Benefit for Medicins Sans Frontiers
With Morris Windsor. Scott McCaughey on lead vocals on 'Aw Shit Man', 'Cigarettes Coffee And Booze' & 'I Still Miss Someone'. John Paul Jones joined on mandolin from 'Eight Miles High' onwards, & Paul Noble on bass on 'In The Midnight Hour'.

from UniversalTrendsetter.org (Minus 5 fan site):


you thought it was all over, it is now.

We were all sworn to secrecy.

a secret venue somewhere secret (did i mention it was a secret?). It was only a small shindig and friends, family and people who know such people were invited along with their door money going to Medicins Sans Frontiers.

The evening started with Robyn and niece, Ruby Wright doing some guitar and saw numbers, so 'Trains' was played virtually as an instrumental, just an oddly whispered last verse that floated over Ruby's saw. Then it was 'Trams Of Old London'. Scott joined them for a soft rendition of 'Back Room Of The Bar' and that was it as the 18th day took to the 'stage' for a very short set.

No sooner had they left than the main act came on, clustered in the dark corner of the venue with no lights or moniters. Scott having to take of his glasses and still remarking "i can't even see my bass". Morris joined them for pretty much all the set, adding percussion and backing vocals.

Chinese Bones opened the set and then Somewhere Apart and Madonna Of The Wasps... after that it got hazy. Underground Love and Adventure Rocket Ship were played, the latter running right into a blistering cover of Rain, Bill clearly enjoying the drumming intro and break in the Beatles classic. Rhymney was played, that i remember... and then another surprise... a mandolin was seen...
Enter John Paul Jones to play it.
Then it was into 8 Miles High, Peter on 12 string, Robyn on 6 and JPJ on mandolin, played through a loud amp! RH remarked that JPJ had seen the original Byrds play that song in the 60's, somewhere in Putney. There were a few more covers and some RH songs, including Ole Tarantula and then Scott took over for C,C&B and Aw Shit Man as Peter stood next to JPJ and chugged away on bass. Then Scott sang lead for I Still Miss Someone (a johnnny cash cover). Peter stayed on bass for Dylan's Odds And Ends before reverting to guitar for the rest of the set... which went into some odd territory... In The Midnight Hour was played and Scott tried to get Paul Noble (RH cohort and excellent bass player) to take over as her clearly ddin't know the song and spent the entirity of it looking confused, before just laughing at me and shrugging.
I think the final song was Beautiful Queen, but it all was hazy by then... Robyn messed up the middle section and Peter taunted him about it as they restarted. It was also cool to see Peter holding up his guitar so JPJ could see the chords and he also would hold it up to point out tempo changes and when the end of the song was.

Afterwards there was an auction to raise more money and some bloke from Travis paid a lot of money for the Underwater Moonlight production masters.

Joe Boyd was in the audience too... just for more r.e.m. connections.

--Laurence