You know that you are in for a special treat when there are several musos in the crowd to watch a band, and in this case there were more than half a dozen, which is twice as many as in Sidewinder!

It also helps fill the pub too, although in the case of The Brook, that doesn't take much doing because it must be the tiniest place that you could get a band to play in. They get to play in the end room, and they just have a four foot wide doorway to play through. Where I stood, I could see Mike Dodd on vocals and guitar, and if I craned forward, I could see Mark Singleton on drums. Kev Farish was round the corner out of sight on five string bass and backing vocals.

The set kicked off in an easy-going mellow vein, with gentle renditions of "Born Under a Bad Sign", "The Thrill Is Gone" and "Folsom Prison Blues", plus a rarity by Boz Scaggs called "King of El Paso". The tempo was raised with "Cocaine" and "Spoonful", in which Kev and Mike had an extended jam together and the set ended with "Bright Lights, Big City" and "Hi Heel Sneakers", during which the girls were twitching to get up and dance. Perhaps that number should have come in the second spot instead?

After the break we got an awesome, bluesy, version of Peter Green's "Need Your Love So Bad" followed by a couple of sublime numbers from Robert Cray; "Smoking Gun" and "Playing In The Dirt", during which Kev and Mark set up a heavy riff and Mike soloed Allman-esque over it. These guys were certainly enjoying playing this stuff together.

They hit top speed with Little Walter's "My Babe", and the girls were up on their seats hand jiving. That rocked right into "Lido Shuffle", much to big Al's chagrin, as he fancied playing that in Mike's other band, Sour Mash! "Wooly Bully", by Sam The Sham and The Pharaohs, just about ended the set and we were all up dancing in the aisle, but there's only room for three or four to move at once in there! We all shouted for more and got T-Bone's "T-Bone Shuffle", in which Kev McGough joined in on harmonica. The final encore was the Stones "It's All Over Now", which unfortunately for us, it was.

Hopefully it won't be too long before we see Sidewinder back at the Brook!