Thanks for a good night Dave, Dave and Dave and the others....

I went to a charity gig on Saturday night at Tonbridge Juddians Rugby Club, which was in aid of Hospice in the Weald. Pulse, Syzygy and a Band Called Dave were the local bands there to entertain us. I think there was to be another but they were dropped, due to time constraints, apparently. Syzygy, who mainly played Rolling Stones and Bowie type numbers, were pretty good and seemed to have two lead singers; one was, without being fatist, the size of three men and quite a crowd pleaser having the gift of the gab as well as not a bad belt-it-out kind of voice. The other was Dave, who could sing okay but lacked any kind of stage presence and appeared to be reading many of the words from the song sheet in front of him. I know that he was Dave because he then appeared as the lead singer in the second-on-the-bill act, A Band Called Dave, who were, quite literally, all called Dave, all three of them. They lacked something, and I think it was a drummer, although they did have some nice unusual twists with a very competent bit of flute playing in one song. The female drummer from the first band, Syzygy, should have joined them and they would have been much better; she couldn't though as, you've guessed it, she isn't called Dave. Pulse (pictured above) who topped the bill were basically a Pink Floyd tribute band and quite competent with it. They had a few images on a screen behind them and a couple of spot lights to give us a small taste of the type of stadium gig that their heroes are more used to; the backing vocalist was pretty effective, especially on some of those typically Floyd wailing bits, but there was a certain lack of charisma as one got the distinct feeling that they'd done the same gig a few too many times already. And they probably had. Perhaps it was the reserved mood I was in, perhaps it was the type of music they played, but I never once got the urge to get up and dance; maybe Syzygy should have been on last to get us all rocking with a bit of Brown Sugar and Jumping Jack Flash (Now I'm showing my age!) Still, all in all, a good night's entertainment for a fiver, for charity and the Larkins bitter was pretty damned good also....