Finally caught up with Ollie Forrest last night in a Hackney pub called the Sebright Arms; it seems to be one of the band's two favoured venues, as its previous handful of gigs seem to have been either there or in another Hackney pub, The Macbeth.
The group is a four piece, with Ollie handling most of the vocals and playing a bit of harmonica (as well a lot of guitar! lol); the lovely Sewuese Abwa is on additional vocals & keyboards and the driving rhythm section is a very good bassist named Phil (whose surname I didn't catch) & Emily Dolan-Davies, who has done some work with BF (i.e. one track on Olympia plus some corporate shows), on drums.
They played a half hour, high energy set, which was great fun, well received and wonderfully difficult to pigeon-hole!
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
Some of it was reminiscent of the late 60s blues based power trios (despite Ollie Forrest being a quartet...
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
) like Hendrix & Cream, while another song would have sat quite happily in a Simple Minds setlist (well, at least to my ageing ears...).
There seemed to be a large proportion of Ollie's friends & their friends in the audience, but he tried to have a quick word with most of us afterwards to thank us for our support; not many budding rock stars are that well mannered, I'd guess...
He's also got a damned good memory for faces & places; he immediately remembered that our last chat had been after BF's Dubrovnik gig last summer. I didn't think it was fair to ask why he'd left BF's employ, but he spoke very highly of the maestro and, reading between the lines, it seemed only that the boss' touring & rehearsal schedule may have been heavy enough to conflict with Ollie's plans to get his own band launched. All very amicable sounding, so maybe we'll see him back in the fold one day...
Ollie was pleased that the band's Youtube clip was known to the Roxy faithful and said he'd try to get a CD-R ready in time for the summer gigs.
I was probably the oldest guy at the gig (I'm taking the precaution of taking a slightly older mate to the gig at The Macbeth next month, just to make myself look
marginally younger! lol), but I'd forgotten how energising an evening among young people can be... as long as I drag my ageing bones home before I outstay my welcome!
Watch this space for further news...