Last night I was privileged to watch South Wales say cheerio to one of its most precious and revered sons. Not a rugby player, not a miner’s leader or a Methodist preacher, this was the final farewell for Micky Jones, mellifluous mainstay guitarist for the Man band for 30 years or more. Pontardawe Arts Centre was packed with almost every grey-haired rocker from the borders to the Gower and beyond. It was a night that was characterised by smiles, pints and ‘hail-fellow’s as old friends bumped into each other for the first time in ages. Many of the non-Man musicians who dropped in spent far less time on stage than they did in the bar or nattering at the back of the hall. The age range ran from the teens to three quarters of a century or thereabouts. Pony tails were mostly white or grey. Waistlines had expanded. Hair was thinning but worn long. Jeans and black T-shirts were the uniform. It was one of those evenings when it didn’t seem odd, standing in the balcony clutching the third, or maybe the fourth Guinness, to suddenly realise that the venerable yet cool looking senior chap standing right next to you was Tony McPhee. Rock was mostly loud and weighty. Micky’s son George, who wields a mean axe himself, had some young musician friends on stage with him to bash out some numbers, even though they’d not met his dad, and they polished off a very commendable blast through ‘Whole Lotta Love’ that had the aging groovers in the audience indulging in their first idiot dance of the evening. Ken Whaley’s bass made my trousers vibrate. Guitars were loud and sometimes very loud. Heads that haven’t nodded to a four-four beat in a good while got a proper nodding. Grins were wide and permanent. Deke Leonard’s jagged and choppy playing really drove the Iceberg along, starting with a spirited ‘The Ride And The View’. I quickly realised that although I knew the lyrics to many of the songs, I was totally outclassed by the majority of the audience, who seemed to sing along to pretty much everything, and even knew when the Groundhogs had morphed their way from ‘Split – part 1’ into ‘Split – part 2’. Andy Fairweather Low’s short acoustic set was an utter delight. I am extremely glad to say that I have had the pleasure of hearing a hall full of Welsh men singing along at the tops of their voices to ‘If Paradise’ and ‘Wide Eyed And Legless’ played exquisitely beautifully by the man who created them decades ago when I first marvelled at them. ‘Pugwash’ Weathers came on stage to join the Iceberg boys for one number, and obviously had a total blast. Gary Pickford-Hopkins was there, still singing and shouting the blues, and blowing a great harp too. Nik Turner looked very dapper, very much the stylish old-school jazzer, but with a mad glint in his eye, hints of wild times in Peckham, where he knew Micky many years ago. It was like watching a Pete Frame family tree come to life before your eyes. Guest musicians were sometimes unavoidably under-rehearsed, and on one occasion apparently playing in Jupiter-flat minor while the band grooved in G. But it didn’t matter; it was fun, it was a celebration, it was fond and friendly. It was this approach that pervaded the whole event with joy and made the evening, which started sharpish after 7:30, seem a lot shorter than the five hours that took us almost into the small hours. Micky’s mates did him proud, and I am so glad I made the effort to get there. Keep on Crinting.