I bought my first Focus album 22 years ago – and they’d already been going 22 years at that point. Good to see them back. Good to see some Roger Dean artwork. And good to find a band older than me!

Even better still, I got to see Focus play live for the first time ever when they played the unlikely venue of the Beaverwood Room in Chislehurst, Kent last Saturday. Only two of the original 70s line up – organist Thijs van Leer and drummer Pierre van den Linden – are still there, but with a brilliant guitarist and bassist in Menno Gootjes and Bobby Jacobs, I might as well have been at the Midnight Express in 1973, it was that good.

Tonight’s playlist:

Joy Formidable – This Ladder Is Ours
Foals – Inhaler
Sébastien Tellier – Cochon Ville
Hot Hot Heat – No Not Now
Local Girls – Jesus Complex Man
Long Blondes – Giddy Stratospheres
Shermans – The Kick

live in session
High/Low – Spy Eye
High/Low – raygun
High/Low – Soda

High/Low – Forty
Profile – Mushroom Man
Augustgone – Watch You Bleed
Fashoda Crisis – Hunting The Poor For Sport
Lovely Eggs – I Just Want Someone To Fall In Love With
Focus – Father Bacchus
Robocop Kraus – Small Houses Odd Cars
Focus – Focus 10
Muse – Bliss
Everything Everything – Kimosabe
Tame Impala – Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
Blindness – Glamourama
Focus – Hoeratio
Winter Olympics – Attention All Departments
Bloc Party – Octopus (RAC remix)
Celeste – Nothing In The Sky (With Diamonds)
Ruby – Bart
Dingus Khan – Made A List
Das Russians – Bee Line
Wind-Up Birds – The Mild Awards
Trash Monroe – Bleached Edges Of My Memory
Curxes – Spectre
Dora Brilliant – Scale Of One To Ten
FC Kahuna – Hayling