Annabella’s Bow Wow Wow at London’s 229 venue (25.10.2025) with The Baby Seals supporting.
My ROCKtober continues to gather pace. Do I blog it all or spend a bit more time on some. No, I’ll hammer on through and perhaps I’ll have to be briefer.
Not many pics tonight as I’m without my trusty pocket zoom. This is a Saturday night out in London to live in the music, well and have a few beers – a top night out with old friends and “Annabella’s Bow Wow Wow“. As Annabella reminds us – she’s the one, she’s the voice but there’s another band about using the name. How can there be a Bow Wow Wow without Annabella? That voice and style is so distinct.
Only my second visit to 229, near to Great Portland Street tube (and a short walk from Regent’s Park tube) and opposite an extremely hospitable and convenient beer drinkers’ pub (The Albany). This all very handy.
I wasn’t expecting The Baby Seals tonight but this garage three piece from Cambridgeshire bought some punchy punky sounds to a filling venue.
Not a bad turn out already and as I eye the people coming in down the stairs by the bar, I can sense the trickle of history and old John Peel disciples coming in. The curious and the individual who probably saw Bow Wow Wow back in the day…I didn’t by the way, but went to a few gigs on the (English) Beat tour that they toured the UK with last time.
The Bow Wow Wow uniqueness comes from the drumbeats and the singing, often chanty singing, and that hallmark occasional shrillness that Annabella brought to the tunes in her early teens. The other uniqueness comes from that Your Cassette Pet, originally cassette tape only EP. (I still haven’t found a copy when casually browsing the second hand shops.) So, it’s a cracking start with Louis Quatorze and Sexy Eiffel Towers among the first songs, from that EP.
I moved down the left wall to get closer. (There are a few tables and chairs to sit, if you get in early – my legs survived with a ‘wall lean’.)
For me the essential C30 C60 C90 Go is soon after and See Jungle, a single I have since its release. The former is so Antmusic in its sound, unsurprisingly maybe as Malcolm McLaren took some Ants to play with Bow Wow Wow. C30.. is such an important marker for the early 80s music scene. And here we are 45 years later listening live. Lucky us eh. We are all still here.. cheers, I’ll have another pint. I’m enjoying this.
Annabella’s got a lot of energy and makes it all look natural and effortless. It all does the memories justice – very different to my Adam Ant experience a few days earlier.
I can’t help but focus on the most familiar tunes: they’re ingrained from the 80s and late nights with the John Peel show. So, it’s Go Wild In The Country – maybe a more conventional pop song and the cover of I Want Candy that round off the set. I guess from the cheers that I’m not the only one who remembers those best. (Go Wild... captured here on my YouTube channel.)
They return for an encore of Aphrodisiac, the opening track on the 1983 LP When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going. It all seems to have rushed by. Another Saturday night out in London is over… well nearly as we pop backstage with a beer to have a chat in rooms you don’t normally get to go – I was here with Annabella’s brother as well as my gig buddy Dave. Cheers. Great evening.
The classic moment has to be hearing C30 C60 C90 Go live.
Gigs with Ivan 