New Inn, Easingwold,

I watched my favourite

gig of all time........bar

NONE.

By Bill Harding.

I'm an old timer with plenty of rock

memories - punched by Roger Daltrey

after a Who gig in '68 and flattened by

Keith Richards in '90 when I went too

close to the stage at a Stones concert in

Newcastle and my eardrum exploded. I

never saw Jimi Hendrix live, but he took

my girlfriend off me at Newport Pagnell

services on the M1 in the summer of '68.

Anyhow, we've all passed a lot of water

since then, and on May 20th, in the

unlikely setting of the New Inn,

Easingwold, I watched my favourite gig of

all time........bar NONE.

Megawatt Winged Avenger are a bunch of

guys from York who    called themselves

Knee Deep until their bassist took too

much medicine and went to bed for a few months. They play carefully

selected covers and knock-em-out originals and they hit paydirt when they

found Elliot Fleet to take over on bass. He's the son of a Rubette -

remember them? - and he plays a six string like it was made for him. He

fits the band like a custom-made glove and.......boy, do these guys rock!

Lead singer Tupplington eased us in with a couple of solos - he heard them

through the grapevine, apparently - and then, WOOF!  Away we went,

cruising on a seamless mix of originals - the opener Final Chapter - and

BIN, Good Time and I Never. For short bursts Tupps sounds uncannily like

Axl Rose, but he's calmer, more self-contained. Lead guitarist Rosco backs

Tupps on the vocals and plays his guitar - he made the damn thing himself

- faster than any player I've ever seen. He's actually a quiet sort of bloke,

old Rosco, but when he works the fretboard he's a demon unleashed.

New boy Elliot pays bass like a lead instrument, forming chord shapes and

spanning five frets with his long fingers. Drummer Pete Croft sits behind a

kit big enough to spark memories of the  legendary Moon the Loon. His

playing's solid as a rock and meshes perfectly with Elliot’s inventive bass-

lines. Tupps' and Rosco's repartee and unrehearsed banter with the yelling

mob makes the gig unforgettable on more than one level.

MWA's covers  include Iron Maiden's The Trooper and Metallica's Fuel. An

amazing choice is S Club's Don't Stop Moving - laugh at your peril - which

was done acoustically by Starsailor. MWA offers the world's only metal

version and Rosco's infectious rejig shows just what could and should have

been done with the original.

The audience at the New Inn wouldn't let these guys go home, but after 3

hours and 3 encores they were as knackered as a Scarborough dentist. The

final encore was a repeat of their unique version of The Proclaimers' I'm

Gonna Be (500 Miles). At 8.30 the following morning the builders arrived

to nail the roof back on the Inn.

Bill Harding - May 2006