GIG: Graham Bonnet Band (Nottingham)

Aaaaaaaand it was back to the Rescue Rooms (again) for the 'Graham Bonnet Band', led by the 77 year old Graham (formerly of Rainbow, MSG and Alcatrazz fame); not exactly someone at the top of my list of 'must sees' admittedly, but nevertheless an entertaining evening and Rose (in particular) has a special fondness for Rainbow's 'Down to Earth' album, so why not?

On this tour though Graham was focussing on the Michael Schenker Group album 'Assault Attack' which he performed on in 1982. Pre-warned, we listened to that album several times in the weeks leading up to the gig and while it is a bit patchy, it does have some good songs (Dancer, Samuari and Desert Song, for example).

The band took the stage at 8:35, with a supposed curfew of 10pm (more on that anon) and launched into the title track of said album, following on with 'Dancer' before Graham told us the first of his 'stories'. Graham likes to chat... he likes to chat a LOT. So he told us how he told Michael Schenker it should be 'Run You to the Ground', not 'Rock You...' but he wasn't having it... so then we got 'Rock You to the Ground' and 'Desert Song', but not before Graham told us how he had to explain to Michael what a 'dusky lady' was. 🤣

'Searching for a Reason' was the fifth MSG track and then Graham declared he was going for a sit down. So we got a cover of the Deep Purple instrumental 'Lazy', before Graham came back to perform one of his own songs 'Night Games' and then 'All Night Long' and 'Since You Been Gone' from the 'Down to Earth' album. A bit more jamming ensued, including a drum solo, and snippets of Alcatrazz's 'Jet to Jet' and Rainbow's 'Stargazer'.

During the show it became evident that the rather attractive bass

player was 77 year old Graham's 'lady friend'... respect! 👍

'Into the Night' (another Graham Bonnet song) followed and then we got the story of how Graham got kicked out of MSG for being too drunk to play their first gig together.... 'Samurai' was (somewhat ironically) followed by Alcatrazz's 'Too Young to Die, Too Drunk to Live'... and kudos to the guitar player for handling Malmsteen's solos.

By this time it was after ten, but it seemed the curfew wasn't all that rigid, because the band left the stage and then came back on to close out the show with two more classic Rainbow tunes from Down to Earth - 'Eyes of the World' and 'Lost in Hollywood'.

It was certainly entertaining, despite the annoying Halloween ghosts hanging from the ceiling and getting in the way, and surely there can't be too many more chances to catch Graham before he retires. We're never going to see Rainbow (or Michael Schenker Group for that matter) so it was definitely worth the effort.

Like the previous Sunday though, knowing we probably wouldn't be able to get to sleep, we elected to stay up to watch the Mexican Grand Prix, which (exacerbated by the clock change on the Saturday night) meant a very tired start to Monday morning!