#Wilko johnson age full#
He plays the B side to Really Free, Beware Of The Flowers – or, to give it the full title: Beware Of The Flowers (‘Cos I’m Sure They’re Going To Get You Yeah). This act has netted him a very large, and very dedicated, enduring fanbase.
Every song is really an excuse for a comedic routine and I’ve no complaints there because John Otway really is a genuinely funny, entertaining man. In fact, the performance is as much stand up as it is pure music. It seems appropriate then that he opens the show tonight with that hit single – Otway’s self-deprecating humour to the fore. A succession of flops in fact, a complete failure to impress upon the charts that lasted for decades – hence Otway’s ‘greatest failure’ tagline, which has formed the basis of his shows ever since.
Otway’s childhood dreams of pop superstardom looked to be on the cards.
#Wilko johnson age free#
Otway writhed, tumbled and inadvertently trod on Wild Willy Barrett’s fuzzbox before sealing the deal with a failed jump onto the guitarist’s amp, effectively writing off the equipment, the performance, and Otway’s plumbs in the process.Ī hit single, Really Free followed. Whilst technically the support, if you’re planning on attending this tour, get there early since Otway is brilliant and in truth this show is as close to being a double A side as you can get without it actually being billed as a joint headliner.įor anyone unfamiliar with the work of John Otway, a promising rock/folk/punk career was launched off the back of a classic appearance on the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977. For this spring tour, he is joined by self-styled ‘Rock & Roll’s Greatest Failure’, John Otway. So, roll forward a decade, and Wilko is still out delighting audiences with his Thames Delta R&B. For me, it’s meant that the one person I thought I’d never get on the end of my lens has ended up gracing it more than anyone else – and I couldn’t be happier about it. It’s an amazing tale, one told through the lens of Julien Temple in his life-affirming and deeply moving film, The Ecstasy Of Wilko Johnson. Wilko emerged, free of his pancreas, spleen and a few hundred yards of intestine but more importantly, free of his cancer. In fact, he defied medical expectations playing and recording through the whole of 2013, and in the summer of 2014, he underwent pioneering surgery at Addenbrookes in Cambridge. Well, that was the thinking, but Wilko had other ideas. Not knowing whether I’d be any good at it wasn’t a reason not to give it a try, and whilst obviously, I sadly figured I’d never attain photos of Wilko, I sure as hell was going to try and snap anything else that moved. It gave me a calling to have a go at documenting live music. The dawn of realisation struck that I didn’t have any permanent record of the many Wilko shows I’d enjoyed over the years and that perhaps I ought not to be taking this stuff for granted. Canvey Island’s finest export announced in early 2013 that he was dying of pancreatic cancer, and only had ten months to live. If it weren’t for Wilko Johnson, I wouldn’t be photographing gigs.
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