I promised myself that I would really get back into writing blogs in 2026. It has taken me until April 3rd, May 22nd to start writing a follow up to my last blog in early January. January and February are generally quiet due to a combination of lousy winter weather and a dearth of worthwhile gigs. I am currently unemployed, by that I mean that I can’t find a volunteer job that takes my fancy. If I’m honest, I’m not really looking for one either. You would think it would be easy to find a job where you are willing to work for free. The reality is that there is little other than working at charity shops or the local foodbank. I worked for 44 years. In that time I have gained experience managing large teams on complex projects. I also have lots of experience coaching and mentoring people. I thought that I would be able to find somewhere that would benefit from my skills and experience as I would work for free, sadly not. I can’t help but think that companies are missing out on a pool of free labour in the town I live in and maybe it’s the same nationwide?
Anyways, whatever I thought I would write about has been rather overtaken by the passage of time. Instead, I will regale you stories of the great gigs we have seen so far this year. Our first gig of 2026 was The Delines at Bury Met. Bury is one of my favourite places, a town that thrives on its large market which attracts visitors from all over the country. First port of call was Wax and Beans, Bury’s café/record shop. I thought I was going to leave empty handed but in the very last crate I found a copy Of All the young dudes (album) by Mott the Hoople. Next stop was one of my favourite pubs, The Two Tubs. Pat joined me in there and we enjoyed a couple of pints. Next up was The Clarence, a pub we haven’t been in years. It used to brew its own beer onsite and had a busy restaurant. It’s now just a pub. There were very few people in but the staffs were friendly and the beer was good.
There was little choice in the town centre on a Sunday night so we had dinner at an Italian restaurant a cab ride away from the town centre. We were very impressed with Vino Cecchetti. The restaurant was packed on an early Sunday evening. The staff were excellent and the food was delicious. They offer any of their pasta dishes to be served in a garlic bread bowl. Good as this sounds, I passed as I didn’t want to be too stuffed going to a gig. A big guy on the next table had it and it looked awesome. I noticed that he could only manage half of his meal and asked for the rest to be boxed up.
On the way to the restaurant we passed a pub called The Swan & Cemetery. One of the best pub names I’ve heard, I’ll definitely be trying it out some time.
The Met theatre is one of my favourite venues. It seats around 250 people and the acoustics are excellent. This was the fourth time that we’ve seen The Delines. Formed by Willy Vlautin of Richmond Fontaine, the band has Amy Boone on lead vocals, Cory Gray – keyboards, trumpet, Sean Oldham – percussion, vocals · Freddy Trujillo – bass, vocals and Vlautin on guitar. All are superb musicians who perfectly complement Vlautin’s songs. Like his books, Vlautin’s lyrics are about folk at the wrong end of society, similar to those in his excellent novels. I was hoping that Willy Vlautin’s latest book would be on sale at the merch stand. Unfortunately, the gigs was a month or so before its release so no luck there. It was a great show and the band was in top form. I’ve since read the book, The Left and the lucky, and it is absolutely brilliant.
Never Been Anyone Like him
Maureen’s Gone Missing
Don’t Miss Your Bus Lorraine
Floating on the River
That Old Haunted Place
Nancy & The Pensacola Pimp
Hold Fast
The Oil Rigs at Night
He Don’t Burn for Me
Left Hook Like Frazier
Surfers in Twilight
The Reckless Life
The Meter Keeps Ticking
Drowning in Plain Sight
Encore:
Walking with His Sleeves Down
Little Earl
Dilaudid Diane
In mid-April we headed to Liverpool, my favourite city, to see Imelda May. Our hotel was just off Dale street. I like this area of the city as it is only a few minutes’ walk away from the city centre but is quieter and has some great pubs. After checking in to our hotel we headed out. I spotted The Lock up, an Everton bar on North John Street. I think this place only opened last year and this was our first visit. I liked it, as you’d expect. Drinks were really cheap which was a pleasant surprise. We then headed for another Everton pub, The Denbigh Castle. This is a great pub that always has a good selection of beers. We headed for the hotel with a stop off at The Vernon Arms en route. I love this pub; it has great beers and there’s always a decent crowd in. After a power nap we went for a curry at The Sultan’s Palace. This is a really good Indian restaurant, the staff are friendly and the food is superb.
The gig was at The Tung Auditorium which was a new one on me. It’s part of the University of Liverpool, I was particularly impressed with a statue of John Lennon outside the theatre. I didn’t think I would ever see Imelda May live again as I was distinctly underwhelmed when we last saw her maybe 8 years ago. Pat was keen to go so we got tickets.
