We Are Slady Parts:Slady @ the Water Rats.

Truth be told, I went to see the all female Slade tribute band, Slady, at the Water Rats on Saturday night more as an excuse for a festive jolly, and catch up, with my friends Gary, Stu, and Doug than I did because I was a huge Slade fan.

It's not that I dislike Slade. Not at all. While they're not quite at the level of 70s greats like Bowie, T.Rex, and Roxy Music, they're definitely in that second tier of great pop bands of the era. Just behind Sweet. Probably a few steps ahead of Sailor, Mud, and Showaddywaddy.

Slady's website doesn't give their real names so I'll use their Slade names and it's obvious from the very start that 'Noddy Holder' is the star here, screaming her way through Cum On Feel The Noize (a lively choice as set opener), Look Wot You Dun, and Skweeze Me Pleeze Me and turning the dial down, just a notch, for Coz I Luv You and The Lovin' Spoonful's Darlin' Be Home Soon.

There are some Slade songs you'll remember well, there are others you'll remember on hearing (for me:- Mama Weer All Crazee Now and Take Me Back 'Ome) and there are others you'll have long forgot. Though the seventies was their imperial phase they continued to have hits into eighties and nineties. Think of the likes of Radio Wall Of Sound, My Oh My, the Big Countryesque Run Runaway, and, worst of all, We'll Bring The House Down which reminds me of filing out of a miserable Reading festival on a Sunday evening in 1988 as a pissed up Liz Kershaw screamed it out over the PA.

Slady don't bother with any of those later songs and place themselves, both music and fashionwise, slap bang in the heart of the band's heyday. While Noddy remains the focal point throughout, it's hard not to be drawn to the enthusiasm of bassist 'Dave Hill' who gives it her all too.

Noddy even leads a singalong to her mum, at 53 - a year younger than me, and, of course it being Xmas, they play Merry Xmas Everybody and everyone, pretty much, sings along. The back room of the Water Rats is so packed that some have spilled into the bar and been distracted by the Argentina v Netherlands World Cup quarter final.

Merry Xmas Everybody, perhaps surprisingly, is not the final song of the set. It's followed by Gudbuy T'Jane (the banger Oasis should have covered instead of Cum On Feel The Noize), a raffle (it's a long time since I went to a gig that featured a raffle), and a cover of Bobby Marchan's Get Down And Get With It (to go with an earlier cover of Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild).

Get Down And Get With It was a number sixteen UK hit for Slade back in 1971. It was their first top forty hit but it seemed an unusual choice to end the gig with but then forming an all female Slade tribute band seems quite an unusual choice in the first place.

But it looked a lot of fun. It was fun to be there too. Laughing along, singing along, and drinking a little bit too much in great company. IT'S CHRISTMAS!!

Thanks to Doug, Stu, and Gary and countless others for a great night out and apologies to all that the photos are stock ones rather than from the gig itself. It really was too packed to get any good snaps.