Ben Daglish with Cold Flame - Live at The Clarence

[Waz]

Last night I went up to Ramsbottom to have a mooch around their Rhythm and Blues Festival that's happening this weekend. Apart from a fair few pubs with live bands and selling lots of CDs, the main reason for my excursion was to see the man, Ben Daglish, live, performing a Jethro Tull based set with Cold Flame.

The stage was really small for them, no more than about 7ft by 7ft wide (and you thought the one at Gossips was tiny!) and somehow they managed to fit a full size drum kit as well as the two guitars, and of course Ben with his flute, into the stage area.

After a few technical hitches with the PA rig (it was the one owned by the pub, and it was playing up) the band were up and ready, and I have to say, in fine form. A good band can play live - period. No amount of studio trickery can be disguised when performing live, of course.

The set, although truncated to an hour and a quarter in order to ensure all the bands scheduled could play, was a nice mix of Tull classics old and new, including Living in the Past, The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles, Some Day The Sun Won't Shine For You (an old bluesy number, really well played), Sernade to a Cuckoo, (which went straight into Bouree, much to my delight!), We Used To Know (which the Eagles even today acknowledge was the inspiration for Hotel California), and an absolute masterstroke, both Locomotive Breath and Wind Up, one after the other, and they sounded really good.

Ben played his flute, well, like Ben - mad as a fish, but also in the same way that Ian Anderson of Tull would do. His voice was in fine form, particularly when rocking out to A New Day Yesterday, really got the passion into that one. And the flute in Bouree? Spot on. I think he was really enjoying that one.

I had a quick chat with Ben before and after the gig, and he said that in fact his other band, Loscoe State Opera, had performed on a smaller set than this one, pretty impressive seeing as there's seven in the band!

All I can say is this: if they're touring near you and doing a Tull set, then go and see them - it's a good night out!! The tour dates can be found here:

http://www.cold-flame.co.uk/gigstullshow.htm