Way back in the day the Georgia Satellites were always a band that I had plenty of time for. Their southern rock flavoured brand of hard edged boogie was always guaranteed to fill the dance floor at rock clubs up and down the country and the live shows were never anything but entertaining. However it must have been a good 15 years or more since I last saw the band and it is a rare occurrence nowadays if one of the band's CDs ever finds its way into my player (too many discs and not enough time so something always gets overlooked). To make matters worse I was about 24 hours off a return flight from New York and struggling to get my body clock in order. Luckily for me the urge for some good old fashioned rock music won out over common sense and so I dragged myself along to Trillians and boy am I glad I did.
 

What I got for my troubles was over two hours of down to earth rock and roll played with a confidence and swagger, not to mention a sense of humour that is often sadly missing for latter day bands.  Classic Satellite tracks such as 'Keep Your Hands To Yourself', 'Open All Night' , 'Six Years Gone' played with an enthusiasm that was palpable. To be honest in my befuddled, jet lagged state state I had forgotten to take a notepad with me, so for once I was thus unable to jot down the set list and just sit back and enjoy the show. In all honesty this probably didn't make any difference whatsoever, as the band seemed happy to ad-lib the gig as the evening went along and play whatever tunes happened to take their fancy. To this end we had impromptu renditions of 'Get It On' and a magnificent version of 'Walking The Dog' Guitarist Ken McMahan, despite his seriously dodgy dress sense (Yee-Ha Dungarees anyone?)  can sure wrangle the hell out of either his Les Paul or Fender Telecaster and some of the mid song jams between Baird and McMahan perfectly mimicked the overall feel of the show.

Trillians just happened to be the last night of the tour, with the band flying back to the States the next day, with this in mind, the night was  finished off with an 'all- star' run through the Deep Purple classic 'Hush'. To this end the tour support (sorry didn't catch your set or name) piled onto the small stage, alongside members of the crew with instruments seemingly being swapped at random. Having seen Deep Purple perform this song just a couple of weeks previously I can honestly say that Dan Baird & Friends thoroughly pissed all over the originators. A thoroughly fitting and riotous end to a hugely enjoyable evening.

Comeback soon please when I am not quite so knackered!

You can check out further pictures from this show via this link