It’s the fag-end of a febrile London summer and we’re in the belly of the beast, half way up the north side of the eastern end of Oxford Street. Once upon a time at the 100 Club, drink in hand and Weejuns polished, one would have been able to smoke a leisurely cigarette, the length of the underground ceiling hidden behind an exhaled fogbank mix of Rothmans, Gauloises, Silk Cut and guile, all subterranean gatherings back then (halcyon days et cetera) peopled by martyrs, some wearing garters, everyone hooked on the anti-establishment flavour of this particular musical mecca. Here on a Saturday night was where one came to speak at ease to people who cared to listen to music undiluted. There were no pocket telescreens causing panic, no groupthink nor the wearisome drone of penned-up minds. These were the imperfect good old days before the fabricated divisions of the plastic now. That was then and, from such a lost world, survivors like Steve White inevitably stepped forward, with not a little swagger, Steve today a musician who maintains that the correct approach to studio work and live playing will always bear the most succulent of fruit.

This evening is a case in point, the gig arranged under the auspices of Drum Dog, a Somerset-based company comprising Ryan Leese, Dan Iacono, Ralph Rolle (drummer for Nile Rodgers and Chic) and Simon Evans. As Iacono later explained: “Drum Dog caught the attention of Ralph [Rolle] a few years ago and he came on board as business development and used his industry contacts to help bring in names like Bernard Purdie, and now Steve.”

A tête-à-tête conducted by Steve’s wife Sally Lindsay kicked things off as they contextualised his 40-year career in music. With this year’s release of the trio’s Soul Drums (Acid Jazz Records), Steve has once again plunged into the live circuit because, as he has previously stated, it is a matter of “use it or lose it”.

The stage is where he belongs, where he is happiest, a live set building with a well-drilled intensity that saw Steve playing with a rare abandon, this reviewer at times finding the trio’s deliberation of drums, Hammond and bass not unlike that of a youngblood Procol Harum. As the sounds flew, amid the contented throng weaved Acid Jazz label bosses Eddie Piller and Dean Rudland, actor-musician Matt Berry and Dee C Lee, while on the front row, forever a smile upon his face, sat an owlish, rapt Tony Robinson as he drank in the performance. Tracks such as Camera Obscura, My Ever Changing Moods (a proud nod to the past) and a cover of Deep Purple’s Mandrake Root (recently released as a 7-inch) placed the band in the same sonic company as Jimmy Smith, Charles Earland and Brian Auger.

It was clear to anyone watching that Steve has evolved to become a circumspect bandleader of not inconsiderable taste, a role he fills with aplomb and one he can now take in any direction, funding challenges notwithstanding. Tonight was his ninth live appearance at the 100 Club, an establishment that was almost permanently shuttered a few years back before being saved and granted “special status” – unsurprising, given that the Sex Pistols, The Jam, The Stranglers, John Cooper Clarke, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, The Clash and Oasis, not to mention Acker Bilk, The Molotovs, Paul Weller, Rod Stewart, The Kinks, Jeff Beck and Paul McCartney are but a few of the names to have played this hallowed dungeon, its walls – crowded with framed photographs of yesteryear’s prophets, two being of Steve – painted an abattoir red, the loos as charmful as a charnel house, the dressing room tattooed with graffiti. From the sulphurous loam of this richly endowed space has issued much goodness. There’s no place like it left in London and more’s the pity for, with the demise of such venues, the cosmopolitan culture has begun to stagger under the weight of its own pointlessness. But for the 100 Club – a venue that hides in the foreground, slap bang in the heart of the once vibrant West End – London’s heart would cease to beat.

Words & picture: Jason Holmes / @JasonAHolmes