Tom Robinson's Castaway Concert, 9/1/05

There will be photos at Valerie's Gallery - as soon as I get round to posting them there!
Other Val kindly drove us all the way to London, with Bill in the front navigating, offering advice on where to park, how to drive etc. Luckily she didn't seem to mind, I would have done but then I'm not such a sweetie!
Bill had picked the Landor in Clapham North as the pub in which we were to have Sunday lunch, but when we got there at 12pm there was a snag - they didn't start serving food till 1.15pm, too late for us. So we wandered back towards the tube station, eventually finding a little pizza place. The pizzas were fine, and we headed off to Clapham Town Hall suitably fired up.
We were kept waiting in the hallway whilst Tom and his friends did soundchecks, not the usual practice but they were filming the concert for a DVD, so I guesseverything had to be spot on. Tom kicked off proceedings, singing old favourites like '2-4-6-8', 'Atmospherics' and 'Martin'. His voice sounded OK with the slower songs but the more punky ones like 'Don't Jump' sounded very croaky. But for punk it doesn't matter so much. Adam's guitar playing was truly fantastic, I noticed there was a camera pointed almost permanently at his hands!
Next up was Lee Griffiths. He seemed a bit moody, perhaps he'd had a row with his girlfriend as he also played a few 'why are you treating me so badly' type songs. But I like Lee, I enjoyed his act very much.
After Lee came silver fox TV Smith, bouncy and smiley yet playing serious angry songs. He played his Christmas Single, lyrics included 'Christmas bloody Christmas, you know I hate this time of year' - yes I can relate to that!!
Then after the break Tom again, Roddy Frame with just an acoustic guitar (very good), some rapper called Q Boy (or was it Cue Ball?) who I was deeply unimpressed with, Adam on his own with some of his own songs which were awl right, then big band finale at the end.
And all the proceeds went to the Tsunami disaster fund well done lads!