The Prisoners at King's Hall Herne Bay, Saturday 28th February 2026

Band reunions can be hit and miss affairs – some acts resist the temptation all together in the hope of not tarnishing a legendary reputation such as The Clash, The Smiths and Talking Heads, for example. Some bands you think have reunited have never actually gone away, they just evolve over the years – dealing with various bust-ups, court cases, serious illnesses, and of course untimely deaths along the way by replacing key members. Kind of like a football team, you still support them despite them selling your star striker, sacking a favourite manager and dropping down to the lower leagues, occasionally to rise again like a phoenix. The Stranglers were totally reinvigorated when they reverted to the traditional four-piece and moved Baz Warne up front and are now selling out huge venues like the Royal Albert Hall again. The Undertones with Paul McLoone now fully grown into his role as frontman, are probably playing more gigs now than they have in years. Then at the other end of the spectrum are some bands who are more like Trigger’s broom and really should know better, somehow continuing without any original members in the line-up at all. Some misjudge it completely and get in totally inappropriate replacements so that you wonder who is actually advising them. There are some bands who tread the cabaret circuit, happy to get together for the occasional festival, play the hits and collect a big pay cheque. 

 

Then there’s the rare case where some reunions really work, such as Pixies – which hit to a completely new generation of kids and some like Wire, who still produce superb new and vital music. So, what happens when it’s one of your really ‘special’ favourite bands, and it’s no secret that The Prisoners are one of mine. Thankfully, like The Soundtrack of Our Lives, another act who mean so much to me that the announcement of a reunion a few years ago stirred up mixed emotions. On one hand it’s ‘please god, let it be good, don’t tarnish the many happy memories, don’t let yourselves down’ and on the other, there’s the excitement that you’d get to see them play again. Thankfully in both cases, neither band let me down in the end. Of course, The Prisoners did get back together for some shows and a so-so single “Shine On Me” in 1997, but that didn’t last long, it was over pretty soon. Once it was clear The Prisoners reunion wasn’t a long term prospect, Graham and Allan followed up on the Prime Movers with the superb Solarflares, a three-piece that  eventually reverted to the classic Prisoners style line-up by adding Parsley on the organ. Then Graham recruited The Woggles’ rhythm section for Graham Day & The Gaolers and released two brilliant albums with material that matched the quality of The Prisoners. After a hiatus, the news was out that Graham had got the three-piece Solarflares line-up back under the guise of Graham Day & The Forefathers - “we’re basically a tribute band to ourselves” he told me in our Retrosonic Podcast special. There was no talk of new material – just a set of stripped back versions of classics from the back catalogue – The Prisoners, Solarflares, Gaolers and Prime Movers. They went down a storm and released a raw, live in the studio album of choice cuts called “Good Things”. 

 

Fed up with the pressures of fronting a band, Graham then started The Senior Service where he could indulge in his love of Barry Gray’s wonderful themes to Gerry Anderson TV shows such as Thunderbirds and Fireball XL5 and John Barry and Ennio Morricone’s evocative Spaghetti Western and Spy movie theme tunes. Of course, this aspect was nothing new, The Prisoners and Solarflares in particular would often include at least one or two instrumentals on their albums and in their live shows. Graham seems to have a love/hate relationship with both singing and fronting a band and with the Hammond organ. He sometimes needs a break from both. He once told me his dream was to just play guitar in one of those groovy bands you saw in a 1960’s hippie exploitation movie, where assorted spaced out kids dance away under psychedelic liquid lights. Either that or just playing guitar in The Woggles, his favourite band, would have been cool. The opportunity for this wish did occur, although in rather sad circumstances, when The Woggles guitarist Jeff Walls passed away in 2019 and they needed a replacement. So, Graham ended up touring the States, Europe, the UK (you can see a feature on The Woggles brilliant 100 Club gig here) and even Japan, where Graham, that icon of cool, was enjoying himself so much that he even performed in fancy dress costumes such as lederhosen or karate monkey suits! But the pull of The Prisoners was strong, and circumstances conspired to facilitate the latest and long-awaited reunion. The Prisoners had that something special, that all important chemistry and a hugely dedicated fanbase, as shown in the brilliant book “A Taste of Ink! The Prisoners Sentenced By Their Fans”. Plus, they had James Taylor on the Hammond organ. James had gone onto forge a respected career in Jazz, Soul and Funk with The James Taylor Quartet and it didn’t seem likely that he would be interested in revisiting The Prisoners given his success. Wrong! The news filtered through that the original line-up was getting back together, initially incognito at a friend’s party at the Billabong Club in Rochester in 2021. 

 

Then came the announcement of a show at the Royal Function Rooms in Rochester (check out our feature here), in early December 2022 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their debut album “A Taste of Pink”. Due to the demand, it ended up as a four-night stand from November 30th – 3rd December 2022 and it was also live streamed on-line. It was emotional, it couldn’t end there could it? Thankfully no, there were shows in Herne Bay in December 2023 and the fantastic news of a brand new album, “Morning Star” followed by a gig in May 2024 at the legendary Roundhouse in London’s Chalk Farm (read all about it here), actually the band’s biggest show to date. But “Morning Star” was superb, the sound of a band having fun, embracing their influences, although sometimes sailing a bit close to the wind in the shades of The Who, Ramones, Small Faces and Hendrix, which coloured the songs, but who cared. The quality of the songs was what mattered and there were some that easily stood up to the classics, in particular “Winter In June” and “Something Better”. Everyone was on top form, with James Taylor in particular shining out with some superb Hammond. Then came the feeling that was it, all over again. In some ways it would have been a fitting way to draw a line under it all, to go out on a high, but it seemed a fire had been lit. This year came the announcement of a new single “Autumn Skies” and live shows at King’s Hall in Herne Bay, an impressive Edwardian Pavillion on the sea front where they would celebrate three albums over three nights. On the Friday night it would be 1983’s “The Wisermiserdemelza” (and my entry point to the band back in the day), Saturday would be the classic “The Last Fourfathers” from 1985 and then Sunday it would be 1986’s “In From The Cold”, where they would be joined by the James Taylor Quartet’s sometime Brass section. 

