HELEN & THE HORNS – CONCORDE 2, BRIGHTON 11.8.18
Many many moons ago, I was fortunate to grab a ticket to see Brighton label Attrix Records darlings The Chefs perform live at the original Concorde concert venue near the Dolphinarium. Their singer was the enchanting Helen McCookerybook and I had gone along as I had heard their John Peel session and had purchased a copy of the ‘Vaultage 79’ compilation album, that had a couple of Chefs tracks on it. This sadly was the sole time that I saw them live.
After a while Helen resurfaced as Helen & The Horns and I never got around to seeing them live until yesterday. Funnily enough at the Concorde 2 venue that superseded the original smaller site.
Helen and the Horns were formed as Helen with Dave Jago on trombone, Paul Davey on sax and Chris Smith on trumpet and yesterday 75% of the original members were on stage. The change being Steve Joy on trumpet instead of Chris Smith.
The band rarely get together these days and so it was an honour to witness their all to brief 9 song set as part of the Wedding Present’s David Gedge’s 10th anniversary of ‘At The Edge Of The Sea’ musical event that also included Cinerama, Terry de Castro, The Catenary Wires, Jetstream Pony and of course the Wedding Present. Unfortunately I was on a very tight schedule and only got the chance to see the one act.
It’s quite peculiar as Helen & The Horns were starting to build up some notoriety in the mid 1980’s, by recording no less that three John Peel sessions and appearing on ‘Wogan’ and ‘Pebble Mill’ and yet here we are all these years later and Helen has outlasted them all.
The Helen & The Horns performance went down rather well, as the more they played, the more punters liked it. The tunes we heard were ‘Pioneer Town’, ‘Summer Days’, ‘Lonesome Country Boy’, ‘Bird Talk’, ‘Two Strings To Your Bow’, ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah’, ‘Footsteps At My Door’, ‘Freight Train’, (encore) ‘Daisies’.
Watch Helen & The Horns perform ‘Freight Train’ on Pebble Mill HERE and check out a John Peel Session HERE.
Find out more interesting information about Helen McCookerybook here: http://mccookerybook.com/
