A celebration of Spencer Bates

Why, just the other day I was standing behind an elderly lady at the cashpoint machine when she asked me to help check her balance. So I pushed her over.

This Sunday, September 18, is a case in point when eight of the region’s top bands get together at Finns in Weymouth for A Celebration of Spencer Bates: A Wonderful Man, to remember the life of the former Balance of Power drummer.

As I’m sure many of you know, Spencer sadly passed away two weeks ago, aged just 49, after a long battle with motor neurone disease.

During his two-year ordeal with this awful illness, he helped to raise around £40,000 for the Motor Neurone Disease Association, the charity which helped him so much, with a series of fundraising concerts.

Listen to A Litle Piece of Heaven by Blow, featuring Spencer Bates

Now it’s time to say thank you to him and raise as much money as possible for his heartbroken family.

There will be an admission charge of just £1, with collection buckets in the pub throughout the day for any welcome extra donations and ALL proceeds will go to his widow Nicky and their two young boys.

BoP keyboard player Barbara Whiteside has been inundated with offers from bands to play at this fantastic event but there really aren’t enough hours in the day to accommodate them all.

Anyway, here’s the run-down of the runners and riders.

Slither get the party started at 2pm, followed by Reactor at 3pm, Tripod at 4pm, Big Gunz at 5pm, Freezer at 7pm, Marianas Trench at 8pm, Balance of Power at 9pm (with Finns guv’nor Steve having the huge job of filling in for Spencer on drums) and Shooter rounding off a fabulous day at 10pm.

And I’m indebted to Chris ‘Arthur’ Barnes who lent me his copy of Blow’s No Problem album, recorded in Germany back in 1993 and featuring Spencer on drums, Chris’s son Michael on bass, Gren Fraser on guitar, Mike McDaid on keys and Lucy McHugh and Paul Dillon on vocals.

Chris points out that Spencer was not just a mere tub-thumper but also wrote many of the lyrics for this groovy CD full of sophisticated jazz-funk.

And you can hear a couple of the tracks at the online version of this page at dorsetecho.co.uk Now, it may be a few weeks away yet but there should be enough time for the Pavilion to reinforce its floors and ceilings and concrete over its windows ahead of the arrival of Miami death metal monsters Morbid Angel on Saturday, November 19.

Look, I’m no expert, but this lot are MAHOOSIVE with millions of record sales worldwide and axe maniac Trey Azagthoth named ‘best death metal guitarist ever’ by the respected Metal Hammer magazine.

They are only doing four UK dates on their European tour; London, Sheffield, Wolverhampton and the metal capital of the country – Weymouth.

Tickets at £15 in advance are available from the Pavilion box office or online at ticketweb.co.uk And finally, it’s always good news to hear of a pub embracing live music to pull in the punters and the Golden Lion in Weymouth is doing exactly that.

They’ve got rock royalty in this weekend with the awesome ACBBs tonight and the hugely popular Dolmen on Saturday.

Not only that, the pub is launching a jam night on Wednesdays with the Tin Cat house band, featuring Dave Phillips and Paul and Andrew Sundt of Freezer (and formerly Beaver) fame.

As Dave says: “We want to try and create a proper jam night where people come and jam with other members rather than just bring their own bands along and showcasing their stuff.

“We want to try and encourage people to get themselves out of their comfort zones and experiment a bit.

“It’s from 8pm to 11pm.”

And if the boys from Freezer are involved, it can only be matter of time before someone brings along a buffet for the night: Sex and drugs and sausage rolls.

‘Till next week, pop pickers…

Listen to If This is Love by Blow, featuring Spencer Bates