Dale Watson/Chuck Mead/Redd Volkaert/Mark Miller – Bristol St Bonaventure’s Parish Club 12th October 2009

I wasn’t going to miss out on this – who cares if it was a school night (literally – I’m a Head of English in a 11-18 school…) and the fact that this was a 500 mile plus round trip to somewhere I’d never been before….the draw of these guys playing together and cemented by the electric fingers of Mr. Redd Volkaert – well, it took me three hours of rush hour traffic to get there but the journey was worthwhile. The gig was played with rotational, relaxed choices of songs from the three main protagonists (Mark Miller – the Ex-Husbands one, not the Sawyer Brown one; phew… got to sing just the one song.) Dale played my call-out of “Whisky or God” and we got a mix of Dale’s fine and extensive repertoire, as well as a couple of BR549 oldies but goodies (Stop Press – they’re not done – Chuck announced that they’re just waiting for the time to get back together, so keep your hopes up) and some cuts from Chuck’s “Journeyman’s wager” CD. Redd mainly stuck to standards, but nobody can really swing a tune like the great man, so they were all delightful treats.

Gig of the year? Definitely.

2 hours and six minutes to get back home….

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