Mott The Hoople
London Hammersmith Apollo
6th October, 2009

The closing eve of the Hoople five-night 40th anniversary stand saw Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott and The Quireboys warm up the crowd with an 11-song set of Mott solo numbers, including a snappy Overnight Angels, plenty of Shouting And Pointing, and a couple of bows from Spike. The sextet went down a Storm, and the answer to Who Do You Love was obvious as the place shook to Cleveland Rocks, the penultimate salvo in a sweet 55- minute filmed set. The main attraction played double the number of tunes over 130 minutes, building the crescendo of Rock’n’Roll Queen into a wall of sound on One Of The Boys, before braking with Sucker and an acoustic spot taking in Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. Other non-MTH material was less vital, but I Wish I Was Your Mother had Hunter on rockin’ harmonica, the Rock’n’Roll Circus continued into a Sweet Angeline and catchy Walking With A Mountain, before the backing chorus filled out The Golden Age Of Rock’n’Roll, Honaloochie Boogie and a cracking All The Way From Memphis. Encores included the upbeat Roll Away The Stone and All The Young Dudes, with Saturday Gigs rounding out a splendid Tuesday, while Hunter concluded, “we’ll see you again”. Let’s hope so!