Support act Cathal Murphy was really good, his guitar playing was incredible. I bought one of his CD’s and he came across as a nice guy. One to keep an eye on.
Tonight’s show was billed as an evening of music, stories, and poetry. Imelda May was backed by a guitarist and a double bass player. It was superb show, I’m really glad we got tickets. Imelda has definitely found her mojo, she was as good as the first time we saw her. At one point, she asked if any of the audience would like to get up and sing. A young woman volunteered and was absolutely brilliant. I can’t help but think that she must have been a plant! I hope not.
I wasn’t quite as keen on the stage backdrop that made it look like the band were playing in someone’s badly decorated living room!
After the gig we headed back to The Vernon Arms for a libation or two. It’s always a pleasure to be back in Liverpool.
The Rare Auld Times
Sixth Sense
Meet You at the Moon
The Dancer and The Dream (Dad’s Poem)
Jammy Dodger (poem)
Big Bad Handsome Man
Just One Kiss
How High the Moon
The Girl I Used to Be
(Vocals by Leah Aldridge from the audience)
Help!
Kentish Town Waltz
You Don’t Get to Be Racist and Irish (poem)
Human
Johnny Got a Boom Boom
Boom Boom
Tainted Love
Encore: When You Were Sweet Sixteen
A week later we headed to Kendal Brewery Arts centre to see Love featuring Johnny Echolls. Forever changes is one of my favourite albums and Da Capo is not far behind it. The band was originally fronted by Arthur Lee and it’s a mystery to me how they never became huge like contemporaries such as The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. Sadly, Arthur Lee passed away in 2006 but Love have continued to play live, albeit with Johnny Echolls the only original member left.
The support band was The Crystal Teardrop. I’d never heard of them before but they were absolutely fantastic. They played a blend of garage rock and psychedelia that really went down well with the crowd. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for them.
I thought Love might have struggled following such a fantastic band, however I needn’t have worried. They were brilliant from the get go. Love played songs from all of their four albums with the majority from Forever Changes. Johnny Echolls has to sit down when playing now and the rest of the band are clearly a lot younger than him. It didn’t matter, it was brilliant to hear such legendary songs played live. Will Seargent from Echo and the Bunnymen was in the audience and seemed to really enjoy the show
- Maybe the People Would Be the Times or Between Clark and Hilldale
- My Little Red Book A House Is Not a Motel
- Gazing
- Can’t Explain
- Stephanie Knows Who
- iQue Vida!
- Your Mind and We Belong Together
- You I’ll Be Following
- Orange Skies
- Alone Again Or
- And More
- Andmoreagain
- The Red Telephone
- Live and Let Live
- You Set the Scene
Encore
- Signed D.C.
- Always See Your Face
- Wonder People (I Do Wonder)
- 7 and 7 Is
Jonny Echolls
Post gig, it was a dash down the M6 and an overnight stay at Liverpool Airport before flying to Malta the next morning. We last visited Malta in the late 80’s. I vowed that if I ever returned it would be in a Wellington Bomber with a cargo of horse shit! So, what brought about this change of mind? My old friend Jamie Gilchrist messaged me last year saying he was holidaying there and that I would love it! I told him I hated Malta, he replied that he was in the Pub where Oliver Reed died. That made my mind up as I always loved Olly Reed and I relished the chance of raising a glass to him.
I booked an Airbnb in Floriana which is a 15 minute walk from the centre of Valletta, Malta’s capital city. Our apartment was excellent, the neighbourhood was quiet but there were bars and restaurants a five minute walk way. We did some tourist stuff and also spent plenty of time just relaxing and enjoying ourselves. One of my must do’s was to visit D’Amato’s, allegedly the oldest record shop in the world. Unfortunately it was a major disappointment, prices were scandalously high. Although there were plenty of customers, I never saw anyone buy anything.
There was some good stuff in there but way too overpriced. Much better was visiting The Pub. This was the bar where Oliver Reed died. It’s only a small place but I loved it. The tee shirts bear the legend of what Olly drank on the fatal day.
8 pints of Lager
16 double rum’s
14 shots of whiskey
That’s some going, I think it would have defeated John McKimm! It’s said that Dylan Thomas’ last words as he was carried on a stretcher from The White Horse Tavern in NYC were “18 straight shots of whisky boys, I believe that’s the record”, good effort Dylan, but Olly was king.
We had a great week in Malta. The weather was fantastic, sunny, with the temperature in the mid-seventies. We had some delicious meals and visited some good bars. One drink that will stick in my memory was a Raspberry beer Mojito in the Wild Honey beer house and bistro.
