Forgive me, dear reader, if this review seems a bit vague and disjointed but the show of which I’m about to write took place on a night designated for my 43rd birthday celebrations and, with considerable help from my friends Bud Weiser and Stella Artois I ermm… celebrated and ended up vague and disjointed myself. Don’t blame me – blame the remarkable Mike Sanchez and his band for being so… well, bloody brilliant at London’s swinging and fabled ‘100 Club’ in the centre of Oxford Street on the evening of July 14th.
I began jotting down song titles at the start of the first set but, once ‘I done got rhythm’n’blues, I threw my crutches down’ as a certain rockabilly legend used to say. With a line-up of the superlative and criminally underrated Andy Silvester on guitar, Al Nicholls on tenor sax, Nick Lunt on baritone sax, Al Gare on devastating double bass and driving drummer Mark Morgan, Sanchez’s unit boasts some pretty mighty muscle. So for two hours (in the form of two one-hour sets) a fair sized audience were treated to some real hot rockin’ party music with the highly talented pianist, singer and guitarist as your host, dressed conservatively in a bright red zoot suit.

The first set opened with three real mortar shells ‘Driftin’, ‘Undecided Fool’ and ‘Tell Me Who’ then, just when you wish he’d let you pause for breath, he hits you with Brook Benton’s ‘Hurtin’ Inside’. Sod the notebook, I thought – just dance! ‘Hurtin’ Inside’ was one of a number of songs Mike performed from his new CD Blue Boy, reviewed elsewhere in these pages. Using this and Mike’s last CD Just Can’t Afford It as reference points, I’ll try and piece together what songs were played after this point. ‘3 Months, 3 Weeks, 3 Days’, a Sanchez composition, is a highlight of the Just Can’t Afford It CD and our hero chalked up another fine version. Mike then strapped on the Strat and it was time for a little Sun rockabilly in the form of Hayden Thompson/ Junior Parker’s ‘Love My Baby’ afterwards raising the temperature a little higher as we heard a new song from the new CD, another original composition, entitled ‘Fast train’ which positively ROCKED! I tell you readers, this is the only way to travel. Other songs performed from the Blue Boy CD were Ruth Brown’s ‘I Wanna Do More’, Young Jessie’s ‘Well Baby’ and ‘Someday (When I’m Gone From You)’ – in which Mike did more with this song than Bobby Vee ever could – plus storming versions of the Killer’s ‘It’ll Be Me’ and Big Danny Oliver’s ‘Sapphire’ which certainly made this scribe get off his ample tush and boogie (as a close friend will confirm). From the Big Town Playboy days we heard ‘Deep In The Heart Of Texas’, a Geraint Watkins song which has been recorded by Dave Edmunds, ‘Big Fat Mama’ (complete with a little audience participation) and the standard show closer Slim Harpo’s ‘Shake Your Hips’. For an encore, Mike and the boys gave an appreciative nod to the late Tommy Ridgeley with an all out assault on ‘Jam Up’.

Job done! Happy audience, happy birthday boy! I can only conclude this account by citing Mike Sanchez as the finest, most exciting, most entertaining artist in British rhythm and blues today. He replicates rhythm and blues and rockabilly styles with nothing less than 100% authenticity and his work rate is phenomenal (he seems to sweat buckets every performance! because he’s sooo horny). His next visit to the ‘100 Club’ will be on Saturday September 22nd – see you there, sober or not!