29 July 2010 (gig)
31 July 2010
There is absolutely no question that Stephen Dale Petit is one of the most talented and dynamic guitarists playing in Britain at the moment. He has the chops, the songs and a brilliant and punchy band behind him – unfortunately he chose to play in Islington and the only place in London where the crowd is less interested in hearing the music that they have paid for would be the Jazz Cafe – no matter how well he played he was on a struggle to be heard.
He opened with ‘3 Gunslingers’ – his tale of driving around London with Ronnie Wood and Eric Clapton – and ripped out some stunning guitar work while Lorenzo Mouflier howled out some great harp. His 1st set included the absolute best numbers from ‘The Crave’ – ‘Calirornia’, even better without the strings, ‘Gun Song’, simply nasty and snotty and brilliant, and ‘Soul Survivor’ and the crowd were noisy as usual but Petit was loud enough that those that wanted to hear him were able to. Unfortunately he hit a wall on ‘As The Years Go Passing By’ where he had to stop and admonish the crowd - “Oi, shut up! I’m trying to sing a song here for fuck’s sake!” simply got the crowd talking all the more loudly – not the place for a sensitive ballad. There were a goodly number of fans at the front who were well into the music but behind them there were now a bunch who seemed only to want to talk over whatever music was happening.
Somehow Petit rose above the assholes at the back and continued to play his music but there was a confrontational feeling for the rest of the evening.
The second set featured Mick Taylor alongside Petit and I have to admit that all forms of objectivity went out of the window as I stood and watched one of my all-time heroes playing the music he was made for – Taylor is one of the best Slide players Britain has ever had and playing alongside Petit the two of them were simply terrific. The loudmouths were still there but even they seemed to understand that this was a little special.
SDP is a real talent but he was always swimming against the tide on Thursday – I would love to see him play in front of a sympathetic audience in a proper Blues club rather than a fashionista backhole like the Academy 2 but that will come in time and I look forward to seeing him again then.
