This was The Phantoms’ most prestigious booking to date; a private function at the Royal Society for the Arts in London’s West End. The function was held in “The Vaults” in the basement of the building, which provided some excellent photo opportunities. Al was particularly excited by the similarity to legendary Beatles venue ‘The Cavern’.

Set up for the gig couldn’t have gone smoother, with the “stage” being only a few yards from the specially reserved parking places (luxury indeed!). In addition to all the usual gear, an impressive lighting system has also been added to The Phantoms live experience.

Once all the gear was in place, the band headed off for a much needed (and well-earned) pre-gig meal at a very busy “Ha Ha Bar”. The highlight of this being the incredibly alluring assets of the Bulgarian waitress. She was, of course, tipped accordingly.

And so to the gig...the first set went much better than expected with many punters hitting the dance-floor with complete inhibition despite the ludicrous bar prices at the venue! The band was on good form and clearly feeding off the enthusiasm of the crowd. Bri and Paul were every inch the rock stars, Si, Al and Jon were grinning at each-other (always a good sign) and Gibbo was expertly fending off requests for The Bee Gees and “something I can dance to”.

After a brief interval, The Phantoms “hit the stage running” for the second set and didn’t let up right through to the second encore. The set included storming versions of “Take Me Out”, “Buck Rogers”, “Common People” and “Chelsea Dagger” (amongst others). The crowd loved it, the band loved it and all in all it was probably the bands’ phinest 60 minutes ever. The crowd wouldn’t let the band leave the stage after a tumultuous “Run” and so encores of “Song 2” and “Wonderful World” kept the crowd leaping for a while longer until the band retired to the “green room” and a well earned drink (or two).

All in all it was an evening to go down as a classic in the Phantoms’ colourful history.