Spike & Friends at Cart & Horses London 2025 words and photos by Dawn Osborne

The Cart & Horses has always been a centre for Rock music in East London, but it’s the first time Spike has played here and since it’s below a pub I am sure he feels right at home!

First up is Matty James Cassidy who has been a longtime collaborator with Tyla of The Dogs D’amour, indeed he sounds remarkably like him and writes songs that are not a million miles away from Tyla’s solo stuff. The material is folky with sometimes a Western feeling. Cassidy plays solo with an acoustic guitar and mouth organ that sometimes sounds a bit Bob Dylan. During the performance dry ice begins to rise from a smoke machine and it is somewhat anomalous to see it for such a pared back performance. He plays his new single ‘Tell It To The Ghost’ before observing that it’s out electronically “please stream it day and night together we can beat the system”.

Before ‘How The Beautiful Fall’ from The Balladmongers album ‘Trouble’ that he released with Tyla. Matty also lets slip that a new Balladmongers album is on the way and that it will be called ‘More Trouble’. He finished with ‘Brand New You’ getting the audience to sing along. He appears to be a young man with an old soul and it is a compliment to his talent that, if he’s not teaching the old dogs new tricks, he is at least accepted amongst them.

Spike makes a big fuss before the show when he thinks the set list is missing which is kind of funny as about half way through he deviates from it significantly. It is also funny  when Matty points out that Spike rang him the night before and asked him to learn five Quireboys songs that were not played. But this is Spike, part of his charm is his spontaneity and it’s the reason he is counted amongst the best live frontmen out there. At its best you don’t know what’s coming next and, at its worst it can come across as a little too spontaneous. He certainly keeps his fellow musicians on their toes tonight, including Chris Hellmann guitarist who usually plays his solo gigs with him. This must have been one where even he was tested to the max.

Before Spike came on Nigel Mogg and Chris Johnstone came on to introduce him and Nigel said “You thought you were getting Spike and Chris, but you’re getting Nigel and Chris” and everyone cheers. Spike is quickly on stage thanking them and remembering dearly departed Quireboy Guy Bailey.

The solo shows are not just about music, but also comedy and it’s not long before Spike is complaining that Nigel has drawn “cocks” on his lyric book and is telling tales about Chris Heilmann’s love life (involving a Cadbury’s Flake girl who left Heilmann for Roger Taylor of Queen) making everyone including Heilmann cry laughing.

Spike holds up his song book and, indeed there are liberal sketches of genitalia passim. He tries to get his carnation off to give it to a fan on the first row and he can’t get it off his lapel. “I’m as weak as a kitten!”. He takes the mickey about the age of the audience and asks people how their hip operation went, saying his own is coming up. He says many people met their other half at a Quireboys show and when people tell him if it wasn’t for The Quireboys they wouldn’t have another half or 5 kids Spike says “I have to say sorry mate!”. He also tells an anecdote about a major rockstar, his wife and a famous Hard Rock manager which I will not repeat save to say it had everyone straining to hear every word. After telling the audience to think of him when they are making love Spike announces here’s a song called ‘Sex Party’ (the Quireboys Classic). This gets a huge cheer, but he goes on to play ‘You and I’ from the new album. This was after ‘Raining Whiskey’ also from ‘Wardour Street’. Spike mentions the country and western version with Ronnie Wood. All this and we’re only on the third song!

Then Spike does a block of songs from his work as The Geordie Rogues including ‘Drink Is The Ruination of Man’ and a sad song about the pit ponies. Peppered with stories about his families history in the Northeast including how coal was being sent from Australia to Newcastle without use of the usual  proverb! All this takes some time and is certainly different from the usual Quireboys show!

At this point Matty James Cassidy joined them for a Dogs D’amour song ‘How Come It Never Rains’. Spike introduced him as the guy who kept me up till 5am talking, when Matty adds in a quiet voice ‘I remember it slightly differently.’ We also get an impromptu version of the story when Chris Heilmann who does look a bit like Chris Holmes once was almost thumped by Lita Ford who was on the war path for the latter WASP guitarist her husband at the time and mistook Heilmann for him, made all the more funny as they are both called Chris so that when she said ‘You’re not Chris!’ He said “I am Chris, but perhaps not the one you’re looking for”.  (Apparently all completely true!). We do come round to Tyla again when Spike shares with us his ‘best’ review ever for the album he did with Tyla as The Hot Knives’ from Classic Rock “Two shit singers from two shit bands give us one shit album”. At lease he can also send himself up as well! When the crowd starts to sing the song and gets ahead of him he says “Hey I’m the singer, well I used to be. Nigel and Chris are you firing me. I’ve been fired from the band before you know.” (Again and startlingly also completely true although Nigel and Chris were not in the band at the time and did not do the dirty deed).

We get onto a rousing version of The Animals ‘House Of The Rising Sun’ and a Tom Jones cover ‘I’ll Never Fall In Love Again’. With all the chat it’s not a quick process, we are already past half ten when the band are meant to finish and the last half of the set list is not even attempted. Spike spots Johnny Barracuda and Bomber from the Soho Dukes in the audience and calls them up for some of their songs. Chris Heilmann relinquishes his acoustic guitar to Bomber, but he is a bassist and has no clue how to play the song on a guitar. Spike leaves Barracuda to sing while he attempts to make Bomber a stage worthy guitarist in a 3 second visual only tutorial. It does not go very well.

Cue another story about someone throwing a pint of beer over Nigel Mogg saying “Your Bass Player’s a C*nt!” With the punchline being Guy Bailey’s return “Don’t you call that c*nt a bass player”.

Time has run out the other Quireboys songs on the set list not attempted. Without any apparent sense of irony Spike takes the stage alone to do an acoustic version of ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want.’ Earlier in the show Spike had shouted ‘If you want your money back go and see Nigel.” (It being notoriously hard to get a penny out of Moggy at the best of times). The final song is Spike doing a cover of ‘Streets of London’ reminiscing about the time he moved to London at 16.

Being cross at Spike for not observing a set list, or doing what he said he would, is like complaining about water running through your hands or the sun for shining. What’s for sure is that tonight’s performance was unique. Was it the finest playing I had ever seen. No, the band was trying to play on shifting sands, but was it a performance I will never forget – Absolutely! I imagine that on his deathbed Spike won’t be worrying about how many things he didn’t do, but will be remembering all the mad things he did. Still the most entertaining frontman around. Maybe he can come back next year and do the rest of the songs on the list!

Dawn Osborne