The last time I saw Martin Turner and his current band was at St Helens about 18 months ago, a show which was filmed for an upcoming DVD. That night was a special show where there were two sets: the first being a complete performance of ‘Written In The Stars’, an album of all-new material and the second being a selection of Wishbone Ash classics. For this tour, the focus was almost completely on Turner’s former band, as the first set comprised tracks from across Wishbone Ash’s back catalogue (with a few numbers from ‘Written In The Stars’ included) but the second set was a full run-through of that band’s career-defining album ‘Argus’.
There was no support, as the guys came on stage at around 8pm. The Brindley is a small, seated theatre with good views offered from anywhere in the auditorium, but for this show I secured a seat in the second row of the stalls – the night before the show! The turnout wasn’t capacity by any means, coming as it did on the same night as the World Cup qualifiers with England’s game being televised live. Suffice to say, that those of us who made the effort to come to this gig got the better end of the deal (!)
Martin Turner at Runcorn Brindley
As was the case at St Helens, the four-piece benefitted from a properly-balanced sound mix, just right for their surroundings. Their performance was top quality, with impressive vocal harmonies from guitarist Danny Willson and drummer Tim Brown backing Turner. Fellow guitarist Misha Nikolic handled much of the lead guitar duties in the first set, but for the ‘Argus’ section of the show Willson came more to the fore. Both guys played superbly yet tastefully, driven along expertly by Tim Brown, with Turner’s bass lines prominent but not dominant.
Guitarist Danny Willson
The ‘Argus’ material was played in album sequence apart from ‘Blowing Free’ which was put to the end of the set so that they could close with it. Throughout, the show was sprinkled with similar humour to when last I saw these guys, some of the gags were familiar but one tale told by the bassist concerned a performance in Greece, a clip of which was videoed and put online – however, the front row insisted on singing along (out of tune) and, according to the frontman, was seized upon by followers of a former colleague of Turner’s as ‘evidence’ that he could no longer sing live! That was totally disproved on this night as the vocals from all concerned were spot-on. There was a three-song encore, comprising ‘Doctor’, ‘Jail Bait’ and ‘Blind Eye’.
Guitarist Misha Nikolic with MT
Martin Turner turned 70 at the start of October yet still has the voice and the energy to deliver a long set of classic Wishbone Ash material to a high standard. Any opportunity to see this line-up should be taken, it’s a masterclass in how to play classic rock. He may no longer be able to tour under the Wishbone Ash name but he and his band can still more than do justice to the songs which he had a large part in writing.
4 – Deserving
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