1. Intro (by A.Korner), 2. Pinetop's Boogie Woogie, 3. Roadhouse Boogie, 4. Good Rockin Tonight, Stagger Lee, 5. Everyday I Have The Blues, 6. Waiting For The Call, 7. Jonah Wails, 8. Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do, 9. Dance With Me Darling.

Created in June 1977 by Ian Stewart with the help of Charlie Watts when they were attending George Green and Bob Hall album sessions with many other friends, Rocket 88 was an extravagant outfit that, at the beginning of the punk era, decided to turn the clock back to the 30s and present a live environment for big band and boogie woogie tunes played by a number of enthusiastic musicians that gathered together informally whenever possible. An official album has come out, recorded live in Hannover recently released also on compact disc, but no underground recordings have been made available so far. This gap has been filled by Whisky Lips Records that has ventured into the release of this live concert held at the London Venue in late December 1979, broadcasted by BBC Rock on Saturday on 19 January 1980 that recently surfaced on the net. This concert is introduced by Alexis Korner, himself part of the band, that couldn t attend that night concert because held in Austria by a snow storm (his own words) but contributed anyway by broadcasting the event a month after, so we have now a live soundboard recording of that night where many musicians got together for fun: Charlie Watts, Ian Stewart, Jack Bruce, Bob Hall, George Green, Pete York, Chris Farlowe, Danny Adler and the exceptional brass section that included John Picard on trombone, Don Weller on tenor sax, Dick Morrissey on alto sax and Colin Smith on trumpet. Rocket 88 will live basically through 1985 when with the sudden death of Ian Stewart the group disbanded but for the one off gig and such an outfit was sadly never recreated, so this release is an important one that allows lovers of this music to dig once more the swinging sounds produced by the many talents on stage: most songs are classics like "Pinetop's Boogie" which was just played just by Bob Hall and George Green at their piano, "Good Rocking Tonight" and "Stagger Lee" with Danny Adler on vocals while "Everyday I Have The Blues" and "Ain't Nobody Business If I Do" featured Chris Farlowe singing and "Waiting For The Call", Jack Bruce.

Rocket 88 played a short German and Nederland tour in mid November 79 and one more gig in London on 30 December for the 50^th Anniversary of Boogie Woogie that year with the same line up. The next year they played the 100 Club in London in June 80 and 83 (billed as the Ian Stewart Band) both in June and September and in January 1981 the only official album came out. In 1984 they played a Memorial Concert for Alexis Korner and the Montreux Festival in Swiss that was broadcasted by DRS Radio and could come out as well. The sound of this release is excellent, packaging is good but a different cover from the official studio release would have been better, as you really need to look at the back cover to understand what this product is, since the small sticker on front cover that says Live at the Venue is easy to be confused with the original that graced the official release informing about the musicians that played on the album; even the label looks like an official Atlantic one, weird choice.