There's drama and passion aplenty on the Graham Bonnet Band's Day Out In Nowhere

Graham Bonnet shows he’s still got his Marbles on Day Out In Nowhere

Day Out In Nowhere cover art
(Image: © Frontiers)

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Graham Bonnet is one of rock’s more colourful characters: born in the hotbed of Skegness; married to actress Adrienne (Carry On Behind) Posta; notorious for exposing himself in a Golden Egg restaurant (and again later, on stage with Michael Schenker); renowned for sending Ritchie Blackmore into a rage because he had a haircut. 

Now an unfeasible 74 years old, Bonnet’s sonic boom of a voice – ref. Rainbow, Alcatrazz, MSG et al – remains intact on this latest record from his self-titled combo. There’s drama and passion aplenty, and some giant-sounding instrumentation, as one would expect from our histrionic hero.

But what really sets the album apart is Bonnet’s thought-provoking songs. 

The menacing Uncle John (a ‘disturbingly sweet’ individual) tackles paedophilia; David’s Mom is a wry tale of schoolboy seduction; the tongue-in-cheek It’s Just A Frickin’ Song concerns writer’s block: ‘I’m writing words for something that someday may resemble a song.’ What’s more, massively orchestrated closer Suzy reduces Jeff Wayne to the status of Wayne Rooney.

Geoff Barton

Geoff Barton is a British journalist who founded the heavy metal magazine Kerrang! and was an editor of Sounds music magazine. He specialised in covering rock music and helped popularise the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) after using the term for the first time (after editor Alan Lewis coined it) in the May 1979 issue of Sounds.