This show was billed as being a celebration of 50 Years on the lash, a testament to Steve Dior's full on life, as a rock and roll punk maverick, who during the past 50 years has played in bands with everyone from Mick Jones and Chrissie Hynde, to Walter Lure and Jerry Nolan, from Honest John Plain to Sid Vicious while managing to survive all the drugs you could ever want to take, He's back from Mexico apparently clean.
The Stewart Arms is in what used to be known as Norland Market next to the Piggeries, not far from where my Great Grandparents ran a grocers shop a 100 years ago. This old-school, working-class boozer was reasonably packed, on a sweltering hot night, for the all-new Steve Dior quartet.
The show started with the band set up in the corner of the pub, just outside the ladies' loos, with Steve telling us about how his parents sent him off to boarding school and how he rebelled against that sort of privilege, while picking out blues licks on his guitar, while his companero's eased into things.
The first full song was Your Last Kiss that has Steve reminiscing, with the band led by double bassist Gary Bundy, whose striped back playing sadly wasn't always picked up by the microphone in front of his Bass. Steve was joking about how wild the ride he's been on was, before describing one of his great American loves in the next selection The Girl That I Love Don't Wear No Pants that has a cool sleazy edge to what Pete Wassif and Neil Anderson were adding on guitar, that louche laid-back feel.
Steve then made very clear, that he thought we should all stay away from the bottles of Green Poison he was forced to take, while in rehab in the states, Methadone really is a bad drug, unlike his fave heroin, still he found it very funny that the rehab was housed on Jones Way, because he knew he would be Jonesing in no time at all, this still had plenty of danger and sharp wordplay for life on the edge.
It was then time for a couple of love songs Jasmine Beach had a cool breeze feel, no matter how much we were all sweltering, along with some very cool guitar interplay between Steve's acoustic playing and the two electrics backing him. Little Black Book took us back to his Cowboy era and had a good chunk of the audience singing along to this classic.
Steve then told a story about needing to drive from Los Angeles to New York and how he did this fuelled by speed, which was what driving was all about, ah the joys of stoned driving, an under rated pleasure for certain. California Rain would have been welcome, this was laid back and minimally grizzled round the edges. He then closed the first set with a new song that's been written for the album that will accompany his autobiography that he is working on, When It All Goes South reflects on all the things that fall apart, when you really lose the plot, it was like all his songs, heartfelt and totally real.
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Almost everyone spent the break outside the pub trying to cool down ahead of the second set, for which Gary Bundy switched from Double Bass to electric bass, so he could be heard more in the second set that was mainly covers, it opened with a Harmonica Blues that saw Steve blowing some cool notes, before they went into a nicely reverential version of Can't Put your Arms Around A Memory that was followed by tales of hanging out with various New York Dolls/Heartbreakers and covering David Johansen's Heart of Gold this was played nice and slow, with Steve emphasizing the lyrics perfectly while playing much of the song solo on acoustic guitar.
His full quartet was back for Something Else that most of the audience to sang along with, before they played Walter Lure's brilliant Take A Chance, that could have been about Walters alternative career on Wall Street. Of course Steve had to play a Rolling Stones classic or two and chose Playing With Fire that was as loose and louche as they could get it, they kept that vibe when it became You Can't Always Get What You Want that the whole pub joined in with, a wonderful sing along.
It was time to reprise When it All Goes South this time it had more of a country blues feel, before they closed with the London Cowboys absolute classic Hook Line And Sinker that finished just after the curfew and was a fitting end to a fun gig with real rock & roll survivor, I look forward to reading his book when it comes out.
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