The Amazons, Oxfam Music Reading, 18th August 2022 – Hot Squeeze in a Charity Shop

There is a shop in Reading that I regularly frequent and takes plenty of money off me and that’s the Oxfam Music Shop on Duke Street. It is a tiny place, not much bigger than my front room but it packs a lot in such a small space. They always have a great selection of vinyl there along with CDs and other music related odds and sods.

Given the size of the place I was therefore surprised to see the following post on Twitter saying that one of my favourite bands, The Amazons, were going to be playing a gig in there. They were gearing up for next day delivery and I wanted to be in “prime” position! That’s the end of the Amazon puns, honest!

Given that there was quite a bit of excitement about this impromtu gig, one person on social media was suggesting that they would come down from Leicester for it, I thought that it would be busy so I got there an hour before the scheduled time. I was the tenth person in the queue which wasn’t shabby. By the time we were let in the queue stretched back all along the road and round the corner. There was no way that everyone was going to get in the shop.

I had naively assumed that these big time rock stars would rock up in a limo and dash into the shop. Not so. They sauntered down London Street and over the Duke Street bridge, guitar on their backs and wandered in while marvelling at the queue. I like to think that they had walked in following a visit to see their Mum!

Even with the vinyl racks pushed to one side the floor space in the shop is still tiny. There were maybe as many as 100 people in the shop with plenty more stood outside peering through the window. Lead singer Matt expressed surprised at just how many people had turned up given that it had only been announced the evening before. He also explained the reason for the venue. Turns out that he had worked there between bands and so it was an obvious place for him to return to.

He and guitarist Chris then blasted their way through five songs, three off the forthcoming album, and two off the first (Junk Food Forever and Black Magic) which sounded great. Even in such a small venue when we were asked to provide harmonies I thought that it (we) sounded great.

It was great to be there and hear them as, unfortunately, I won’t be seeing them on the forthcoming tour. I had hoped, and so had they, that they would play Reading again but they said, confirming a long held belief of mine, that they couldn’t as their management felt Reading was too close to London and would cannibalise London ticket sales. This is frustrating but does explain why so many bands pass Reading by.

Anyway, this was a tremendous opportunity to see a great band up close and personal.