Ronnie Wood & Friends.
Hammersmith Apollo
Bluesfest 2012
London, UK

30 June, 2012

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.



Thanks again to my friend and mentor Sylvia (scdegraaf) for editing and the addition of magic dust.


Anyway, download, share freely, and most of all, enjoy!

Source: Sony M10, Sound Professionals SP-CMC-8 mics [24 bit/96 kHz]
Edited with SoundForge 9.0 [eq., volumes & dithering to 16bit/44.1kHz]
Track splits CD Wave Editor, encoding to FLAC 8 & checksum Trader's Little Helper



Disc One [01:11:27]
1. Introduction To Chess Records
2. Band intros
3. Hi-Heel Sneakers
4. My Babe
5. 300 Pounds Of Joy
6. Just Your Fool
7. You Never Can Tell
8. The Sun Is Shining
9. Don't Lie To Me
10. Walking By Myself
11. Tell Mama
12. Mojo Boogie
13. At Last
14. Spoonful

Disc Two [35:28]
1. Big Town Playboy
2. Talk To Your Daughter
3. I'd Rather Go Blind
4. Johnny B. Goode
5. Carol
6. I Just Want To Make Love To You
7. Crowd
8. Ain't Got No Home
9. It's Only Rock'n Roll
10. Outro

Line-up:
Ron Wood (gtr, voc, harm)
Bill Wyman (bass, voc)
Mick Taylor (gtr)
Hamish Stewart (gtr)
Geraint Watkins (keyb)
Andy Wallace (keyb)
Simon Kirke (dr)
Andy Newmark (dr)
Frank Mead (sax, voc)
Nick Payn (sax)
Beverly Skeete (voc)
James McCartney (gtr, voc)
Ali MacKenzie (voc)
Sharleen Spiteri (voc)
Luca (?)(some gtr)
unidentified blonde female singer � (voc)