Only a couple of days after getting home from Malta we headed to Ulverston to see The Cowboy Junkies at the Coronation Hall. I couldn’t believe it when I saw they were playing Ulverston, we saw them a few years ago at a sold out Royal Festival Hall in London. The band were on top form, Margo Timmins engaged with the audience and sang beautifully. They played two sets and everyone I spoke to really enjoyed the show. A big round of applause for the Coronation Hall, this was a fantastic show by a band I would never have dreamed of seeing locally. Once again, Will Seargent from Echo and the Bunnymen was in the crowd. Maybe he lives in Cumbria?
Set 1:
Hell Is Real
A Common Disaster
What I Lost
Hard to Build. Easy to Break
Where Are You Tonight?
‘Cause Cheap Is How I Feel
Forgive Me
Set 2:
Sweet Jane
Missing Children
Circe and Penelope
I’m Working on a Building
To Love Is to Bury
A Horse in the Country
Shadows 2
Follower 2
Murder, Tonight, in the Trailer Park
Blue Moon Revisited (Song for Elvis)
Encore:
Misguided Angel
Good Friday
A week later we were back in Liverpool for a gig I was really looking forward to. We had tickets to see Emmylou Harris at The Philharmonic theatre. This was to be her last European tour. We dumped our cases at the hotel and had a walk into Liverpool One. I went in one shop and then headed for Cooper’s. Even though it was only 1.30 pm, Coopers was packed so headed next door to The Globe instead. Next stop was The Swan Inn on Wood street. This pub, famous for its jukebox, has just been taken over by the good folks who own The Pen Factory, The Bridewell and The Denbigh Castle, all good Everton bars. When the takeover was announced, there were many posts on Twitter hoping that the jukebox would be retained. The new owners promised it would be. There were only a few folk in there when we arrived, but it was only 2.30 pm on a Monday afternoon. I was looking at the Jukebox and the new landlord shouted over that it was free and to put whatever we wanted on. We took full advantage and happily listened to Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher and Motorhead amongst many others. After an enjoyable time in The Swan we went to The Italian Club on Bold Street and had a fantastic meal. Definitely one of our favourite Italian restaurants.
After a power nap and a shower, we headed to The Philharmonic theatre. We had a couple of astonishingly expensive glasses of wine in the bar and chatted to a guy about different gigs we’d seen over the years which put me in a good mood for the show. I was somewhat surprised that there was no merch stall, I definitely would have bought too much! Jim Lauderdale was the support act. I have to confess that I’d never heard of him but apparently he’s released 31 albums and had his songs covered by George Strait, Elvis Costello and The Dixie Chicks amongst many others. Despite that impressive pedigree, I found his set somewhat boring and was glad to head back to the bar for another swift, bankruptcy threatening glass of wine. Emmylou Harris came on and immediately called Jim Lauderdale back to duet with her on Love Hurts, the song that she and Gram Parsons made their own. I can’t begin to describe how good she was. She talked about Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt and sang songs from across her long career. I thought it was classy that she paid tribute to Liverpool by covering For no one by the Beatles from the Revolver album. Her band were superb, perhaps not reaching the highs of The Hot Band from the 1970’s but damn good anyway. She finished with a cover of You never can tell by Chuck Berry and the encore was Together again by Buck Owens. We both agreed that this was one of the best shows we’ve seen in a good while
After a power nap and a shower, we headed to The Philharmonic theatre. We had a couple of astonishingly expensive glasses of wine in the bar and chatted to a guy about different gigs we’d seen over the years which put me in a good mood for the show. I was somewhat surprised that there was no merch stall, I definitely would have bought too much! Jim Lauderdale was the support act. I have to confess that I’d never heard of him but apparently he’s released 31 albums and had his songs covered by George Strait, Elvis Costello and The Dixie Chicks amongst many others. Despite that impressive pedigree, I found his set somewhat boring and was glad to head back to the bar for another swift, bankruptcy threatening glass of wine.
Emmylou Harris came on and immediately called Jim Lauderdale back to duet with her on Love Hurts, the song that she and Gram Parsons made their own. I can’t begin to describe how good she was. She talked about Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt and sang songs from across her long career. I thought it was classy that she paid tribute to Liverpool by covering For no one by the Beatles from the Revolver album. Her band were superb, perhaps not reaching the highs of The Hot Band from the 1970’s but damn good anyway. She finished with a cover of You never can tell by Chuck Berry and the encore was Together again by Buck Owens. We both agreed that this was one of the best shows we’ve seen in a good while.
Post show, we headed to The White Hart and ordered cocktails. We sat next to a couple who had been at the show. I love to talk music with fellow obsessives.
We had one more cocktail for the road and headed back to the hotel, good job there was no merch stall!!
