John Otway Band

The Set Remains The Same      
Thirty years ago, four musicians joined John Otway to form a band. Otway had just had some success with his autobiography – Rock and Roll’s greatest Failure. The plan at the time was to rid their microstar of this title and to endow him with a degree of success.

Over the subsequent years, in many ways, you could argue that this could be a project that had been achieved. The Otway Band went on to headline the Royal Albert Hall in 1998, appear on Top of the Pops with a Top Ten Hit Bunsen Burner in 2012 and become the first band since the Rolling Stones to record an album on the Caribbean island of Montserrat.

However, his movie, Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure (voted the nation’s Second Favourite Movie of 2014 by Guardian readers and currently getting a large audience on Netflix), means that currently the label is firmly attached to his profile. In a brave attempt to move on, the Otway Band are embarking on a lengthy UK tour, The Set Remains the Same, with the material that has brought them those remarkable achievements over the past three decades.

The chances of this working are not looking good, however. Otway has already made comments like: “Well, maybe we could put a couple of different songs into the show for a change.”

The Otway Band
John Otway – Vocals, Guitar, Theremin
Richard Holgarth – Guitar
Murray Torkildsen – Guitar
Seymour – Bass
Adam Batterbee – Drums