Kennie Simon set to bring classic hits of Hot Chocolate back to Fife
Fife based soul band Lights Out By Nine were busy last weekend with a funky set in Reconnect Howden Park in West Lothian.
Playing some favourites from their impressive back catalogue, their opening set was the perfect entertainment for Valentine’s day. They are still planning some shows at Edinburgh Fringe but are immediately looking forward to their Dunfermline gig on Friday (February 20). Top of the bill was the Kennie Simon Band, and they were up for raising the roof with maximum audience participation.
Kennie has formed his new band with Fife musicians and still fronts pop legends Hot Chocolate since 2020. He has a busy schedule having flown in from Cologne ahead of the show playing alongside Latoya Jackson and Chris De Burgh and is off next weekend to Berlin.
Kennie told me singing You Sexy Thing for a Channel Four TV show surrounding the casting for The Full Monty led to an approach from Hot Chocolate to front the band following their founding vocalist Errol Brown leaving to go solo. It was around 1971 when the original band played Raith Ballroom Kirkcaldy when they were touring with the You Should Have Been A Lady single which followed their Top 10 hit Love Is Life.
As The Kennie Simon Band the current shows promise A Taste Of Hot Chocolate and the performances are packed with hits. At Howden Park they packed 17 hits in quick succession prompting audience singing and dancing in the aisles. Heaven Is In The Back Seat Of My Cadillac opened proceedings to be followed by Everyone’s A Winner then the interracial love song Brother Louie, a Top Ten hit here but an American number one when covered six months later by US band Stories.
They closed the show with the big ones So You Win Again, It Started With A Kiss & You Sexy Thing. The band return to Fife to play the CISWO Glenrothes on March 22.