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Truro, UK - 18 February 2005

A concert review by Sarah Kendall:

I made the trip down to Truro for the first night of the tour, and it was well worth the long drive!  We had excellent front row, centre seats, so had a great view, and got a lovely wave from each of the band members as they recognised a friendly face! Whilst not a sell-out, the concert was extremely well attended, with an enthusiastic (and noisy!) crowd.
SAILOR were really well received, and let loose with a couple of latin-medleys which really got the crowd going, and there was quite a bit of banter with the audience.  Rob did a great job on the accordion and replaced Grant's normal drum solo at the end with a "Sailor's Hornpipe" solo whilst the other boys went off to board ship ready for the "Full Monty".
As a die-hard SAILOR fan, naturally I was disappointed that (a) they were only on for 40 minutes and (b) that there was less true SAILOR material than I would like, however I understand perfectly well why that should be the case, and from comments I heard during the interval certainly the selection was appreciated by a whole new audience, which is great.
As for the other bands, the Rubettes selected an unusual choice of their back-catalogue (in my view - and I should point out that I was a huge fan, in fact John Richardson, their drummer, was my first pin-up, before Phil Pickett appeared on the scene and knocked him off my top spot!). They seemed very relaxed and clearly enjoyed themselves singing a quirky archipelego of old songs (not sure if that's how you spell it?!) which the crowd loved, and also an unusual snare-drum routine.
After the Rubettes there was a meet and greet of both bands in the foyer, which included the usual merchandise, plus a Tsunami CD that the 3 bands have co-operated with each others material on.
Then came the Sweet. WOW! (Another band of whom I was a huge fan. "Poppa Joe" was the first single I ever bought!) Considering Andy Scott guitarist, is the only original member, I thought they might be a disappointment, but they were FANTASTIC! Very loud, very rocky and very entertaining. Superb. And a sweaty meet and greet straight after!
All in all, the whole evening was fantastic - it started at 8 pm and I don't think we got out until almost 11:30 pm. I'm trying to get tickets for Salisbury now, and have front row tickets for Basingstoke, so will keep you posted!
Sarah Kendall

Concert Photos