The Soul Solution are a great band, nice and tight with an excellent sound quality with a couple of sets featuring many varied tracks from artists such as Al Green, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles, Sam and Dave, Stevie Wonder and the Blues Brothers.
Not content with those stars they also cover more up-to-date numbers such as “10/10″ from Paolo Nutini, “Super Duper Love” and “Some Kind Of Wonderful” from Joss Stone, “How Sweet It Is” from Michael Buble and the very popular “Valerie” from Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson, however the biggest surprise for me were two classic tracks very competently covered, the 1967 Burt Bacharach and Hal David song for the Casino Royale soundtrack by Dusty Springfield “The Look Of Love” which was definitely a first time ever at The Kings.
The second surprise and almost the last song of the night, and I have to say very, very well performed, was the stupendous 1967 Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Aretha Franklin classic “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”. As always a fabulous night of classic soul, funk and Motown covers and we look forward to welcoming them back again but please don’t make it another 8 months!
The Vivas! Who? Ahhhh…The Schoolhouse Rockers graduated at the end of 2009 and transformed into The Vivas, they’re still the same excellent three-piece line-up reproducing rockabilly sounds from the 50s and 60s and The Kings’ regulars love ‘em.
If you’ve never seen them then make the effort next time they play at The Kings since they are very, very good and have been one of my favourite bands for years now featuring Dave on guitar, Sally, who stands up for the entire two sets on drums & Clarkie with his thumping upright bass.
The very nature of this style of music means you’re going to get a lot of songs over two sets in nearly 3 hours with the break, in total 44 were performed such as “Summertime Blues”, “Blue Suede Shoes”, a great fun track “Jungle VIP” also known as “I Wan’na Be Like You” from the Jungle Book (“Now I’m the king of the swingers”), “Rock Around The Clock”, “Not Fade Away”, “Peggy Sue”, “That’ll Be The Day” and “Ubangi Stomp” by Jerry Lee Lewis in case you were wondering. As if by chance their final encore was, of course, “Johnny B. Goode” however I must mention two first-time ever at The Kings tracks that worked really, really well. The first one was the Beach Boy’s huge 1963 hit “Surfin’ USA” and the second was the 1955 hit for Chuck Berry with “Roll Over Beethoven”.
A great night from a talented trio who love entertaining their fans. I’m not too sure when they’ll be back yet, you know where to look.
All the way from the Isle of Wight on a mini UK tour for a Friday night gig at The Kings, surely they’re going to be good making all that effort?
Well, everyone hates it when I write well since they know I have something contorversial to write! Two sets of a very good selection of songs and seemingly well-played however their sound for me and several others was not at all well engineered, in fact it was so top-endy, very loud and shrill I had to spend most of the night out of the direct line of sound since it hurt my ears. I do know there was a bass player however his guitar was very rarely heard and the lead’s was only just there for the most important riffs.
Obviously some/many don’t have my standard of hearing since they seemed to be oblivious to this because lots of people were up, singing and dancing to all their covers, which, as I said, were a very good selection and generally well played. Certainly I would like to see this band again BUT they really would need to be sound-engineered by Balding Bloke who knows how to get the best out of the bands at The Kings.
5 months! It’s 5 months since they were last here! One thing Mosquito is not and that is a conventional rock covers’ band. They’re willing to take on songs and genres and put their individual twist and style to them and when a band has a powerful female lead singer in the mould of Emma then virtually anything seems possible and probable.
Two sets, the first with 12 songs including “Predict A Riot”, “In The Morning”, “Teenage Dirtbag”, “Just A Girl”, “Fallen In Love”, a first-time ever at The Kings “Poker Face” from Lady Gaga and winding the set up was Stereophonics “Dakota”. The second set of 20 songs commenced with Republica’s “Ready To Go” and another Stereophonics, “Bartender And The Thief”, the breakthrough hit from Scottish band Franz Ferdinand, “Take Me Out” and The Killers “Take Me Out” led up to a very interesting selection of songs.
An excellent rock version of “Daddy Cool”, Nena’s “99 Red Balloons” and “”Build Me Up Buttercup” from The Foundations, The Monkees “I’m A Believer” and then into yet another first-timer, Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”, this was all very, very good stuff and the regulars were loving it. Of course the must-be-played song had to come, Kings Of Leon’s “Sex On Fire” but wonderfully followed by a tremendous Girls Aloud “Love Machine”. Although the crowd certainly did not want them to finish the two encores were “Walking On Sunshine” and an excellent “Chelsea Dagger” from The Fratellis.
Yet another crowd-pleasing performance from Chris on lead guitar, Andy on drums, Jack on bass with Emma on vocals. All being well they will be back just before Xmas but it will be a Friday night so keep an eye out for them.
Many, many thanks to Kandis for playing for free on the hottest night of the year and finishing the music festival in style.
Kandis are no ordinary band, expect the unexpected with Kandis and you’ll also know that it will be very good. A couple of sets covering 30 tracks commencing with “I Wanna Be Adored” from The Stone Roses and “Sonnet” from The Verve got us all in the mood and a first timer must be “Mystify” from INXS and most probably “The Mighty Quinn” from Manfred Mann. “High And Dry” from Radiohead and The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry” provided a great alternative towards the end of the first set.
The second set commenced with “Last Nite” from The Strokes and “Richard III” from Supergrass and then thrown into the mix was “London Calling” from The Clash. Snow Patrol got a look-in with “You’re All I Have” and so too did “Use Somebody” from The Kings Of Leon then another Stone Roses track “She Bangs The Drum” and then the great Arctic Monkeys’ “I Bet You Look Good On The Dance Floor”. As the night was coming to an end we had a big surprise with The Sugar Hill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight”, “The Bartender And The Thief” from the Stereophinics and finally Snow Patrol’s “Run”.
A class performance with which to close the festival. Many thanks to Sharon and Richard for enduring it all, a BIG thank you for Balding Bloke for sound engineering all the bands for free and once again, many, many thanks to Kands for their excellent and free performance.