16 March 2013 (gig)
17 March 2013
The crowd at Shades of Blues in St Albans was completely sold out for King King last night and the performance left all of them ecstatic over a set of great Soulful Blues by a band with more chops than Morrisons
.
After a fine warm up by Lincoln’s Devlin Blue (more later) King King took the ‘stage’ to warm applause from the crowd and got straight into it with a cracking version of ‘More Than I Can Take'. Alan Nimmo was on fine form and his soul tinged vocals were absolutely at their best with the brilliant ‘Long History of Love’. He really is an excellent front man dressed in a bright red Kilt and with a fine line in chatting to the audience he makes the occasion more personal and the lady in the micro kilt was positively beaming as he called attention to her dancing in the wings.
Nimmo’s voice is perfectly suited to fellow Glaswegian Frankie Miller’s ‘Jealousy’ and they followed up with ‘What Am I Supposed To Do’ with some terrific electric piano in the mix.
As on both their albums, the playing was superb with a great funk and jazz tinged bass line from Lindsay Coulson and subtle and driving drums from Wayne Proctor but as the set went on I was more and more impressed by the keyboards of Dan Bingham– by taking the focus slightly away from the guitar it makes for a much more danceable sound.
And dance they did! The new numbers had the crowd going with the not-yet-familiar but by the moddle of the set there was a coterie of dancers in front of the stage and the wings were getting down with some rare moves.
When Nimmo brought on young Dave Devlin to jam the young man showed some rare skills and matched Nimmo riff for riff with the crowd really getting behind the lad.
Shades of Blues is a great little club and has been putting on excellent Blues in St Albans for a couple of years but King King definitely brought some new fans into the joint and I think that they will have left very satisfied by a brilliant performance from a band who don’t do anything outrageous or unknown but who play their music with a huge smile and real talent – this is Blues played for the love of it and the crowd reacted in the best way possible.
A short word about Devlin Blue: Alan Nimmo talked them up during King King’s set, describing them as one of the best young bands he had heard in years. I have to say that he has a great ear. Three music students at Guildford and all from Lincoln, the three are raw and unfinished but they play with real verve and sound as though they are playing the music that they want to. Dave Devlin is an excellent guitarist who can only get better playing with experienced mentors such as Nimmo and Sam Varlow’s vocals are strong while Craig Richards did well on unfamiliar drums – I think they will be ones to watch out for.
www.shadesofblues.co.uk
