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! Some of it was reminiscent of the late 60s blues based power trios (despite Ollie Forrest being a quartet... ) 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...

Monsieur Smudge,
Great summation!
Regards,
Windswept

Just in case any London based fans are at a loose end on Tuesday 29th (and able to get across town during the tube strike...), Ollie Forrest plays at the Macbeth pub in Hoxton Street (just off Old Street, at the Shoreditch end).

Doors at 8 p.m. and OF seems to be the later of the two bands, so my guess at a stage time would be 9-9.30 p.m.

Last time OF was the middle one of three bands, so it'll be interesting to see if the band's set is longer this time.

Ollie Forrest were on good form again at The Macbeth on Tuesday. Third band on out of four, they played a tight half hour set and the band is really beginning to gel.

Ollie played some great guitar & Sewuese's talents are well known to most of us here. I was particularly impressed with Emily Dolan-Davies' work and she was by some distance the pick of the four drummers heard on the night.

Ollie told me that he hopes to have a band website up and running within a few weeks and to have a release gig for a debut single in June (this may be a download only, but I put in a plea for a CD issue too for those of us of a certain vintage! ).

On the subject of (vint)age, I took along a mate who's three years older than me, just to make sure that I wasn't the oldest geezer at Ollie's gig again! By coincidence, said mate and I used to do some serious drinking in The Macbeth 30 years ago and when the bar staff found out they insisted on taking our photo as "part of the pub's history"; it appears that I'm now a living monument!

Self publicity is not yet Ollie's strong point, but I heard that he had another gig last night, so I went along to Mode restaurant/club in the Ladbroke Grove area of west London.

He didn't get on stage until after 11.15 p.m. (I assume the earlier bands overran their allotted stage times), so only played for about half an hour. The bigger room (than previous east London gigs) and better acoustics helped and Ollie played some great guitar.

The band had a slightly makeshift look, as both Sewuese & Emily Dolan-Davies were temporarily absent. It took two attractive young ladies to fill in for Sewuese - Ollie's charming partner filled in on keyboards, while another handled the backing vocals - while EDD's drumming duties were ably handled by a male deputy.

Would be nice if I wasn't double the age of everyone else in the audience next time, though!

Are you not usually in bed having your cocoa at that time of night?

Are you not usually in bed having your cocoa at that time of night?

Roxy, as you might guess from some of our nocturnal online "chats", I'm a creature of the night; seldom in my pit before 3 a.m. these days (nor out of it until the sun is over the yardarm! lol).