[nodmod]

The Peter Green Splinter Group at Fairfield Halls, Croydon, UK 27-10-2002-10-28

I had wanted to go and see The Peter Green Splinter Group for a long time now, and finally managed to see them on Sunday night. The Peter Green Splinter Group (PGSG) was billed with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, so the crowd were in for a treat with two English blues wizards playing their stuff in one performance.

PGSG kicked off the show with the a Peter Green vocal on the song “Big Change Is Gonna Come”, the vocal mix was either quite poor or Peter’s vocal were beginning very low and uneasy to hear, next up was a Fleetwood Mac classic “I Believe My Time Ain’t Long” again with Peter on lead vocal. Next up was “Running After You” again with Peter on vocals, but also on a lovely sounding harmonica. Peter repeated this on “Real World” and then Nigel Watson performed vocal duties on “Little Red Rooster”. The following track was a John Mayall Bluesbreakers staple song “The Stumble” again with Nigel Watson on vocal. Nigel continued in the vocal dept with “Shadow At My Door” with Peter now concentrating on his Guitar playing.

But after thinking ‘Greeny’ had handed the show over to Nigel, we were dumbfounded to hear Peter Green perform an awesome instrumental rendition of “Man Of The World”, whilst in the Fleetwood Mac groove PGSG treated the audience to a rendition of “Need You Love So Bad” which Nigel and Peter shared vocal duties. Again the Fleetwood Mac legacy continued with Peter’s fabulous guitar playing on “Black Magic Woman”. The set was wound up with “Stop Breakin Down” and sadly no encores as it seemed PGSG only had an hour set and had to make way for John Mayall Bluesbreakers.

John Mayall’s band played an hour and 45 minute set, which I thought, was a little too long, the performance should have been evenly split between PGSP and John Mayall. It was also a shame that there was no jamming between John Mayall and Peter Green.

All in all it had been a worthwhile concert and it was great to see a healthy Peter Green playing again. Not sure if his vocal is still there, as I said it may have been a poorly set up microphone, but the guitar certainly is.

The tour merchandise on sale was a Tour Program, T-Shirt and two CDs, one was “Time Traders” and the other was the limited edition “Blues Don’t Change”