Recorded at the Royal Albert Hall on April 8 2004, seven years after Lane’s death, and clocking in at three-and-a-half hours, this well-intentioned tribute favours quantity over quality. Opening turns – East End Small Faces tribute act Small World, Mollie ‘daughter of Steve’ Marriott and Steve Diggle – offer a surfeit of enthusiasm but little finesse.
The quality lifts with the arrival of Ocean Colour Scene, quickly followed by Lane’s rustic associates Slim Chance, who ably shift into knockabout form for Pistol Glen Matlock taking the vocal lead and The Clash’s Mick Jones doing his best guitar posing on a touching version of The Faces’ Debris and suitably raucous You’re So Rude.
Pete Townshend’s rough-edged acoustic slot is a low-key oddity, hardly essential, so, almost inevitably, its left to Modfather Weller to hit the high spot, teaming with Slim Chance for The Poacher and Ronnie Wood for a singalong Ooh La La. Thereafter it’s a slog through to a finale featuring the ungainly Chris Farlowe lumbering through All Or Nothing. Likely to appeal to diehards only, and liberal use of the fast-forward button is advised.
