The Pretty Things

London Putney Half Moon

Things are what they used to be...

After 55 years, The Pretty Things have decided to call it a day. Tonight marks their final London club show, come December they’ll be hosting an Indigo last stand. Considering this decision dispassionately armed with all the evidence, not least that their surviving core of vocalist Phil May and guitarist Dick Taylor are 73 and 75 respectively, it seems almost logical, but faced with the passion and power of the band’s enduringly vital performance and it seems only nonsensical.

The Things are entities for whom the epithet ‘legendary’ fetches up short. Bowie listed May under ‘God’ in his address book; Dick Taylor left the Rolling Stones in ‘62 to study art; and despite a profound inability to transcend cult status, their R&B was filthier than the Stones’, their psych mind-blowing and their SF Sorrow concept work, the first. These elements still provide their set’s core and are undiminished in their raw, unfettered brilliance.

Taylor looks professorial, slight, aged, yet he kicks up a whirlwind of lightning licks and feral solos across a set that’s every fan’s dream (Honey, I Need, Deflecting Grey, Don’t Bring Me Down, LSD, Rosalyn), there’s an acoustic insert with stinging Robert Johnson-style slide guitar, Phil May displays tangible remains of the deity, and their supporting cast are on fire.

Miss this exceptional swansong at your peril.