A new band for The Kings hailing from the Scunthorpe(ish) area featuring Emma Hudson on lead vocals, Chris Rowbotham on lead guitar, Andy Brow on drums & Callum McRobbie on bass.
Competent female rock singers are a delight to hear and Emma is more than good, she’s very good not only at singing but also interacting with the crowd and when the band kicked off with the Buzzcocks “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t've)” we just knew it was going to be a good night. Evidently this band is not worried about upsetting any rock cover traditionalists as they re-worked some classic numbers, how about Madonna’s “Papa Don’t Preach” as a rock song? How many can take on U2’s “Vertigo” and get away with it? The first set of about 13 songs or so ended with The Stereophonics “The Bartender and the Thief”.
The second set kicked off in fine style and another first at The Kings when “Teenage Dirtbag” from Wheatus filled the bar…of course the obligatory Kaiser Chiefs “I Predict A Riot” had to be done and then another first at The Kings…Nena’s 1983 hit “”99 Red Balloons” or more correctly “99 Luftballons” and Emma did herself proud by singing half the song in German. Not to be satisfied with that yet another first for us…think rock and apply it to “Love Machine” from Girls Aloud…excellent stuff.
Three times Mosquito tried to play a final number yet the crowd chanted for more and they delivered with an excellent “Chelsea Dagger” from The Fratellis and…here we go again, yet another first…a fabulous rock rendition of “Walking on Sunshine” from new wave band Katrina and the Waves.
Fantastic, I can tell regulars that the band really enjoyed the gig…why? Because right from the first track our dancers were up there enjoying themselves. They will be back again in the New Year, just keep your eye on the 2010 calendar when it’s posted soon.
We’ve had some tremendous bands recently and the quality continued On Friday night with south Lincolnshire band, Gin House. These guys are a no nonsense, quality, genuine rock ‘n’ blues line-up who obviously love the stuff they’re playing and were much appreciated by The Kings’ regulars.
Classic tracks such as “Crossroads”, “All Your Love”, “Bony Moronie” and “Little Wing” were interspersed with quite a few less well-known numbers to liven up the evening. Stevie Ray Vaughan obviously has a great influence on them with such numbers as “The House Is A Rockin…” and “Love Struck Baby” and a bit of Rory Galagher was followed by the superb Freddie King track “Goin’ Down”.
What else could they serve up? How about some Hendrix in the form of “The Wind Cries Mary” followed by some George Thorogood and the Destroyers 1982 storming “Bad To The Bone”, and then, oh yes oh yes, the Bobby Troup rhythm and blues standard and first recorded by Nat King Cole, “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66″. The musicianship was very, very good and continued with Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues” which was sensationally reorded by Cream in 1968 simply as “Crossroads”. The Black Crowes version of “Hard To Handle” had all the bar dancing and if you want to put a smile on Sharon’s face then some Led Zeppelin with “Rock ‘n’ Roll” easily does the trick.
Sadly the evening had to come to an end but not before some classic British Dr Feelgood with “Milk & Alcohol” and one of Balding Bloke’s favourites “Back In The Night” rounded off a fabulous performance…Gin House will be back playing more of our favourite 12 Bar Blues in the New Year, don’t miss them!
If you’ve never seen this band before then you really have no idea what you’ve missed! The 1950s and early 60s were a very influential music period with relatively simple instruments delivering a unique and distinctive sound that got everyone one up jiving the night away.
The Kings was extremely busy with the anticipation since The Rockers had not been here since last May Bank Holiday Sunday and they were not to be disappointed. Now bear in mind that these songs are mostly 2-3 minutes long which means a huge set list of more than 20 songs per set therefore I’m not even going to try and list many of them.
So what were the obvious ones that most people would know? How about Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right, Mama”, the first single released by Elvis as “That’s All Right”, Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day”, “Summertime Blues” from Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” and the 1955 Carl Perkins classic and considered to be one of the first rockabilly tracks, “Blue Suede Shoes”. One of The Rockers’ party pieces is their excellent 1967 track from the Jungle Book, many believe it is entitled “Now I’m the king of the swingers” however the actual track is “I Wan’na Be Like You”.
Was it Cliff and The Shadows? A song that had us discussing intensely and frustrated us to the end was “Walk Don’t Run” originally done by the Ventures and who are to date the best-selling instrumental band of all time! Then we had the two superb Buddy Holly tracks “Peggy Sue” and the track that really shot The Rolling Stones to fame, “Not Fade Away”. All good things must come to an end and their finale was from the classic “Back To The Future” film with Michael J. Fox attempting Chuck Berry’s all-time classic “Johnny B. Goode”, a great finish to a great night.
The Schoolhouse Rockers with be back on Boxing Day night Saturday 26th December…don’t miss them if you want some fun and nostalgic music.
An acoustic night can sometimes fall flat on its face when the sound is not managed well. Balding Bloke struggled a little to start with but soon overcame the problems to deliver a great night for local artistes.
Both Trip To The Roses and Karl Lomas played two sets lasting a good two and a half hours. Except for a couple of covers, Trip’s were all their own songs such as “Locked In”, “College Chords”, “Passing Through”, “Same Shoes”, “Taste For Life”, “Heaven Help” and a “Little Luck” however they really brought the house down when they finished the night with their incredibly powerful song, “Old Man”…stunning, what more can I write?
They have their new CD available for sale “Let’s Waste Time” at Off The Beaten Tracks in Aswell Street.
Supporting the Trips was our solo song writer and guitarist Karl Lomas. For those not too sure who he is think “Thursday Night Karl” sitting at the end of the bar plucking away at his guitar. Karl’s two sets were a mixture of covers mostly from Blur and Oasis interpersed with his own penned numbers. I’ve listened to Karl many a Thursday and know his own stuff quite well but I wasn’t quite prepared just how good the extra edge Balding Bloke’s system would give to his fantastic track “Crazy Lady”.
This is one seriously class song and genuinely deserves to be heard more and, on that note, Balding Bloke recorded the entire night so ask him for a copy!
Needless to say Graf Zeppelin are a tribute band to one of the greatest rock bands ever and wow, do they do Led Zeppelin justice or what? A three hour set with a thirty minute break in the middle of some of the most iconic British music of the past forty years.
The sound was superb as frontman Richard Oxby, quite a mean harp player too, belted out classic track after classic track to the enthusiastic and packed bar ably assisted by Raith Wilson on guitar, Daz Chandler on bass and Jon Booth on drums and it was great to see a new generation of Zep fans enjoying their night and I’ll nearly bet they heard some songs they never realised Zep had recorded in their early days. For me the stand-out track of the night was “Gallows Pole”, it’s a great track based on an old Blues song called “Gallis Pole,” which was popularized by Leadbelly and speeds up as it goes along, a technique Jimmy Page also used on “Stairway To Heaven.”
It’s a good thing the bands come prepared for encores since no one wanted them to finish and the entire bar was pleasantly shocked as Rush’s “The Spirit Of Radio” commenced and then nearly as quickly finished! Ah…they were teasing us but only for a moment as the classic starting chords of AC/DC’s “Whole Lotta Rosie” filled the air…whoa, this was a side of Graf Zep we’d never seen before and was simply superb. Was that it we thought? Nope, just to tease us again how about a bit of “Paranoid”…and then something that surprised the entire bar, The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There” Zep-style! And there was more with The Kinks “You Really Got Me” and another tease with The Who’s “Substitute” that led up to their grande finale, the mighty “Stairway To Heaven” which they nailed to perfection.
Hopefully it will not to be too long before they will be back again in the New Year.