It’s
about time that Nine Below Zero are recognised as the great British institution
that they are after flying the flag for Rhythm & Blues for some 37 years.
Looking at the extensive dates on the tour list on their website, you will see
that they are one of the hardest working bands around, and have been throughout
their time together.
There
are no pretentions either; on arriving at The Robin 2 for the gig, I found main
man, Dennis Greaves, behind the CD stand and talking blues philosophy to an
interested fan. After all these years, the passion for R’n’B still burns as
brightly as it ever did.
Hitting
the stage to a hugely enthusiastic crowd, Nine Below Zero launched into a
number of songs they recorded back in 1980 for the debut long player, ‘Live at
the Marquee’ (which has recently been reissued). All the favourites were there,
‘Homework’, ‘I Can’t Help Myself’, ‘Can I Get A Witness’ etc.
Aside
from Dennis Greaves, the band features original member, Mark Feltham, on
harmonica and Brian Bethell, who played on the ‘Third Degree’ album and, along
with Dennis, formed The Truth (another great, great, band whose original
line-up recently got together for a handful of shows). Brendan completes the
line-up on the drum stool.
A few
numbers were then played from the ‘Don’t Point Your Finger’ LP from 1981,
including the title track and ‘Rockin’ Robin’, followed by some tunes from more
recent albums such as ‘Off The Hook’. Dennis paid tribute to Wilko Johnson,
recently diagnosed with terminal cancer, much to the delight and appreciation
of this Blues audience.
Back
onto ‘Live at the Marquee’ and we got ‘Hootchie Cootchie Coo’ and the
smouldering ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’ featuring Mr. Greaves excellent Blues
guitar playing. There was a huge cheer for ‘Ridin’ On The L&N’ which was preceded
by Mark’s fantastic train locomotive harmonica intro. Last song of the night
was the popular ‘Pack Fair & Square’.
There
was a long and loud handclap and cheers for more before NBZ came back to give
us what we really wanted – ‘Eleven Plus Eleven’, a great track and remembered
by many for the bands performance of this on the very first episode of ‘The
Young Ones’. The night ended with a storming version of ‘Wooly Bully’ that
concluded some one and three quarter hours on stage. Awesome!
A great
band with yet another great performance and a timely reminder of just how
popular Rhythm & Blues still is (also recently demonstrated by 16 year
olds, The Strypes, recently signing a 5-album deal with Mercury worldwide).
Let’s hope Dennis and the boys continue their Blues crusade for many years to
come.
Paul Hooper-Keeley
No comments:
Post a Comment