A few of us had a pre-gig meet up in the Royal George before the gig. There was a great atmosphere in the pub, and a veritable Who's Who of Prog in attendance, with Clive Arena, Lee Galahad, John IQ-Jadis-Frost, Westwood Ho!, John Urbane-Kino, Jem 'Goldenbollocks' Frost, Andy IQ-Frost, Kino artist Paul "Elvis" Tippett, Paddy D and well as well known hangers on and drinkers such as Lexrst, Croydon Mick, Benny Bassboy, Progging Matt Ellis and Croydon Tina. The beer flowed, the stories were flawed and some drinkers floored! Sensibly, Clive stuck to the fizzy water, though when I bought him a litre bottle of the stuff, he did make a comment about having to take a longer than normal whizz-break during the gig!

All to soon it was time to get to the venue and catch the opening act of Gazza Ghandler and Stevie Thorne, the progressive Proclaimers belting out a collection of songs from their respective careers. It shows great promise for both Jadis' forthcoming tour and Steve's Emo Creatures 2.

Now the Pendragon boys don't like to do things the easy way - changing drummers before their biggest tour ever seemed a risky move, but surely now we have all seen that it paid off gloriously. And so no-one should have been surprised to hear that Wilcey Toff managed to break her arm in a bizarre shopping accident the day before the gig. This in turn led to a certain member of the band having to eat a take-away chicken madras the night before the gig. With disastrous results, as you can imagine. Poor barf-boy Barrett!

I reckon it was due to the Mean Fiddler being a gig-unfriendly place and having a 10:30pm curfew, but I'm sure that the interval between G&S and Pendragon was much shorter than usual, which meant I managed to miss the intro Believe whilst powdering my nose. Still, it didn't detract from a splendid opening in No Place For The Innocent, complete with dynamic vocoder effects! What surprised me was that The Edge from U2 stood in for Pete Gee on the first few numbers! What a trouper!! A super trouper.

When I saw the band at Riffs at the start of the tour, the screens were to the side above the bar - obviously not ideal. Tonight I got to see the visuals in all their blood'n'guts'n'glory.

As As Good As Gold kicked off, it was apparent to everyone in the house that young Joe Crabsticks has brought a new energy to the band. Not that they were tired and knackered before, mind. But his energetic playing set the whole tone for tonight's show. Guardian Of My Soul came next, and it was as good as you can get. Also at this point Pete joined the band and allowed The Edge to do whatever mega-rock stars do on a Friday night in Soho. I'm not judging anyone here. Again, at Riff's it was apparent that the band were really just warming up. Tonight they were as tight as a ducks arse. A first-timer at that. They even had enough towels tonight.

Due to the early curfew that the Very Mean Fiddler sets, some songs had to be dropped from the set - Kowtow, which was played at Riff's was the first to feel the axe, like a young Canadian seal pup, but this meant that The Wishing Well got played in it's entirety. After such a mammoth track, the band left Nick alone on stage whilst they took a toilet break. Clive was a while, must've been the water... When they reassembled, they went on with a heartfelt The Edge Of The World, before stumbling into a crowd pleasing Nostradamus, followed by the previously announced Dance Of The Seven Veils. On this track, and on many others, Clive stood proud behind his keyboards, daring the crowd not to stare at him in wonder! And again, in Paintbox, his solo soared like an magical musical magpie.

After this came old favourites Breaking The Spell and they finished the set with a magnificent Masters of Illusion.

Have I mentioned that the band were on top form?

So they were obviously not going to get away with it so easily, daft London curfew or not!

After a few minutes of off key chanting and out of time clapping, the band could take no more and reentered the stage to play a blistering medley of The Lost Children, Green Eyed Angel, Sister Bluebird and The Last Man On Earth.

To cap it all, for a second encore they played an emotional Am I Really Losing You? and then it was all over, despite predictable calls for The Black Knight, which was also dropped cos of the curfew

I had no desire to stay for the after gig party, so headed off into the night, where I bumped into Nicki Cairns and a couple of her friends (Paul & Malc) on the train, and swapped tale of days of yore til the wee small hours. Or Watford.

Oh, what a night.