Thursday night at the Chemic is open mic night with an invited band who do a full set. A bucket goes round to give the band a bit of cash but tonight Biscuithead and the Biscuit Badgers donated it all to the cloth cat organisation who’ve been close to closing due to a cut in funding. A great gesture from a great band.
The open mike as ever had a great mix of styles and experience – from folks who were playing in public for the first time to those who have been treading the musical boards for quite some time. In the later catagory is Dariush Kanani who has a beautiful guitar picking style and gave us 3 new songs which all hit the spot. Emily did a lovely Bowie tribute playing ‘Space Oddity’ on the Ukulele….the first of 2 tributes tonight…..
The Biscuits are a top band – very English and very funny with incredibly talented musicians. They did some old faves (Beige, David Attenborough, Cheese, Land Hermit Crab…) and some I’d not heard before – my favourite of those being ‘Bakers’. There was even audience participation with Emily coming back on for Tweed Jacket
I guess the word eccentric was made for them. For their last song they did a straight version of ‘Life on Mars’ which showed off the keyboard players skill magnificently – Rick Wakeman couldn’t have done better himself. And there we had to leave it whilst other open mic-ers sang on into the night….
Bob the Chiropodist