Oliver Wakeman with Paul Manzi Review The Herringthorpe, Rotherham. 4th November 2007

When I was a young boy I was told that “All good things come to those who wait”. Last Saturday night (4th November) the faithful throng of the CRS who had gathered for “Martin’s Freebee night out” and who had waited for the return of Oliver together with Paul Manzi got their just rewards. It’s well known why Paul couldn’t join the rest of the band at Oliver’s last appearance for the CRS and both Oliver and Paul wanted to return to the CRS as soon as Paul had fully recovered. Oliver and Paul opened up the evening with a half hour of pure magic. Oliver had brought along his trusty Yamaha Piano and Paul provided the vocals and acoustic guitar accompaniment. The set was opened with a shortened version of “GLIMMER OF LIGHT” from the Jabberwocky album and this was followed by IF YOU’RE LEAVING, the first of three tracks from Mother’s Ruin. The next track was my daughter Fiona’s favourite song from The Hound of the Baskervilles album PICTURE OF A LADY. Oliver explained that the next piece of music was something of an experiment and that he wasn’t sure at first if he should include it in the set or not, but then he had decided to try it anyway and we where treated to what could best be described as a “Bluesy swing type” song called BUSY GOING NOWHERE. Now I don’t admit to being a particular lover of Blues, but after listening to this song I have to admit it was fantastic and I was swept away with it. I hope that this song will get included in a future album at some point and that Oliver can spend some more time exploring this particular genre of music. Anyway back to the performance, and the next track was the second from the Mother’s Ruin album the title track MOTHER’S RUIN. After this the boys ended their set with the third track of the evening from Mother’s Ruin WALK AWAY. Like I said at the beginning of this review, “All good things come to those who wait” and this evening proved this old proverb true. I hope that we will be able to see a lot more of this kind of performance from Oliver and Paul in the future as I think the format worked very well. Also I'm looking forward to the new year when Oliver will return to the CRS with his full band. Thanks Guy’s for an enjoyable show and thanks also to Martin Hudson and the CRS. Phil Hudson

All photos by Phil Hudson