The Beatniks

GIG: The Beatniks
DATE: March 24th 2009
VENUE: The Boars Head, Piccotts End
COST: free, but donations in the bottle to keep live music going was appreciated
RATING: Polished performance (and great loo)

The Beatniks are Den Pugsley and Jamie Cook from The Overtures (www.theovertures.com) who specialise in the music of the 60's including great artistes such as The Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, Hollies and Simon and Garfunkel.Recently back from Liverpool where they performed at the City's 800 year Celebrations, The Overtures have performed at The London Palladium 5 times, performed for Sir Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Sir Bob Geldof, Dave Gilmour and Sir David Frost and were honoured in December 2005 to be asked by Elton John and David Furnish to be the entertainment at their Civil wedding Ceremony in Windsor.

The above write up was from http://www.lemonrock.com/ and drew us to travel the mile from home to see this duo.

No need for a drummer, drum machine or other audio “helps” to keep the beat and rhythm going; these guys cover everything using just an acoustic guitar and a bass guitar. Their repertoire was mostly 60’s covers, ranging from The Searchers, to The Kinks, The Who, a few Beatles (Rubber Soul was the album of the day), the Rolling Stones, Simon & Garfunkel, Elvis’ Suspicious Minds… you name it, they knew it. A couple of more “recent” tunes were thrown into the set - Crowded House, “Weather With You” and The Stereophonics, “Handbags & Gladrags” (although I suppose that really originated a couple of decades before for Rod Stewart and before him Chris Farlowe).
No original material, but these guys are very polished. Their voices blended perfectly whether it was belting out Paint It Black, or the more mellow harmonies of The Sound Of Silence. They knew what songs they were doing, and they played and sang them brilliantly.

For a Tuesday night, the pub was packed. The punters almost drank the pub dry; ran out of Fosters, no Carlsberg on tap (but then again, that happened last time we were there, so maybe not so exceptional?). The Boars Head is a lovely little cosy pub with a bubbly barmaid who knew all of the regulars. Oh and the toilets in this place cannot be faulted!