Dan Reed Network Level 3 Swindon 11-03-16



First up at the charity fundraiser for Fatboys Cander Charity for Children was The Lawless who included on drums Mike Rees from the charity.

They played a tight set of covers that included Saxon's Strong Arm Of The Law,Deep Purple's Black Night,Joe Walsh's Rocky Mountain Way and Queen's Tie Your Mother Down with Mott The Hoople's All The Young Dudes and Motorhead's Bomber as encores.

With some excellent female vocals from Angie and some superb guitar playing they went down a storm.

Between bands the charity auction included a signed AC/DC picture,a signed Jimmy Page picture, a holiday in Spain,a days ferreting and a bird table all raising money for the charity.
In fact with ticket sales,a raffle and the auction the amount raised was a fantastic £12000 beating the previous best by £4000 so well done all.

The previous year Dan Reed had played a solo acoustic set for the charity but this was a full blown electric Dan Reed Network show.I had only ever seen them once before supporting Bon Jovi at Wembley Arena way back on January the 2nd 1990 so this was going to be good.

It was way better than that seeing international artist's in a pub in Swindon at such close quarters was life reaffirming.

For an hour and 40 minutes we were rocked,funked and sang our hearts out with a band that are as good as it gets in the live setting.

Here is what they played.(but no Baby Don't Fade or Long Way To Go as an encore)




The band were simply phenomenal.Drummer Dan Pred laid down a powerful groove for the rest of the band to play over.Keyboards were by Rob Daiker and the 2 guitarist's were amazing.
Bass by Melvin Brannon II and guitars by Brion James.

In over 30 years of gig going I struggle to think of seeing such an amazing chemistry between the two and also Dan and just think how we all missed out when they didn't play together for over 20 years.

Brion's guitar playing went from rocking out to funk to jazz to soul and all played with subtle changes and I was fortunate enough to be handed a pick as the gig ended.Sir thank you.

Every song was sang back by the crowd with a real gusto and the band were having a ball and Dan never stopped dancing and his crowd interaction was wonderful.

No highlights it all was and the song new song Divided from their new album out in June on Frontiers was superb.Great chorus and more rock leanings in the riff with Dan saying it was about their thoughts on Donald Trump's haircut.

As the gig ended Mike Rees said the only way to top this was to invite them back next year.

Here's hoping.

Stunning.































































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