Camden Club, London
Sunday, 15th March 2026
Another appointment at the spiritual home of London Prog Gigs, in the convivial surroundings of Camden Club for this matinee album launch gig for Midlands post-punkers Sweetpool.
MALCOLM GALLOWAY
First up is Malcolm Galloway, one half of scene regulars Hats Off Gentlemen It’s Adequate. Solo on piano, the HOGIA songs have an obviously different vibe. There was no mid-air bass shenanigans for starters!
My Clockwork Heart was dedicated to unsung prog hero, Mr London Prog Gigs himself, Chris Parkins. Century Rain, a fabulous song of epic proportions, maintains its immense quality as a sci-fi piano poet ballad, as I knew it would. Quality will out. An emotional stop-start take on the nigh on impossible to reproduce Just Another Thing got to the end with the audience willing Malcolm on through the incredibly personal lyrics. Lovely!
Malcolm ends his set with a sped-up Bohemian Rhapsody, in order to fit it into the time limit. A hilarious singalong ensued! A fab start to the afternoon’s entertainment!
Walking To Aldebaran
Parallel Lives
My Clockwork Heart
The Light of Ancient Mistakes
Between Two Worlds
Century Rain
Just Another Thing
C.R.E.E.P.
I’m Tired and Everything Hurts
Bohemian Rhapsody
Malcolm Galloway – Piano, Vocals
LINKS: Website | Facebook (HOGIA) | Facebook | Bandcamp | YouTube
GREG MCKELLA
The Paradise9 frontman is up next, starting out accompanied by a percussionist and a fiddle player, and ending with a full, mostly acoustic band. Folk-psych vibes aplenty. At the time I was unfamiliar with the material, which was drawn from Gregg’s, as I’ve since discovered, rather fine album, Songs From The Underground, but its laid-back vibes were perfect for the time and the setting.
Keeping the hook-laden currents running through Paradise9 ‘s material, opener New Horizons was a great little toe tapper. For the following All Said And Done, the trio were joined by the vocal charms of Jeanette Murphy, whom I last saw with Paradise9 at a gig with Here & Now last year.
Us blokes in the audience, being of a certain age, were treated to the cautionary tale of Gregg’s diagnosis and subsequent successful treatment for prostate cancer. All praise to the fabulous and essential NHS! Sacred Space features Gregg’s looped glissando guitar adding layers of melancholy to the fiddle. Gregg then adds soprano sax to the tune. All quite lovely!
Guitarist Tyrone Thomas joins in for Time To Go, and three members of Paradise9 are now on stage. Free festival time, with a kinda slowed down motorik beat lurching along. The set ends with the psychedelic folk-drone of Motherless Children, a song that originated with Blind Willie Johnson’s blues stomper, having since been covered/adapted by all and sundry, perhaps most famously by Eric Clapton. Gregg’s take is an altogether looser and more involving affair.
That was a varied and entertaining set! As I said, I’ve since listened to the album, and I recommend it highly.
New Horizons
All Said And Done
Face In The Crowd
Sacred Space
Time To Go
Motherless Children
Gregg McKella – Vocals, Guitar, Saxophone
Wayne Collier – Djembe, Shaker
Mr Eugene – Fiddle
Jeanette Murphy – Backing vocals
Tyrone Thomas – Guitar
SWEETPOOL
I mostly wrote the words for the first two acts’ sets in this review in situ, but there’s no way I would miss the opportunity to dance wildly to Midlands post-punkers Sweetpool, so most of what follows was written after the event!
It only took to the second number to get me up and throwing shapes with my trusty gig companion, although opener Superunnatural is no slouch, charging out of the gate like pack of wolves. No-one Believes Anything Any More has a great shoutalong chorus line that left us breathless. I found myself sitting down after some frantic boogieing to that fine start to the set, ostensibly the album launch show for the banger that is 3AM A Head Of Snakes. This breather is during slower new song Zombie, which is not on new album.
The set included only four songs from the new album, mixed in with older numbers, now familiar to this scribe. It is great to see a prog crowd clearly enjoying this definitely-not-prog tour de force, which goes to show that good music is and should not be confined by unnecessary boundaries.
The motorik rhythm resumes for the lolloping Man In The Castle, and we were up and shimmying again. In case I’m giving the impression that the whole joint was jumping, it was just my companion and I on our feet, later joined by gig organiser Chris Parkins from over on the other side of the room. Looking round the well populated venue there was much enthusiastic nodding of heads and tapping of feet to be seen, and in some cases, what I can only describe as chair dancing.
As ever the unsung hero of this band is drummer Ant Cook, who is a phenomenal powerhouse, keeping the relentless motorik groove going for the best part of an hour. It’s a great exercise regime, as he told me at the end! The other two lock into the groove with consummate ease, Jason holding it down on his Rickenbacker, a lovely instrument much coveted by a mate of mine on our table. Jason had to nail it down at the end of the set. Frontman Nic Beales is a natural under the spotlight, even though he seemed a tad more restrained than I’ve seen him in the past. Must have been the early start, the sun still not having disappeared back under the yardarm by the end! 😉
All in all a great and varied afternoon’s entertainment and a triumph for all concerned. London Prog Gigs keeps putting on fab shows. You should get yourself to one if you haven’t already.
SETLIST:
Superunnatural
Here Are The Stones
No-one Believes Anything Any More
Zombie
Man In The Castle
The Birds Have Flown
Dot Dot Dot
Magic Food
May Not Be American/Back To The Factory
MUSICIANS
Nic Beales – Lead Vocals, Guitar
Ant Cook – Drums, Backing Vocals
Jason Holgate – Bass, Backing Vocals
LINKS: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | YouTube
[Photos: Malcolm Galloway & Sweetpool – Roger Trenwith, Gregg McKella – Roger Trenwth & Rosamund Tomlins]
