Stephen K Amos and The Ariston with Eoin

I was really looking forward to this weekend visit from my young friend Eoin. It was built around coming down to see White Lies on the Sunday, but I proposed doing some stand up on the Saturday evening, and then seeing as that didn't finish too late, added on a pub gig only half an hour away.

We started off with early Chinese meal in Chinatown. I mention that as it rather saved the evening (in contrast to Sunday). So the comedy was at Leicester Square Theatre to see a comic who I always love live, Stephen K Amos. And we had a couple of beers while we were there.

Stephen had an opener, Ninia Benjamin, and she was pretty awful. I could see Eoin looking at me as if to say "why did you bring me here? For this?" But fortunately Stephen turned that all the way round. Eoin loved the show, and inadvertently became a star of it. (Typical Eoin.)

So Stephen tends to a do a bit of audience interaction, and for the purpose of this routine he wanted to find a representative young person. Although we were not in the front row, we were in the second row and so Stephen alighted on Eoin. And Eoin being a great sport he went along cheerfully. To the extent that in the foyer, where Stephen was doing a book signing, on our arrival Stephen announced "It's Eoin everybody!" and Eoin gets a spontaneous round of applause!

Nice photo of the three of us below.

So with Eoin clutching his signed book, we went four stops up the Piccadilly Line to Kings Cross and then walked down to a new pub venue to me (although not a new venue) the Water Rats, to catch the Ariston. Actually this gig was billed as "Big in 2026" with a number of bands scheduled, but I figured we would only catch the last, the Ariston, whom I have seen a couple of times before.

But actually we caught most of the Pedestrian Band's set too. And once again Eoin was looking at me a bit "why  have you taken me to this?" Exacerbated by it being boiling hot in there. But fortunately the Ariston were much better. And I wanted to see them with their new guitarist, furthest away from the camera, who manfully played in his leather jacket for the whole set despite the place being a sauna.

 Fortunately we were close to Kings Cross, so easy journey home; so easy in fact that we could just pop into my pub for a last orders pint before going home. And opening a bottle of red wine. I wasn't sure where I had left my wine saver, but we cured that problem by finishing the bottle before going to bed. Just glad we had had dinner

Miles Kane, Villanelle and Fiona Lee at the Roundhouse

Friday night gig at the Roundhouse with three colleagues from the office to see one of my old standbys for a good night out, Miles Kane. And yet again he didn't disappoint. He doesn't get the recognition he deserves. 

But before him, two support acts . The first was Fiona Lee, a singer songwriter from Yorkshire. I have questioned on these pages before as to how acts get chosen as supports. It seemed to me almost cruelty to put her on the same bill as Miles Kane, given they are both singer songwriters playing electric guitar. The cruelty being that Miles is a great guitarist with  powerful vocals, anthemic songs and a backing band, this poor girl played completely solo, even to my non musician ear she clearly has only very basic guitar skills - the sort you might expect at a school concert -  and drippy dirge-like and overly long songs. (She only played five songs in a pretty long set). I was pleased to find my companions thought the same. I summed her up as not awful, just awfully dull. One of my colleagues said what she needed was a band and a new songwriter. I guess someone is plugging her hard.

I guess someone is plugging the next act, Villanelle, too. But they deserved to be plugged. Really strong driving rock songs and they did feel a good fit for a Miles Kane support. The first thing I thought though was that the lead vocalist was trying to go for the Liam Gallagher look, which in my view is a pretty crap look even for the man himself. What I didn't realise until one of our party checked it, was that the lead singer actually is Liam Gallagher's son, Gene! So, ok....

But Villanelle is not just a Gallagher nepo vehicle. They were a really good band, guitarists and drummer included

Finally on to the man himself. Note the leopard theme at the back!

Although Miles is a solo artist, he does have a full band behind him. And it all just works, start to finish. They might not be all that famous, but the atmosphere at the Roundhouse was terrific. Those of us who know him recognise that one gets full value for money. 

Only Miles could really carry off a leopardskin acoustic guitar