A Celebration of Alex Hunt- The Gunnersbury, Chiswick, UK March 9th, 2013 Paradise 9, Deviant Amps, Chris Bowsher, Olympic Countdown

This was a benefit concert to raise money for adrenoleukodistrophy (ALD), a terrible disease that strikes down some young folks far too young. One of the members of this band lost their son to this disease. I am guessing there were about 60 people here and my friend Kozmik Ken, was he DJ. Nice to see him again. I had also met Greg from Paradise 9 before and we also chatted a little bit.  Very much an older crowd here tonight, at least the ones that showed up early.. The place used to be called The John Bull and was a real rock venue in the 70s. Cool they still do music today.

          The lead guitar player from Paradise 9, has another band called Olympic Clamp Down and they opened the show with 4 or 5 songs. They had no real drummer but a guy with a drum pad, snare drum and one cymbal as well as bass and guitar. The songs were pretty straight up slightly snotty rock and roll except on really excellent track that sounded like the Talking heads. That one was really cool. There was only about 30 people when they played and it was mostly friends.

          Next up was the Deviant Amps. They are also a three piece but with a highly energenic left handed drummer.  They play some sort of psychedelic rock as well. They started off with pretty average and not very interesting songs but after about 3-4, they really took off and the lead singer started playing some cool spaced out guitar. The bass player also played some fantastic lines. One of their songs had a bass line a bit like Master of the Universe by Hawkwind. They played a very political track called Lies, which was good. The last track, Shine On was by far the best track. In the end it was a pretty cool set.

Set List: A Star and the Moon, If you got yours, I’ve got mine, Magic Carpet Ride (Not Steppenwolf), Baby shouldn’t go There, Don’t look into the Sun, Trick of the Light, Lies (A politicians tale, Summer Rain, Shine On

          Next up was a very strange dreadlocked fellow, who we saw do a bit of a soundcheck and he seemed quite in his own world. He did a set up four like spoken word things over prerecorded music. One of the track was super cool reggae stuff but damn, this guy Chris Bowsher, just had serious delivery issues. He also seemed super stoned and out of it. There was a small crowd who dug it and two of the tracks were really good but he was just not. Apparently, he was the frontman in a 80s free festival band called RFD. Not one I plan to look up.

          Finally around 10:45, late for music in London, Paradise 9 had set up all their stuff. They had a lot of guests on their set including the soundman playing some bongos, an extra female singer for one song and flute on a few songs. Anyway, they played songs from all their records and they dedicated the 2^nd song, Distant Dreams, to Alex, the young kid that recently left this earth. The band plays so many different styles of psychedelic rock, sometimes a bit punky, sometimes spaced out, and sometimes just straight up. The lead guitar player is great and add such cool flavors to the music. Greg, who plays the guitar, some electronics (kaossocilator, effects) also played clarinet on two tracks. One of the brand new songs was really fantastic. See the video. It was a fun set and I am glad I got to see them. People generally had a good time.

Set List: Crystalized Moments, Distant Dreams, Anyhow Anyway, Digital Signs, Ethers, Glow, Points of View, Take me to the Future, State of the Nation, Falling for you, Is this the Time, ?

http://www.aldfoundation.org/