Alt recording : [
www.dimeadozen.org]
Comments by badger57 the taper :
"A few months ago I apparently entered a competition on Facebook then, as you do, forgot all about it.
In May I received an e-mail one Sunday morning congratulating me on winning 2 tickets for a show of my choice at the Hammersmith HMV Apollo.
I browsed through their listings and this is the show that tickled my fancy. I pondered buying tickets when it was first announced, but decided against it,
mainly due to the ridiculous price they were asking for anything decent.
So we turned up at the venue expecting to be given some dreadful seats somewhere in the rafters, but much to my surprise they were the best seats in the house!
Nine rows back, uninterrupted view, almost dead centre, and a nice walkway directly in front of us meaning we could almost lay down and watch.
Security was pretty hot, constantly walking round telling people to stop filming, and there I was, making the ultimate sacrifice of wearing an Alice Band in my hair to hide my mics, recording away. I'm a guy by the way!
As for the show, well it was much as I expected to be honest, shambolic fun. Ronnie appeared with a 7 year old boy called Luca in tow, who was dwarfed by the guitar he was wearing. Ronnie then started giving us our lesson in Chess Records singing and playing short clips of some of the classics, accompanied by Luca who strummed a few chords.
He then introduced the band for the evening, and a pretty damn fine lineup it was. Obviously with the show being billed as Ronnie Wood & Friends there was much expectation on who would turn up.
One of the big rumours I heard was that all the Rolling Stones would be there..........it didn't happen! Who was there I hear you ask.
Well, Bill Wyman bass, Mick Taylor guitar, Simon Kirke drums, Hamish Stewart guitar & vocals, Geraint Watkins keyboards, Andy Wallace keyboards,
Andy Newark drums, Frank Mead sax & vocals, Nick Payne sax, Beverly Skeete vocals, Ali MacKenzie vocals, James McCartney guitar & vocals,
Sharleen Spiteri vocals...plus an unknown blonde lady on vocals.
All in all it was a great fun evening. Ronnie was in fine form, his guitar playing was fabulous.
I'm really pleased I chose this show as my winning ticket, but had I paid full price for the seats I think I would've felt a bit underwhelmed"