The Fraud Band @ Chaplins Cellar Bar 8.11.2018

Great night at Chaplins Cellar Bar, tonight it was Palisades and The Fraud Band, two local bands. Palisades were first on stage, a three piece featuring singer-guitarist Ronnie Mayor formally of The Tours and Biz Internationale and bassist Mark Pickfield of Shy Boys. The Palisades delivered a nice set of catchy indie pop tunes, you could tell they were experienced musicians, their sound was clean and nicely delivered. Sadly, we didn't really get a chance to listen as we'd been joined by a particularly drunk chap who'd introduced himself as an Apache from Alaska, nice fellow, though very intense and distracting as he recounted bloody aspects of Apache history and 'our' part in it. Up next head-liners The Fraud Band, a tidy three piece beat combo of Bob Redman on guitar and vocals, Kevin Roberts on bass and Andy Hancock on drums. The Fraud do a lovely line in souther rock infused blues and the do it with gusto, Bob is an excellent guitarist, and the Kev and 'Hank' are no slackers themselves. Smashing evening of top notch music, one complaint....The Fraud Band don't play out and about enough, and that really needs rectifying.

The Fraud @ Chaplins & The Cellar Bar 21.4.2016

The Fraud are a local three piece (although I'm sure there were four in the clips I saw online) and were playing a bandstand evening along The cool grey 4 and Isle of Wight rockers Badow. I came upon The Fraud through a recent friendface post, one of the few good aspects of social media, I had a look at a couple of their youtube posts and thought, yeah. Chaplins was going to be their first gig, and I thought I'd take a gander.

Well, I wasn't disappointed, on the contrary. You'd never have guessed that this was The Frauds first live performance, they exuded confidence and competence from the first note, playing a nice tight set which gave the impression they'd being playing together for years. The Fraud play a blues/rock type ting and do so with enthusiasm and a huge does of professionalism. The lead guitar, who noodled and slid very nicely indeed, looked nervously around the room, as if expecting to be dragged off at any moment, I don't know why, as with all the bands members he was very proficient in his art. The bass player, who looked like a scruffy James May (from Top Gear) laid down some nice bass lines, as well as pulling some great faces as he connected with his other band members and the crowd. Humour, man, you've got love humour. The drummer was powerful, man, beating the crap out of his kit, and that's not a criticism, his drumming really driving the tracks along. Nice! With three bands on the list, the Fraud only had the opportunity for a shortish set, but it certainly gave you a flavour and left you wanting more, I for one would have enjoyed a longer set. All in all a great performance from a group of talented and proficient young performers, and if this is what they can do from the get go, then, man, they've certainly got potential...lots of potential, and are well worth looking out for.  I'm looking forward to catching them again.

A little note about the venue. I'm often heard to lament the lack of small venues in the area, and I have to be honest, I'd overlooked Chaplins for years, to my detriment.  Chaplins and the Cellar Bar is a great little venue, nicely laid, populated (at least on this evening) by nice types and friendly staff. My oversight noted, I'll be keeping an eye out for events here.