To celebrate the purchase of our new car the missus and I decided to make a trip to Chesham to see Slim Chance perform a gig at The Elgiva Theatre. For the people who aren't aware of Slim Chance, they were the band that used to back Ronnie Lane when he went solo after quitting the Faces in 1973. The line-up was quite prone to changes and though most the musicians playing in the band were in the band at one point or another, they hardly were at the same time !!! The band started playing again in 2010 and has been playing small venues all over the UK ever since. The core of the band is composed of Steve Simpson on lead guitar, mandolin and fiddle, Alun Davies on acoustic guitar, Charlie Hart on fiddle and keyboards and Steve Bingham on bass. They're augmented by keyboard master Geraint Watkins and drummer John Lingwood. I invite you to check the list of musicians they've worked with over the years on the Slim Chance website (http://www.slim-chance.co.uk/pages/slimchance.html), it's pretty impressive.
The Elgiva theatre is located right in the centre of Chesham and also doubles as a cinema. Sonia and I made it to the venue just before 8pm and had time to buy a drink before heading into the auditorium where a DJ was playing a selection of nice records to an almost empty room. Thankfully most of the punters came in five minutes before the opening act The Good Men In The Jungle started playing. Made up of Alun Davies and his daughter Becky Clowes with the help of Steve Simpson on a few songs, they played mostly sixties and seventies era covers (really good version of The Weight by The Band). They seem to be playing in this duo format or with a full band every now then in London. I will make sure I catch them before the end of the year. After a short break Slim Chance came onstage and spent the next two hours playing songs from all of Ronnie Lane's post Small Faces career. All his most famous solo tracks were played (How Come, The Poacher, Kuschtye Rye...) without forgetting his time in The Faces (Debris, You're So Rude) and his collaboration with Pete Townshend "Rough Mix" (Silly Little Man). Every band member took his turn singing lead vocals and introduced each song with a short anecdote about their time playing with Ronnie Lane. The quality of the playing coupled to these heartfelt reminiscences made this evening the perfect celebration of Ronnie Lane the musician but also Ronnie Lane the man.
Nice review!!!!
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