Three Men and Black

It’s the first time I’ve seen the acoustic supergroup Three Men and Black and it seems a great idea get three accomplished musicians from a bunch of bands also on the bill or your mates and then front the thing with Pauline Black from The Selector and play a bunch of everybody’s hits.

They start with ‘Too Much Pressure’ and usual band members Bruce Foxton (The Jam), JJ Burnell (The Stranglers) and Jake Burns (Stiff Little Fingers) are busy. How gutting no SLF or The Jam tunes are going to get an airing! And we already have two incarnations of The stranglers playing this weekend. So Eric Falkner (Bay City Rollers) and Nick Welsh (The Selecter, Bad Manners) are joined instead by Dave Sharp (The Alarm) and it’s an old Alarm number up next ‘The Stand’ before a dedication to the late Syd Barrett and ‘See Emily Play’ and for some of the audience the song is lost on them.

The Selector influence comes to the fore with ‘Missing Words’ an old blues standard ‘Hard Travelling’ is followed by a new song ‘Radio Heaven’ and the radio theme, this being the Radio Two stage is carried further with ‘On My Radio’ before they name check Woody Guthrie and play a lonesome road song as all acoustic supergroups must!

We’re not wearing tartan for the BCR anthem ‘Shang-a-lang’ and it seems they still have a fair few fans in the crowd. I wonder if they’ll play Guilfest in the future? The final record is dedicated to another recently deceased musical star, Desmond Dekker and ‘Israelites’.

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