Wreckless Eric

Wreckless Eric, originally uploaded by fred pipes.

After a quick PV (missed the wine!) in the old Argus basement - a sort of Brighton v. Worthing art show, with Worthing represented by RAG (Dan and Steve - love your work!) and Brighton by Contemporary Gallery (no website?), popped along to the Marlborough to see Wreckless Eric, supported by the very versatile Paul Stapleton and his other band Pog, Annalise playing a very cute heart-shaped lilac bass.

Eric was in fine form, just him and 3 guitars on the intimate (but hot under the lights) stage. The audience seemed to be mainly old men (myself included) and he was receptive to requests (except he refused do the Cliff Richard hit 'Broken Doll'), doing 'Joe Meek' straight after 'Reconnez Cherie'. For 'Whole Wide World' we had to wait for the end of the set, but in between we got an empassioned 'Same' and '33s + 45s'. And then there were the stories - about his crap French (denied later by his Mum who was also in the audience), the perils of playing on home turf (followed by 'Local'), singer/songwriters and lots lots more, usually accompanied by his trademark chug (but nothing about Elvis Costello this time!). A national treasure, can't wait for the sequel to 'A Dysfunctional Success'. More photos on Flickr.

(NB www.wrecklesseric.com doesn't seem to be working at the mo)