Welcome to the latest Squire newsletter, where we look back on last week’s Mods Mayday celebrations!
This time last week, we were at the Mods Mayday event at the 229 Club in Central London—catching up with friends, fans, and familiar faces! We were also gearing up for our debut performance at 8:10pm, which featured the live debut of ‘I’m 21!’ from the Get Ready To Go album. Naturally, we followed it with… ‘Get Ready To Go!’ And, for good measure, ‘It’s A Mod Mod World’ too!
As we said last week, there’s always a buzz before stepping on stage—never quite knowing if we’ll get a formal introduction or just have to dive in! That unpredictability only adds to the excitement. This time, Dave Edwards gave us a fitting intro, reminding everyone that Squire were the very first band to play Mods Mayday—and have appeared in both notorious and illustrious fashion ever since! A perfect way to kick off the set, and a nice contrast to the Birmingham 2009 introduction we played last week, where Paul Hooper-Keeley did the honours (with a Get Smart! reference) before we closed the weekend to a well-worn but enthusiastic crowd. Of course, the songs need no introduction!
Here’s a print of the setlist!
We received some fantastic comments about this year’s performance on social media. Now that the dust has settled, we can celebrate the success of the new lineup—people saying it’s the best Squire they’ve ever seen, that we should’ve been on the main stage (!), and that we were the best band of the night! We agree!!
We certainly looked the part, and James and Thomas brought a fresh dynamic and tight rhythm to the songs. It was an energetic, exciting set all round!
Everyone has their opinion on when a band should go on, but we were quite pleased to have the prime mid-evening slot—rather than the 'poison chalice' of closing the show after fourteen bands, as we did last year! That said, we’ve proudly closed Mods Mayday before—at the 20th Anniversary in 1999 and again at the 30th in 2009—so it’s a tradition and duty we’re no strangers to.
You can watch a video of ‘I’m 21’ on YouTube—thanks to Richard Mason for filming it! Richard is always close to the stage when Squire play and has uploaded some brilliant videos over the years—Cambridge 2019, Brighton 2023, and various Mods Mayday performances come to mind. His channel is well worth a look—not just for Squire, but for his eclectic taste and excellent camerawork!
https://www.youtube.com/@richmayson4937
We’re now turning our focus to some exciting new recordings. So over the next few weeks, we’ll be celebrating not just the past—but a future Squire that, we hope, captures the same excitement we all felt last weekend.
All the best from
Squire