Readers of these pages will not be too surprised to know that I’ve been pinching myself since that freezing cold night at the Pickle Factory when I came audience to stage with the remnants of teen heroes and masters of musical mirth, the Bonzo Dog Band. Suffice to say that time has not stood still for everyone else, and the word on the web, and here in Putney, is that the Bonzos are about to yield to the lure of lucre and the fickle mistress of fame, and sign up for a tour in November. Not necessarily the right move, in my very humble opinion, but time, as they say, will tell. And in the mean of time we are here at the Half Moon to see Neil Innes, the only surviving Bonzo to have maintained a successful career since those heady days of the seventies.

And all the while he’s been writing and performing music in a trademark whimsical style, following his own path from Doodahland. His most recent album is last year’s Works in Progress, and it’s a tribute to Innes’ confidence in his own material that he plays all (well I think he does, but you know how it is, Serge, someone spilt beer over my notebook) of the album. It’s funny, but a bit despondent too. Because Innes clearly shares all those frustrations with the Modern World that have come to symptomise Grumpy Old Man syndrome. So he shares his irritation at the perceived lack of intimacy afforded to this modern world by the dominant forms of technology (‘Facemail in the meat zone’) and the way it dominates people’s lives (‘Eye candy’). I didn’t quite get ‘Hero of the motorway’, but reckon it must have been about the nutters who race on our roads at absurdly high speeds with only one visible destination in sight.

Rory Motion and the Drainpipes

I suppose, thinking about it, that Innes has spent much of his life thumbing his nose, or as I prefer, cocking a snook (do you have a phrase for this in your French, Serge? Someone suggested ‘pied au nez’ but I think they were almost putting their foot in their mouth) at the modern world, life and its mores and pretensions. And that reminds me, he’s got an almost secret society called the Ego Warriors, dedicated to fighting these mediocrities wherever they may be found. In fact, I seem to recall swearing their secret oath at some point during the evening (all I can remember is the “so help me Rhonda, help help me Rhonda” bit at the end) so maybe I’m one now.

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