A lovely warm nice and friendly crowd packed London's famous Jazz Cafe to greet Nicole Willis and her band on what had probably been the hottest day of the year with a warm Camden town welcome. The band (line up below) came on stage at 9.30 prompt and with Jimi on Rhodes, sax and flute, played a storming intro for Ms Willis who took the stage dressed in a fantastic original green and orange psychedelic swirl Finnish 60's creation. For the next hour she rocked her fans with selections from the album and preview tracks from the new release.

Jimi played the Lester Young to Nicole's Billie Holiday on (don't know the title but it was good) and the entire band encored with the storming "Call of the Wild" finale. Called back for a second encore Nicole came down alone to say good-bye one more time and the evening was over, leaving Jimi in the dressing room performing obscure impersonations of amateur heavy metal guitarists attempting to play "Smoke on the Water" in a Denmark Street guitar shop. The evening was over. Happy trails!

Line-up: Nicole Willis - vocals, guitar. Jimi Tenor - Fender rhodes, tenor saxophone, flute, sequencer, vocals. Ilkka Mattila - guitar. Pascal Glanville - Chatman stick, bass. Simon Pearson - drums.

Review: Anonymous.
Photos: Kathleen Menzies (taken at the Glasgow show, 29 Jul 2001)