The venue was great, and in some ways better than the Roundhouse, where the sound can sometimes get a bit lost in that cavernous building. It was packed out on the Saturday night, sadly the only night I could attend and there were so many eager, happy and familiar faces in attendance, many of whom I’d got to know through my Retro Man Blog  gigs with Graham Day & The Forefathers and The Solarflares. Kicking off proceedings were Lord Rochester, featuring Russ Wilkins, formerly of The Milkshakes, Saskia Holling on bass and vocals and Lois Tozer from The Embrooks on drums and maracas. Their Bo Diddley influenced rhythms went down really well and they were the perfect opening act. My personal favourite was the Crampsian rumble of “Transcontinental” and the insanely catchy “Chicken Salt” and Russ closed the set by announcing “This is for the Mods… and the Punks” and they launched into a cracking version of “What’cha Gonna Do About It”. Next up the always reliable Masonics, aided and abetted by Ludella Black, entertained the crowd and played my favourite track “Silently By Night”, so I was happy. DJ Wendy May was spinning some mighty fine tunes, putting everyone in an even better mood and you could feel the atmosphere start to build.

 

 

Then The Prisoners took to the stage, looking great and starting strongly with “I Am The Fisherman”, the crowd went mental, you can’t get much better than this. They play a good chunk of “The Last Fourfathers” including “The Drowning” and “Take You For a Ride”, ending the section with a powerful version of “Night of The Nazgul”, one of their best instrumentals. Then we get “This Road is Too Long” and “Save Me” from the current album and in between there’s the new single “Autumn Skies” before a nice surprise from their debut album, “Til The Morning Light”. They then flit between the “Last Fourfathers” and “Morning Star” albums including a great version of “Whenever I’m Gone” and I see that Eddie Piller, who released the single on his Countdown label back in 1986, is in the crowd. The James Taylor written and sung  “Go To Him” is a highlight as it channels the way the Ramones took those Phil Spector, Shangri-La’s melodies and married them with fast Rock ‘n’ Roll, plus it has a classic “Blitzkrieg Bop” style call and response section of “just go, just go, just go with him!” Considering Johnny Symons isn’t regularly playing like his bandmates, his drumming is superb throughout and Allan’s impressive bass riffs and backing vocals complement Graham perfectly, who is in mighty fine voice. When he’s not singing, Graham stalks the front of the stage, guitar pointing out to the adoring crowd. There’s a really nice chemistry fizzing between all four of them, from Allan with his deadpan between song banter to James’s cheerleading and encouraging the crowd to sing along, they look like they are having as much fun as we are. They always did carry a reputation for being ‘surly’ and ‘difficult’, but it’s certainly not been evident at any of the reunion shows. After all, all four members spent a long time afterwards signing the new single  and chatting to fans at the impressive merch table stocked by our favourite record label Spinout Nuggets and Sound Is Colour clothing.

Someone posted a nice photo in The Prisoners forum from one of the Herne Bay nights of Allan and Graham smiling at each other, one wag commented “must be A.I.” and Allan himself replied “Fake News!” The set draws to a close with the Prisoners very own Garage Rock classic “Melanie” and then “Reaching My Head” the song which started it all for me and quite obviously The Charlatans too as they nicked the bassline and made a career out of it. A stunningly emotional “Thinking Of You (Broken Pieces)” nearly has me welling up, something in my eye! Then “I Drink The Ocean” segues into a fantastic version of Deep Purple’s “Hush” and sadly, that’s it, all over. An absolutely momentous night, we got twenty three superb songs from a band that despite starting over forty years ago, strangely seem to be at the top of their game. Maybe it’s the impressive back catalogue, the lessons that have been learned, of getting older and wanting to do things right. Maybe it’s the huge wave of respect and affection that the crowd shows towards the band, that special bond, I don’t know what it is but all I do know is that I don’t want it to end, again. I’m hopeful that there will be more to come from The Prisoners in the future so let’s hope it becomes more permanent so that we can finally stop labelling it all as just another reunion.

 

You can read all about how I first got into the band and my experiences of putting on shows for the Forefathers, Solarflares and Senior Service, in my feature on The Prisoners Roundhouse gig here. Our thoroughly entertaining Forefathers Retrosonic Podcast with Graham, Allan and Wolf Howard is still available in our archive here. You can listen to them discussing and playing a pick of their favourite songs from all aspects of their musical careers. 

Retrosonic Podcast · Graham Day & The Forefathers

 

Unfortunately, the brilliant book “A Taste of Ink!” is now sold out, but if you are interested, then please contact them here and register your interest as I’m sure they will consider a re-print if there is a big enough demand. However, don’t despair if you did miss out on “A Taste of Ink!” as a new book has just been announced. “Graham Day - 45 Years of Music”, originally a limited edition book in Italian by Antonio Bacciocchi and Luca Frazzi, has now been translated, expanded and revised by Thomas Buch and Les O’Hare and will be available to order on 20th March. Please check out their Facebook page here for details on how to get hold of this promising looking book.

 

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