In truth, we in The Picturehouse Big Band don’t usually get many reviews. Sometimes we barely get an audience, and so we were delighted to enjoy both at our longstanding quarterly residency at The Pickerel in the heart of swinging down town Stowmarket.
In attendance was one Carl Allen, author of London Gig Venues, estimable photographer and veteran of the nineties indie wars, where we first came across each other in the white hot crucible of the East Anglian heavy big pop scene, and who only recently found our single in a second hand record shop and snapped it up for - as our singer commented drily - slightly more than it cost at the time.
We had decided to use our sound check time wisely, eschewing the usual run through a couple of verses of Take it Easy and asking - basically - if the PA was on and had invested a couple of weeks in learning some new songs which we could theoretically try out and see if they could successfully make the transition from rehearsal room to pub carpet. It also meant we spent less time smoking in the car park, which at our our collective ages and at this time of year is asking for either a nasty cold or to be hit be a passing Audi.
Turns out that Drive My Car is - as long as you don’t try counting bars in the intro - quite the fillip (such an instant keeper that we did it in the encores). Lady Madonna less so. Still, a creditable effort. And to the set(s) proper, we had both mixed things up a bit and forgotten to print any set lists, which created the dual jeopardy of not quite knowing what was coming next and having to remember whether The Singer was playing a guitar on this one or not. Fortunately The Keyboard Player had programmed all the sounds, in order, on his kit and had a list on his phone and so was able to mouth, mime or shout clues as they came up. A latecomer mentioned afterwards that he’d seen us several times in the past, but hadn’t seen us do any of the songs in the second set before.
The crowd was lively, impressive in scale, and up for a good time. At one point I asked if someone had turned the monitors up as I could hear a great deal of doubling up on the choruses. “No” The Singer remarked, gesturing toward the pub full of folk clamouring for a third encore behind him. “That was them”. Being the last gig of the year for us, we bade everyone a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and steamed off into the night. And so to our review, and to the splendid photographs which Carl had kindly made available by the time I was home and unloaded, which I present herewith.
Picturehouse
The Pickerel, Stowmarket, 7 November 2026.
Being in a covers band is a tough gig. Everyone's heard 'A Crazy Little Thing Called Love', 'Wonderwall' and 'Brown Eyed Girl' belted out in a corner of a pub more than enough times - that's why most cover bands suck. Lack of imagination sticking with the formula.
I'm here in a pub in Suffolk to catch Picturehouse, mainly because I've reconnected in person recently with guitarist Shane Kirk, whom I used to see frequently playing with Ipswich's great late 80s power-pop hopefuls, As Is. In the ache of bands that never made it, As Is, should, coulda..... You get the idea. I saw them in practically every Ipswich and Colchester venue, even a showcase at London's Powerhaus. But I hadn't seen, heard or even photographed Shane on stage for well over 30-years. Maybe the longest gap I've had between seeing an artist!
Shane's traded in his Hohner Les Paul copy for Gibson's real thing, well, it's what we men of a certain age do, spoil ourselves upgrading to the best toys once the kids have passed a certain age.
But enough! Picturehouse start with a stretched out soundcheck that morphs into a try out for new songs, Beatles songs. Apparently the group previously traded as The Star Club playing early era Fab Four songs before they were fab. They sounded pretty faithful, but I'm not really a fan of The Beatles, so let's move on because after a brief break they return and it gets better, much better....
As covers bands like Colchester's The Rezidents and X-Kaminski prove, great cover acts cherry pick the great, choice cuts from an artists back catalogue, rather than just skim off the greatest hits. You want something by The Cars, Talking Heads, Del Amitri or REM, well Picturehouse deliver the great cool songs, not the big hits. They start with 'The Bends' by Radiohead, had it been a faithful version of 'Creep' I would have walked out on the spot.
For me, those left of centre choices makes the band so much more than a wedding function sideshow. I'm surprised and delighted by the band. They have a full sound, but they do have three guitarists, keys, bass and drums, all expertly played. I'm a bit disappointed when my daughter (who I took with me) tells me she's tired and wants to go in the interval. Until we meet again Picturehouse, and I will not leave it another 30-years Shane!
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