I came along, just to bring you this song

I've been to see Rod Clements, once of Lindisfarne and Jack The Lad performing an acoustic set accompanied only by Ian Thomson on double bass. Clements originally left Lindisfarne while I was still at school and the forming and reforming of these groups is a mystery probably even to the members themselves. I can confidently say that he wasn't a member when I saw them a couple of years ago, although I believe he is now. Thomson is, I think, their current bass player, but whether he was then is another matter.

Clements has a great track record. As well as writing 'Meet Me On The Corner' he has worked with the likes of Bert Jansch, Ralph McTell (he played on 'Streets of London') and, more recently, Thea Gilmore and Nigel Stonier, artists much admired by this blog. Indeed Nick Hall, a local singer/songwriter featured fairly regularly in these pages, was in the audience and was deep in conversation with Clements after the gig.

As well as both Lindisfarne and Jack The Lad numbers, they performed a couple of Jansch's songs, Ledbelly's 'Bourgeois Blues' and, more unexpectedly, the theme from Barry Norman's film review TV programmes which the more elderly among you may remember. He encored with an instrumental version of 'The In Crowd' as originally made famous by Dobie Gray. An eclectic mix therefore, which showed off his guitar virtuosity and demonstrated that you don't have to be a brilliant vocalist to entertain a crowd if you have guitar virtuosity to fall back on.