From Deventer to a gig at the Theater de Mythe in Goes, Holland on Thursday, with Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings travelling by bus after leaving late morning. The tour bus stopped at a motorway services at lunch, with Bill giving a 15 minute phone interview with a Belgium national newspaper. The journalist said he’d travelled three hours last night to Deventer to see the concert, and have loved every minute of the performance.

After arriving at the Hotel Goes, Bill joined Tony, Terry and Beverley for a late lunch in the hotel restaurant. After sorting out his stage clothes, Bill travelled to the Theater de Mythe by bus, heading onto the stage at 8pm to a sold-out crowd who were all seated. The first set changed the sit-down mood, with I Got A Woman (Georgie) being an appetiser for the main course. The first set included Sweet Soul Music (Beverley), Jump Jive And Wail (Albert), Maggie's Farm (Geraint), Too Late (Terry), Everytime I Roll The Dice (Albert), All Night Long (Bill), Three Cool Cats (Georgie), Chicken Shack Boogie (Geraint), I'll Be Satisfied (Beverley), That's Rock & Roll (Albert), and You Never Can Tell (Bill).

With the crowd now warmed up and applause ringing through the theatre, Bill and the band took a short break before bouncing back with It's A Man's World (Beverley), I'm Ready (Albert), My Toot Toot (Georgie), Just Your Fool (Frank), Race With The Devil (Terry), I Just Wanna Make Love To You (Beverley), Hit The Road Jack (Georgie), That's Better For Me Baby (Terry), Johnny B Goode (Geraint), Just For A Thrill (Georgie), and Honky Tonk Women (Bill). By now the crowd were on their feet and clapping wildly, with the band performing several encores before finally retiring backstage.

No real rest for Bill or the band, however, as the next day it was back on the tour bus to travel to Antwerp, checking in to the Ramada Plaza Hotel before grabbing a late lunch. After spending some time checking email and catching up with work, Bill got ready and headed down to the hotel lobby, bumping into his old cricket friend Jack Richards and chatting for a while.

Bill and the rest of the band headed to the Hof Ter Lo (Borgerhout) for the evening’s performance, with a support band on before Bill Wyman’s took over at 9:30 to play a reduced 90 minute set to a stand-up audience. The set was I Got A Woman (Georgie), Sweet Soul Music (Beverley), Jump Jive And Wail (Albert), Too Late (Terry), All Night Long (Bill), Three Cool Cats (Georgie), Chicken Shack Boogie (Geraint), You Never Can Tell (Bill), It's A Man's World (Beverley), I'm Ready (Albert), My Toot Toot (Georgie), Just Your Fool (Frank), That's Rock And Roll (Albert), Race With The Devil (Terry), I Just Wanna Make Love To You (Beverley), Johnny B Goode (Geraint), Just For A Thrill (Georgie), and Honky Tonk Women (Bill). A couple of encores rounded-off the concert.

A review of the concert was sent through [Bill’s corrections are in brackets]:

Review (3.2.10) said: “He was called The Silent Stone at the time, the slender bassist played for decades in the rock ’n roll circus of the Rolling Stones. Ever since the beginning Wyman and C Watts had formed the heartbeat of a rhythm section that created the band’s rhythm in a modest and particularly efficient way for the flamboyant Glimmer Twins Jagger and Richards. In ’93 he left the Greatest Rock ‘n Roll Band In The World after forty [31 - Bill] years. In the meantime he wrote a nice autobiography with the appealing title ‘Stone Alone’, a fascinating inside account of his adventurous life with the Rolling Stones. ‘Shoots of Chagall’ [Wyman Shoots Chagall - Bill] presents Wyman as a talented photographer. Living a life of ease was not Wyman’s cup of tea and in ’97 the pensionable musician started the Rhythm Kings, together with producer and guitarist Terry Taylor. It is a collective of renowned British musicians who dig American roots Music.

In ’85 Wyman had already been involved in a similar project, ‘Willy and The Poor Boys’ which included British icons Paul Rodgers, Jimmy Page and Andy Fairweather Low. Wyman wrote Blues Oddysey’, his archeological search of his musical roots, subtitled  ‘A Journey To Music’s Heart and Soul’.

What better way to express this than by the music of the Rhythm Kings? The regular line-up has been the same for a long time: guitarist/producer Terry Taylor, drummer Graham Broad, Georgie Fame and Nick Payn, who guides the horn section. This line- up is sporadically adorned by names such as Peter Frampton and Eric Clapton. Only a few weeks ago they were still on the road  with Mick Hucknall. However, there weren’t any  special guests due at Hof ter Loo, which accounted for the somewhat small attendance. And they didn’t need any special guests, because the Rhythm Kings have enough class of their own to make a musical trip into a musical era in which R&B, soul, blues and of course rock ‘n roll are entwined.

Sunshine Concerts, an organisation that operates with the credo The Future of Music is 'live’ suits the action to the word and James king very proudly introduces Bill Wyman’s Rhythm Kings.

Georgie Fame plays fragments of The Bee Gees ‘Words’ and follows with a fabulous Ray Charles ‘I Got A Woman’ on his Hammond organ. The gospel R&B classic ends in a hot-blooded ‘It’s Alright’. It is the introduction of Beverley Skeete, she is a great woman indeed, this gracious black pearl. Her question “Do you like soul music?” is immediately answered with Arthur Conley’s ‘Sweet Soul Music’. Just like he did with the Stones Wyman lives up to his reputation of being a zombie: we only see his hands moving, balancing on the bass chords. Hidden behind his dark shades he watches the show rather timidly. Frank Mead exchanges his tenor sax  for the Mississippi horn in Little Walter’s ‘Too Late’. Later in the first set he dusts off ‘I’m Just Your Fool’, supported by Terry Taylor’s poisonous guitar riffs.

Cajun is also on the menu and the so-far invisible Geraint Watkins shows his dynamic accordion in Clifton Chenier’s  ‘All Night Long’. Both sax players sound like steamboat horns on the Mississippi and Beverly acquits herself well too. After the soft Latin groove ‘Three Cool Cats’, Watkins is in full swing on his piano in ‘Chicken Shack Boogie’. Wyman opens his mouth for the first time by telling what a great musician Chuck Berry is, but as a human being Berry is ‘an asshole’, as Wyman found out upon meeting Berry.  Yet “You Never Can Tell’ sounds fantastic with a barrelhouse piano and a great horn section. Walls come tumbling down when Albert Lee introduces his finger-picking devils in several rock ‘n roll songs, Taylor is not doing bad at  Gene Vincent’s  ‘Race With The Devil’.

There is another mesmerizing version of ‘I Just Wanna Make Love To You’, the Muddy Waters blues classic once played by the young Rolling Stones and Etta James. The energetic version of Skeete is of the same order. After a bizarre ‘Johnny B Goode’ with a hilarious introduction by Watkins, the diva proves her vocal class with a exorcizing ‘It’s A Man’s Man’s World’. The beautiful ‘Just For A Thrill’: more Ray Charles repertoire discovered by Wyman. The jazz song Lil Armstrong [Louis Armstrong’s wife – Bill] is voiced sublimely by Fame and is a great organ tune. All of this doesn’t really apply to Wyman, who has saved his breath for a powerful ‘Honky Tonk Woman’’. Wyman may not be a great singer but with the help of his band he is able to do a pretty good version.

There are some encores with a remarkable ‘I Put A Spell On You’, in which Skeete shows the elasticity of her vocal chords quite abundantly. After the exuberant, fast-running country picking rockabilly tune ‘Tear It Up’ the  lights are switched back on, the Rhythm Kings and the Silent (?) Stone say goodbye to a grateful audience.