tue 12/11/2024

Wilko Johnson, O2 Academy Islington | reviews, news & interviews

Wilko Johnson, O2 Academy Islington

Wilko Johnson, O2 Academy Islington

Time to acknowledge the genius of Canvey Island’s idiosyncratic guitarist?

Wilko and Telecaster: ‘A great Wilko riff motors along like a speeding truck over the roughest terrain.'

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it an amphetamine-fuelled chicken on rollers? No, it’s the one-time guitarist for Dr Feelgood (during the only period that matters) still doing the moves that made him the main reason to see the band in the mid-1970s. Now bald-headed and bushy-browed but still delivering those electrically charged stares (which he learnt to do during a brief stint as a schoolteacher), he had the air of a benevolent dictator last night as he surveyed the Academy’s crowd for would-be assassins to mock-machine-gun with his trusty Stratocaster.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it an amphetamine-fuelled chicken on rollers? No, it’s the one-time guitarist for Dr Feelgood (during the only period that matters) still doing the moves that made him the main reason to see the band in the mid-1970s. Now bald-headed and bushy-browed but still delivering those electrically charged stares (which he learnt to do during a brief stint as a schoolteacher), he had the air of a benevolent dictator last night as he surveyed the Academy’s crowd for would-be assassins to mock-machine-gun with his trusty Stratocaster.

No one goes to see Wilko for his voice. They're there to see the moves and to hear the unique way he brutalises a Fender Stratocaster

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Comments

Nice article Howard but the great man hasn't been playing his Telecaster for a while - it's a trusty Strat these days..

I agree a nice article but without wishing to sound picky I believe Norman Watt-Roy and Dylan Howe still play with the Blockheads

Best review of modern-day Wilko I have read this century. Thanks!

Thanks for putting me right on a couple of things guys. I can't believe I wrote Telecaster rather than Stratocaster - I do know the difference! Oh well.

Has anyone noticed that the persona of the current Dr Who - not least the hairstyle - appears to owe something to Wilko c 1974? That's the way it looks in some publicity pics anyway.

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