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The Blues Band

We went out last night to see the Blues Band perform in High Wycombe. This is the third time that Sue and I have seen them and was probably the best. The band seemed to be making the play list up as they went, deciding between them which song they would sing and moving from electric to accoustic and back again with the minimum of fuss. When a band have been playing together for around thirty years they know how to do the performance stuff and the sound was absolutely faultless.

I have a couple of minor gripes; the sound was too low during the elctric parts of the set and they didn’t do Boom Boom (out go the lights) as an encore. On the plus side, they did an amazing version of Statesboro Blues, which was even better than Taj Mahal’s version and I really hope that Eric Clapton gets to see them and can pick up some hints on slide guitar playing from Dave Kelly. His playing on It hurts me too, was light years better than Eric. The best bit of the evening was Paul Jones singing Room & Board accompanying himself on the harmonica. I don’t know how you can sing and accompany yourself like that, but he did and it was as bluesy and as gutsy as anything you could ever hear – simply stunning.

Here is a video of the Blues Band in accoustic mode from earlier this year. Note Gary Fletcher playing a bass that looks rather like a Jedi light sabre with the electricity turned off.