Mike Peters @ The Wedgewood Rooms 11/04/05

The Alarm are generally regarded as the band that were a bit like U2 but not as good nor as successful. Excellent live but never able to reproduce that sound on record, hampered by band in-fighting, let-down by record company machinations and, as Mike Peters mentions on his website, not helped by being welsh. They had it all against them, despite teaching Bono how to play Knocking On Heaven's Door.

These days Mike Peters keeps the flame of The Alarm alive by selling his wares direct from his website to a dedicated fan-base. The current acoustic tour is to plug an 8 DVD compilation of live performances from the Alarm-based festival he runs annually in Wales. These 'Gatherings' started small but now sell out.

Unfortunately it became clear from updates to the Wedgewood Rooms website that this gig wasn't going to be anywhere near sold out. When it says there's 'unreserved seating' it implies so few tickets have been sold that tables will be unfolded to fill up space. The additional "no support" tag didn't help any either.

Thus it was with a slight downbeat "oh well, there's a bar" air that we found ourselves in the Wedge on a murky Monday night. And yes, there were tables filling the venue, but they were all full. The candles gave the proceedings an intimate feel whilst on-stage a video screen showed snippets of previous Gathering concerts as a warm-up. So far, so good.

When Mike Peters appeared on-stage, looking slightly nervous and with spikier hair than he had any right to own, he informed us that it was to be a gig of two halves, with a short interval. This explained the lack of support act.

The first set was taken up with a sprinkling of more recent songs, with only the odd old tune in between. Also, as this was an 'interactive' tour, the songs had been chosen by visitors to his website. Mike dedicated these but, it must be said, seemed rather uncomfortable doing so. He only really came alive between tunes when recalling a rock'n'roll anecdote; for instance explaining how When The Ravens Left The Tower was inspired by The Alarm's bass player, self-medicated to the gills, watching nothing but a tourist TV loop in a hotel room for a weekend.

The evening's first half wrapped up nicely with The Stand. During the interval we were treated to more Gathering footage, including the classic 68 Guns. We also met some Alarm "groupies", one of whom had come all the way from Bedford just to see her hero. And she'd dragged her mates along as well, which was nice.

In the second set a now slightly more relaxed Mr Peters rolled out the old favourites. Rain In The Summertime sounds so much better live than on record (where it suffered from 80's over-production). It also helped that the crowd had raided the bar in the interval so we all were freer and easier when it came to singing along. Things moved up a gear with the raucous Absolute Reality, after which came the bizarre appearance of a Prince cover.

Then it was into the final stretch with Rescue Me, Spirit Of '76 and 68 Guns (which, to be honest, I didn't think he'd play, it having been part of the interval entertainment). There was a brief respite from the singalongs with the mournful Walk Forever By My Side, then everyone joined in with Blaze Of Glory to draw the evening to a close. Well, nearly to a close.

After singing his guts out for two hours he was out of the stage door and into the crowd for much taking of photos and signing of autographs. And there, forever by his side, were the Bedford ladies. Rock'n'Roll eh?