Although I am of the right generation (the one that not only failed to die before it got old, but persists in dressing like a teenager and going to rock’n’roll gigs), I can’t claim to a deep knowledge and love of the music of Ian Hunter, or indeed Mott the Hoople, the hit singles apart.
So beyond Once Bitten, Twice Shy and the encores of Roll Away The Stone and All The Young Dudes, much here was less than familiar to me. But many of my peers hold Hunter in high regard, and a septuagenarian still strutting his stuff deserves respect. I think his last appearance in the city was at King Tut’s, so the healthy crowd in this much bigger space suggests an upward trajectory for the Indian summer of his career.
In defiance of the ill-health that curtailed his partnership with Mick Ronson, whom he has now long outlived, Hunter looks like a man 20 years younger, even if never taking your sunglasses off was always an astute move from that point of view. When he steps out from behind the piano after a few opening numbers and begins strumming an acoustic with gusto, he is as energetic as the rest of his sextet, which includes a Les Paul-wielding lead guitarist who has the guitar tone of Mott’s Mick Ralphs down to a T, or, perhaps more likely, an E.
There are shades of Springsteen’s E Street Band too, in his Rant Band, during a value-for-money set. But it is those 70s hits at the end that most want to hear, especially the home-choreographed girls, recreating the Thunderthighs of fetid memory.
