Take one performer and a 160 year-old Collard & Collard grand piano. The result? You will be truly entertained.

Our Pianoman – Nick Reeve – has taken up residence every Wednesday and Friday as singer/piano maestro at Piano bar and restaurant, Kensington – a sophisticated venue with ample acoustics and an interactive audience.

Why does Piano suit Nick’s rich vocal range and extensive repertoire? The evening here is all about live, raw performance. Our Pianoman’s music is the centrepiece, not a backing track. You won’t stumble onto High Street Kensington afterwards without having been involved in some way – by singing along to his unique Take That medley or pulling up a bar stool with a cocktail at the piano.

The Evening Standard sums it up: "One of the best nights out in London".

THE PIANOMAN PLAYLIST
As fans and followers of Nick already know – he can sing and play just about everything. His set at Piano is handpicked to suit the vibe of the evening and his crowd. Nick will serenade you with Prince and Elton John classics as you dine and rack up the tempo to Mustang Sally as the party begins.

His musical montage stretches across the spectrum of musical genres from rock such as Clapton’s Layla and Under the Bridge by Red Hot Chilli Peppers; to finger-tapping jazz with Michael Buble. As his rich vocals fill the venue each time it seems that every song he plays is meant for just one man and a piano

Nick spans the decades throughout the evening, harking back to the sixties with The Doors’ Light My Fire, to the seventies with Lou Reed’s Perfect Day and into the eighties with Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time. He puts his own spin on the nineties with Oasis’ Wonderwall and gets contemporary with top noughties downloads like with Sam Sparro’s Black and Gold and Umbrella by Rihanna.

Join Nick at Piano bar and restaurant
Piano is located on Kensington High Street just opposite the tube station. It serves delicious, modern cuisine à la carte and a range of bar snacks.

Make sure you book well in advance, as Nick’s live nights are very popular – especially as the busy festive season approaches.

Nick Reeve at The Betjeman Arms
If you are looking for a more low key evening or are in transit through St Pancras International Station, drop into this grade one listed pub to hear Nick play a selection of classics every Tuesday (earlier, from 6.30).

This song’s for you..

  Drinking may be fun, but let’s face it, sometimes it’s just not enough. Amusing company helps, but those faces across the table are beginning to look a bit too familiar and conversation is a touch predictable. It’s time for ‘Pianoman’.

The English are lagging behind the US on piano bar. The spit-and-sawdust Irish bar with the enthusiastic player of the upright, with nostalgic Celtic melodies, may be the closest many Londoners have come to piano bar. In the US, piano bar is popularised by the film The Fabulous Baker Boys in which Kim Bassinger sprawls across the grand in a red dress, or the place to which the elite lawyers in Ally McBeal head for entertainment after a hard day’s litigation. But those who have experienced the real thing say the Americans will love anyone who has the guts to perform. The English, by comparison, are rather reserved and judgmental. 

The performer Nick Reeve is an interesting entry into the London piano bar scene. He’s forging a new style of piano bar playing in which he conveys the image of a singer-songwriter in a studio, in creative flow. In contemporary dress, interacting with his audience as if they are guests in his studio, he plays and sings popular hits which are in most people’s current repertoire – like Mellow Magic with a bit of a kick, live music rather than musak. Drinkers gather around the piano to watch and join in if they know the words. Not the remote, dinner-suited sophisticate of the champagne bar and hotel lobby, nor the thumping, busking bar room amateur.

Professional and talented, Nick had a classical music training from the age of 8, but loved to improvise and perform popular music, taping his own creations by the age of 11. At 22, he secured his first ‘pianoman’ job, playing at a ski resort in Australia. Then, he had a repertoire of 20-30 songs. Now it is several hundred. He has written a low-budget musical (Antigone, at Wimbledon Studio Theatre), been signed to an independent record label specializing in club music, and is presently recording an album in his own purpose-built studio. But he still has to blend a 9-5 job in a fostering agency with his growing musical career which includes several nights a week as a pianoman.

‘There are quite a few barriers to piano bar here’, Nick explains. ‘The bar owner has to be convinced it will be worth the outlay – the cost of equipment, the loss of table space and, of course, the artist’s fees. The bottom line is that people must stay in the bar. The aim is to build a growing clientele for the bar’. Nick’s main venue is Soprano’s bar in High Street Kensington, a basement bar under the restaurant. From his piano, Nick can see people as they come down the stairs. ‘For the piano player, you want to watch them see you and continue into the bar, not turn round and go back out again.’ 

His repertoire is as diverse as his audience. He can remind you that Take That have written some brilliant songs (‘Patience’), and that Leonard Cohen still sounds good after all these years (‘Hallelujah’). Most requests are for ‘American Pie’, ‘Hey Jude’ and ‘Brown-eyed girl’. His own songs are influenced by Elton John, George Michael, Kate Bush, Annie Lennox and David Gray. When playing in the piano bar, the more familiar the song, the better the reception. Once asked to play ‘Bare Necessities’ from Jungle Book, he was able to release the inner child of a group of fully-grown men. Mostly, drinkers want to be reminded of much-loved songs and these Nick interprets for maximum effect. 

‘Personality is everything’, said Nick. ‘People want to have a good time and they want to see you having a good time, loving every minute of it’. His personality is put to the test on occasions. One night in Soprano’s a very drunk young woman, who snuggled next to him on his piano stool, gripped his crotch as she sung along. Taking it in his stride, Nick smiled his broad smile and carried on until the end of the number. ‘There have been times I’ve had to take an unscheduled break’, he admits. 

With only a very few venues offering the piano bar experience, you will have to seek them out. Get yourself down there, and – if you don’t want to take your mates – go alone and sing your heart out as if you were in your own bathroom. 

Alison Barker