gave him a wolf whistle which he responded to with a genial raised digit. Before the encore someone shouted out for, the ambitious choice for an acoustic set, of ‘Lunatic’s Lament’. Kevin simply said ‘Well go on then’.

Max da Villa’s playing while maybe not full of fireworks meshed beautifully with Kevin’s guitar work e.g. Eleanor’s Cake and Lady Rachel. His playing on Something In Between, where he accompanied Kevin solo,was exquisite. Kevin singing the low notes on Thank You Very Much was a great pleasure.

Rather like you I think Kevin is at his best with a whole band but this was a very nice gig. I took a friend with me who said he thought this was one of the best gigs he’d seen Ayers do. So for last night perhaps Brentwood did become the cultural capital of the U.K.

As it was a folk club I had conjectured that Kevin and all the other artistes would come on stage at the end for a chorus of ‘Wild Rover’. Perhaps that would have been pushing things a little too far.

WAWS thanks Graham for this report