"We like to see how many people we can fit on a stage at any one time..."

...says Idan Rabinovici of Strange Folks...."the most we've ever managed is 16, tonight there's just 7."

And 7 works just fine for me, it's a good number, it sounds good on paper, it sounds awesome to the ear (although I'd love to see 16 of them play together). It was a fantastic show last night, its a simple as that.

Before I delve further, today I wrote out on a postit note all the things I wanted to put in the blog tonight, and I left it on my desk in the office...so I'm working off the memory banks, which is risky.

Back to business. The guys played a set of 7 songs last night including one of my top 3 songs of the moment "Jared's Blues". I absolutely adore this song, I can't tell you exactly why apart from musically it's just perfect and it resonates with me. It's been on in the car, on the iPod, just about everywhere, infact as I type this I have the video playing on youtube. It seems from the video that the place was dead in this video but when they broke out into Thinking Cap, the place seemed to completely change with people dancing all over the place. Videos of the entire set are on my youtube channel (which is in the sidebar - i love writing that, I sound like a pro).

The real shame of the evening was that the set went by so quickly. Half an hour just doesn't seem long enough, and the camera had plenty of room for more videos and the battery was up for the challenge too.

As my friend big Dave S said last night, "some raw bands beat the hell out of their instruments trying to outplay the rest of the band, these guys are just so comfortable playing as a band that it just works amazingly well...they have a great sound." - He knows what he's talking about and I know this because he turned to me at one point and said that it reminded him a bit of Cat Stevens or Yusuf as he's now known. Turns out the gig guide on this website agrees.

So I knew going last night, that it was going to be their last gig in London, but now I know why. They're heading back to Israel to act as support to an American band who are touring there next month (the name escapes me, I think it was something...river - I needed a postit note then too). What I didn't know was that the guys had to go back because of visas too. That's sad in a big way, but Idan and Roy tell me they'll be back in the late Autumn / early Winter and that is great news.

So from a humble fan to a great set of musicians...guys thank you so much for 3 brilliant nights of music and two brilliant CDs. Safe trip back to the holy land and see you in a few months.

Musically this last few weeks has really proved my point, if you don't go out and listen to live music and support it, well then there's a good chance you'll miss out on great music, just as I might have had I opted not to make it to Monkey Chews that night.

Night all xxx

PS. - I can now clarify something that people keep asking me about the whole Roy Rieck and the Medley Band and Strange Folks two bands in one thing. Here's the crack, its exactly the same set of guys, except the lead singers alternate between Roy Rieck (Medley Band) and Idan Rabinovici (Strange Folks) AND yes, they play two different sets of music and they actually sound somewhat different.