Love Hurts
Here I Am
Orphan Girl
Love and Happiness
One of These Days
Pancho & Lefty
For No One
Red Dirt Girl
Get Up John
Green Pastures
Michelangelo
Help Him, Jesus / Born to Run
Calling My Children Home
The Road
Goodbye
All the Roadrunning
Wheels
Luxury Liner
Old Five and Dimers Like Me
Boulder to Birmingham
You Never Can Tell
Encore:
Together Again
The day after we got back to Walney, I saw a tweet from the legendary Jayne Moorby. She had two tickets for the Ian McNabb show at the North West Music Academy in Barrow that she couldn’t use. I quickly offered to buy them, she didn’t want anything for them so we agreed that I would make a donation to our local foodbank. I hadn’t heard of this venue before so I wasn’t quite sure where it was. We found it easily enough and got seats and a couple of beers. There were lots of people I knew there and it was good catching up with people I hadn’t seen in ages.
I was never a fan of The Icicle Works but I remember seeing Ian McNabb on tv playing Glastonbury backed by Crazy Horse, Neil Young’s backing band. I loved his Head like a rock album and also his autobiography Merseybeast. I haven’t listened to him in years but I do enjoy his Twitter posts. He played a fantastic set with songs from right across his long career. I found myself singing along with The Icicle Works songs, maybe I need to go back and listen to them again. We left the gig smiling and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. I read Merseybeast again after seeing the show. It’s a fantastic book and well worth checking out.
There was one last gig in May. I was reading an interview with Robert Plant in a back of Mojo. He mentioned being blown away by a set from Nora Brown at the Cambridge folk festival. I’d never heard of her but was delighted to see that she was playing Kendal Brewery Arts Centre with Stephanie Coleman in a couple of weeks’ time. The support band were The Long Nights from Lancaster. They played a set of Bluegrass and Western swing which was very well received by the sell-out crowd. I bought their cd at the merch stall and singer Stephanie Clegg told me they had been very nervous. I will keep my eye out for future gigs/releases.
The headliners set was beset with mishaps (Broken violin, misplaced bouzouki) and by lengthy re-tuning between songs which meant that their performance didn’t flow. They were superb but the lengthy gaps between songs were frustrating to the point of spoiling their performance. Another major frustration was that the merch stall was unmanned. They had a couple of records that I would have definitely bought but I didn’t want to wait in a queue post gig for the artists to sell them.
I started this blog twice but gave up. I was looking forward to writing again but my first effort got bogged down in trying to write about January and February which were largely forgettable. We did a have a great break in Silsden, North Yorkshire but I found myself just listing pubs that we drank in!
Now, as I think back, we may not have done anything earth shattering in the first few months but there were many dramas taking place in the world. On January 3rd America launched a military strike on Venezuela and captured its president leading to a regime change that favours the USA. On February 28th America launched a series of attacks on Iran. This war with Iran was unexpected and the intention seemed to be twofold: To end the possibility of Iran ever possessing a nuclear weapon an to encourage Iranians to overthrow the vile regime of the Ayatollahs. The 2-4 week exercise that President Trump expected is now about to enter its fourth month. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is seriously impacting the world economy. One thing that strikes me is that nature of war is changing. No longer are powerful Missiles enough. Military Drones seem to point the way to the future. This will terrify the military industrial complex as Drones are vastly cheaper and easier to produce than huge missiles and their platforms. The plight of Palestinians is now largely forgotten and support for Ukraine is now faltering. China seems to becoming the world’s superpower. It will be fascinating and perhaps frightening to see this new world order develop.
At home, The Labour party is tanking in opinion polls. The Green party are growing in popularity but it is Nigel Farage and The Reform Party which is way out in front. The Conservative party are seemingly fading into obscurity despite Kemi Badenoch proving a strong leader. I’m saddened to see this lurch to the right, which is happening all over Europe as well. Great Britain has benefited from immigration in many ways. The care sector and the NHS rely heavily on immigrants. To see the likes of Tommy Robinson gain widespread support is depressing. It amazes me that climate change denial is now increasing despite so much evidence to the contrary. Extreme temperatures will lead to increased migration. Hatred of foreigners will not be enough to solve this problem. The world’s population is actually falling so, if governments are sensible, this issue can be addressed.
I have read 56 books so far this year! I love reading and the ability to read more is a definite benefit of retirement
It’s amazing to think that we are now almost half way through 2026. Time does seem to pass quicker as you get older. In the second half of the year we will be going to more gigs with a number already booked. We will look to have a week away somewhere in England over the summer and we’re hoping to meet up with our friends Marko and Jeanne in late September in Portugal.