What a week! Phil Collins on Monday night; Peter Gabriel on Wednesday and now Face Value on Saturday! Not a bad tally really.

I hadn't had the pleasure of seeing Face Value for a while now and it was a pleasure to be able to tag along as extra "roadie" with the band's singer John Wilkinson to this gig. Another salubrious haunt in the deepest West Midlands. This time we had the bonus of a "support" act: Four Leaf Clover who were obviously the local darlings. Frankly they did not look old enough to be on licensed premises let alone playing onstage but fair do's when they finally got on stage they performed a mixed bag of covers and a couple of original tracks which certainly proved that they were more than competent musically.

The crowd for this gig was smaller than I had seen for the guys over recent months. Maybe that was down to Euro 2004, Wimbledon or whatever. However, what was lacking in numbers was more than compensated for by enthusiasm from the word go when the band took the stage with a stunning version of Mama which once again was delivered perfectly.

The band mixed and matched Genesis and Collins classics with ease… Highlights including Another Day In Paradise, Follow You Follow Me; Land of Confusion; I Can't Dance (complete with audience participation dance routine). The performance of Fading Lights was amazing… took me back to the heady days of '92! John's vocal performance was complimented by sterling work by Tony Cole's superb keyboard playing on his ever expanding keyboard rig and the ever excellent Will Smith's faultless guitar work.

The show closed with a trio of classics: Afterglow, Los Endos and the only real show closer for a Face Value gig: Take Me Home… by which time the audience were thoroughly enjoying themselves and my voice and hands were raw from cheering and clapping. An excellent show as always, guys…just the thing to round off an exceptional week!