The King’s Head Hotel Louth

Since the beginning of the year when the gig calendar was posted I had been awaiting this band and there can not have been one disappointed rock ‘n’ blues fan in The Kings, this was simply the best night of the year, for me:-)

Egypt the band have been around since 1987 and have very close connections with the legendary 60/70s band The Groundhogs therefore we’re talking experience and class of the highest order. Some people say if you remember the 60s you weren’t really there, I was and I do and it was the experimentation by such bands that has led to such a huge international following of British music worldwide.

So what did we get? Two sets, nearly three hours and 17 songs…yep, that’s an average of almost 10 minutes per track including “Ride Till You Die”, Howlin’ Wolf’s classic “Smokestack Lightning”, “Bring It On Home”, three classic Robert Johnson tracks, “Hellhound On My Trail”, “Early This Morning” and “Walking Blues”. One of the most classic blues songs of all time has to be “Baby, Please Don’t Go” which was first recorded by Big Joe Williams in 1935 however for most of us it was Van Morrison and Them who created the classic rock ‘n’ blues version we all know so well and wow, did Egypt do this justice, you bet.

Would they play The Groundhogs “Cherry Red”? Certainly and I have absolutely no idea how long it lasted maybe 20 minutes???…phenomenal, absolutely amazing and the entire bar loved every second of it and they were very reluctant to let the band not do an encore which duly arrived with the all-time Hendrix classic “Voodoo Chile”.

Of course nights like this do not happen on their own therefore a special mention must go to Egypt’s sound engineer Dick Wilson who used Balding Bloke’s in-house system and between them made such a memorable night. Naturally we would like to see these guys again and it most likely will not be until next year simply because they are so much in demand therefore keep an eye on the What’s On” calendar.

The local and very experienced Cappuccino trio turned into a four-piece with the excellent keyboard player Greg Willis enjoying a trip north from London and The Kings’ regulars were thoroughly entertained by 30 classic covers.

Obviously I’m not going to list all of them however to give you an idea of the flavour the two sets included no less than seven Beatles tracks interspersed with many gems such as “Guitar Man”, “Come Together”, “You’ve Got A Friend”, “These Boots Are Made For Walking”, “Bony Moronie”, “Ain’t No Sunshine”, “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life” and “Fragile”.

The regulars were obviously loving all of this since I have never seen so many couples dancing throughout the entire bar and they continued all the way to the end of the night as “Day Dream Believer” was followed by three Elvis numbers, “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock” and completing the night with The Beatles “I Saw Her Standing There”.

All fabulous stuff and a much-appreciated performance however as we were all enjoying a post-gig beer the feisty blonde Sylv decided, after only a little cajolling from Beefy, to get back up for a requested Gary Moore’s “Still Got The Blues”; what a fitting end to a great Friday night.