An evening with Danny & Ben from Thunder

Having been a fan of the band Thunder for more years than I care to admit to, I decided to get tickets for 'An Evening with Danny & Ben' (Danny Bowes being Thunder's singer, and Ben Matthews, their guitarist / keyboard player), for the first of their two dates at Bush Hall in London. Billed as a mix of acoustic songs by both Thunder and other artists, and chat/anecdotes from their years together as a band, I wasn't sure what to expect, and I have to confess, I wasn't 100% sure whether I would enjoy it. But after last night, I completely had to eat my words!

The evening was a great balance of a few Thunder songs, a number of cover versions - some of which I knew, some of which I didn't (but probably should) - and some highly entertaining tales from the rock & roll road (some of which involved alcohol, erm... in fact possibly all of them!). I'd forgotten just how amazing Danny's voice is, and how talented and funny Ben is. It was a truly excellent and enjoyable night. Today I will mostly be dusting off all my Thunder albums and giving them a jolly good spin again. Or rather, I'll rip them to mp3 and put them on my iPhone, before you have visions of record players and vinyl!

From my scanty memory and in a very loose order, they played the following songs:

Bad Company - Seagull
Chuck Berry - Nadine
Thunder - A Better Man (almost had me welling up at this version - gorgeous)
Elvis Presley - She's Not You
Thunder - See My Baby Walking (from The Joy of Six EP)
The Beatles - Blackbird
The Who - Squeeze Box
Thunder - Like a Satellite
Adele (or Bob Dylan, depending on how old you are!) - Make You Feel My Love. This was the encore, and featured Danny's daughter Lucy duetting with her dad. He looked utterly proud of her, bless.

Here's my video footage of Blackbird, complete with audience 'bird whistle' participation - brilliant!



Anyone going to the rest of the tour dates, ENJOY. You can't fail not to :)

PS How pleased am I with my lovely new (pink!) camera, the Canon Powershot SX230. Considering I was sat about 4 rows from the back of the venue, the sound and quality is blimmin' amazing IMHO...