This show is part of The Flamin’ Groovies European tour to celebrate the 50th birthday of their seminal Shake Some Action single and album with San Francisco’s premier garage rockers still being led by founder member Cyril Jordan alongside Atom Ellis, Tony Sales, Sean Fitzsimmons and Miki Rogulj, With support from Italian garage rockers The Peawees and London based Power poppers Music City.
I arrived about halfway through new London based Irish power-pop band Music City’s opening set they had some cool harmonies and some nifty guitar from Jez Leather on The Conversation, Conor was spilling his guts about what went wrong on You Remember with his vocals twisting and harmonising with Fiachra’s twin lead vocals. They expanded to a six piece for the final two songs, Common Sense had some good advice for lovers struggling to get along, this set went down well.
The main support came from Spaghetti rockers The Peawees from La Spezia, who are celebrating 30 years together this year with a box set Food For My Soul. From the moment The Peawees hit the stage they were a non-stop adrenaline fuelled machine, with Herve sounding like he was the prefect cross of Robert Gordon with Josh Homme, with great riffs while they moved all over the stage, I loved there cover of The Remains Don’t Look Back they nailed it. Wild About You was totally intense with Herve giving us all a real mean look. The Wolf was lean mean and, on the prowl, looking for action.
The Peawees @ 229 The Venue, London UK - 2026.09.19 © Pauline Di Silvestro - All rights reserved - www.paulinedis.com
Plastic Bullets had plenty of edge and Andrea’s shot gun drumming fueling the energy they were pumping out. Don’t Knock At My Door was a great kiss-off, Herve gave the impression he was not looking for another go round. They rammed home the point on You’ll Never Be Mine Again that sounded far too upbeat for the message it was delivering. The taut garage rock of Justify led them to Walking Through My Hell to make crystal clear they had moved on.
Herve sang By My Side solo and it was full of pain and anguish, the rest of the band came back on to blast through Road To Rock & Roll that was full of fist pumping energy they closed by rampaging through Food For My Soul with one of the guitarist jumping off of the 6-foot-high stage into the audience while nailing his solo it was in impressive end to a brilliant tight set.
The Flamin’ Groovies were welcomed to the stage with huge cheers with Cyril Jordan introduced the first song as being an old blues number as they launched into Tampa Red’s classic Don’t You Lie To Me that was sung by stone cold drumming legend Tony Sales whose microphone sounded like it was set up for backing vocals rather than lead vocals, but Cyril took his first solo on his plexiglass guitar that sounded suitably magical. Cyril welcomed us all and seemed overjoyed to be back in London once more as they grooved through You Tore Me Down with all its bittersweet lyrics and Cyril, Sean and Miki’s guitars working off of each other.
They took on the Texan blues classic Married Woman with Cyril warning us of the dangers of getting caught in the act, Randy Newman’s Have You Seen My Baby kept on the infidelity theme with some intricate guitar from Cyril who was certainly enjoying himself, he then told his story of discovering The Beatles in 1963 and how they inspired his guitar playing, before covering The Beatles Misery that managed to be a great choice, with Atom’s bass adding depth. Cyril told us he really liked the bands Now album while introducing Don’t Put Me On that had a good rave up feel.
The Flamin' Groovies @ 229 The Venue, London UK - 2026.09.19 © Pauline Di Silvestro - All rights reserved - www.paulinedis.com
Cyril thanked Chris Wilson for writing I’ll Cry Alone which was the slowest song they played. Cyril told us they were an open-minded band with songs against drugs like Sudden Death and songs for drugs like Between The Lines as he mock snorted some Cocaine before Tony Sales sang it, this time with his microphone properly turned up, while they got properly frazzled. Please Please Girl was full of begging and pleading and super nifty guitarwork. They took a look at the nostalgia industry on Yesterday’s Numbers before getting the whole of 229 singing along to Shake Some Action that was a total rave up.
They closed the set with Teenage Head a song that sounds slightly off being sung by a man in his late 70’s, no matter how great a song it is. They had done more than enough to get an encore and came back on and tore through Jumpin’ In The Night that let Cyril play one more cracking guitar part before they said goodnight.
Live review of The Flamin’ Groovies @ 229 London by Simon Philips on 19th September 2026. Photography by Pauline Di Silvestro.
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