You won't have met me, and you'll soon forget me

I seem to have been attending concerts by wrinkly rockers regularly recently. [“Tell me,” the Rhetorical Pedant asks “if you did that deliberately; because it’s not big and it’s not clever.”] Last night at the Royal Hall, Harrogate it was the turn of Lindisfarne, or at least of Ray Jackson masquerading as the whole of Lindisfarne. He did have with him five other musicians who had previously been members of the band at various stages over the last forty years, but only he was there during their first four albums and Top of the Pops phase. The seventh person on the stage was the Great Paul Thompson, previously the drummer of Roxy Music.

They played the hits that you’d expect with the late Alan Hull’s part very ably filled by Dave Hull-Denholm (relation). At the risk of annoying Elkie Brooks’ most passionate fan (hello there Maria), Lindisfarne once again complied with my newly formulated rule that acts of a certain age intensely dislike their most famous hit and end up throwing it away as a singalong. Possibly as the exception that proves the rule this happened not just – as one would imagine – to “Fog on the Tyne”, but also to “We Can Swing Together”. In fact the latter also included truly naff harmonica renditions of a variety of Christmas songs plus “Ilkley Moor Bat’at” as a patronising nod to the crowd and “Blaydon Races” as a patronising nod to Jackson himself. Thankfully “Lady Eleanor”, “Meet Me on the Corner”, “Run for Home” (*) and “Clear White Light” were treated with more of the respect that they deserved. The highlight for me was actually Hull-Denholm’s rendition of “Winter Song”.

And every step I take, takes me further from heaven

In their heyday the band played and recorded an eclectic mix of music and so it was at this concert; encores included tracks more commonly associated with Canned Heat and Woody Guthrie. The crowd however were largely drawn from the folk-rock fraternity, although possibly with a smattering of Harrogate pensioners who had just wandered in to get out of the cold. Anyway, like all folkies the audience fondly imagined that they could sing in tune and clap in time when in fact they could do neither. Thankfully, it being folk rock meant that there was a rhythm section to drown them out. As previously mentioned this included the fantastic Mr Thompson who I always admired in the seventies for the solid base that he provided for Andy Mackay’s wavering sax, Phil Manzanera’s soaring guitar and for whatever it was that Eno did.

* Surely the only instance in popular music of lyrics containing the word 'buffoon'

Rhododendron is a nice flower

Evergreen it lasts for ever

But it can't beat Strand power

But enough of that. Yesterday was board games day in the White Swan. First up was Plus and Minus which was a pre-war game (literally as the set we played with was itself from the 1930s) and proved to be rather good for a quick warm up. It was a sort of cross between Ludo and Cribbage and like all the best games it had simple rules, but a need for strategy.

After that we played The Three Musketeers and were in agreement that the mechanics worked, but it seemed lopsided in favour of Cardinal Richelieu. This puzzled me because although I haven't played it for well over a year I always remembered it being rather difficult to win with the Cardinal. Anyway, subsequent diligent study of the rules proved that I had misremembered them with regard to Milady. It needs another go now that is clear.

If a beard is worth seeing then it's worth seeing from all angles

Thirdly was Citadels, which was very good except that I never seemed to have any gold and when I did get some it got stolen straightaway. I came last, but at least learned what strategy not to follow. I often find that I learn what strategy not to follow next time.

So me and you, just we two got to search for something new

The above lines from Roxy Music's 'Virginia Plain' (surely the best debut single ever) were quoted in the Guardian this morning, which served to remind me that the lyric also references Robert E. Lee.

Neither the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia nor a steamboat

 Now that's about as tenuous a wargames connection as you can get, but the staff of the blog are somewhat desperate to up the relevant content. Anyway other Robert E Lee references (to the general rather than to boats named after him) can be found in songs by Johnny Cash and, of course, in 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' by Robbie Robertson which also mentions the Union general George Stoneman.

Not the sister-in-law of Sir Michael Jagger