Caravan in London 27th November 2004.

Went to see Caravan last night at a small (800 seats) theatre in London.

Support band for the night was Wooly Wolstenholme's Maestoso. Wooly played keys in the early and IMHO best incarnation of Barclay James Harvest. He started off with a couple of numbers from his first album and included a few BJH songs in the set. A real treat for Pam and I was that half way through the set they were joined on stage by BJH guitarist John Lees who sang 'Galadriel'.

Wooly played mellotron and other keys and it just reiterated to me what a beautiful instrument the mellotron is. Not the greatest sound mix in the world but it was easy enough to get your ears around it and in the end it was a really enjoyable proggy set.

After a 30 minute break Caravan began what was to be a 2 hours plus set.

The current line up is:

Pye Hastings - Guitar / Vocals
Jan Schelhaas - Keyboards
Richard Coughlan - Drums
Geoffrey Richardson - Viola/ flute/ mandolin/electric spoons/garden sheers (honest)
Jim Leverton - Bass/ vocals
Doug Boyle - Guitar

They played a great set:

Memory Lain Hugh / Headloss, The Dog The Dog he's at it again, Why Why Why/And I wish I were stoned, Golf Girl, Nine Feet Underground, Head above the Clouds, Revenge,Nightmare, Hello Hello, Smoking Gun, Unauthorised Breakfast Item, A Hunting We Shall Go / Backwards, For Richard

Encores
It's Not Real, If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It All Over You.

The guitar playing of Doug Boyle was outstnding and as a unit the whole band were brilliant. Seeing Geoffrey Richardson donning rubber gloves to play the electric spoons was wierd. I thought I was back at the doctors.

Jan Schelhaas was superb too. I love that distinctive "Canterbury" organ sound such as in '9 feet underground' and in the hall last night it was wonderful.

The whole band seemed to be enjoying it too. Mugging with each other and trading solos.

All in all a great night. May have some photos later which I'll post here if they come out.