Blues in Britain  (Issue 45 /  September 2005)

Joshua Blue

Red Lion, High Wycombe 2/08/05

It is a Tuesday night and time for some Blues in High Wycombe. The Red Lion has been growing steadily in popularity with a knowledgeable Blues loving audience and is now High Wycombe's best "Live Music" venue. It's well set up with a low stage and lights and a good selection of real ales. Following the response from the regular attentive fans, many of the top bands who have appeared are seeking to come back again. Tonight people had travelled out from Oxford and West London to hear the band.      The four-piece took to the stage and opened with a fast instrumental shuffle. A rousing track, which let the band warm up, and give the audience a chance to try out a loud applause. Suitably prepared, the band went into Muddy Waters' "Hoochie Coochie Man", followed swiftly by a slow blues, with great guitar solos from Joshua, which went way down low and quiet and then rose to a resounding crescendo, which had the audience whoopin' and clappin' in the isles. Joshua Blue's guitar for the evening turned out to be a Gibson Les Paul, he had a semi-acoustic with him, which looked as though it would sound very tasty, but a slight misreading of the audience meant that it got tucked away at the back. Of course this could be a marketing ploy to get you out to the next gig!      The band did a great interpretation of the classic "Don't you lie to me" and then followed through with a request for "a bit of Hendrix" with "Little Wing". Paul Garner did the honours on his Strat for this with Joshua concentrating on vocals. The rest of the band got introduced and had a chance to solo on a funky beat number "Don't come back baby". Mark Layton-Bennett was none-too shy on drums and Italian Constantino had us enthralled with his bass solo. Time for a break, beer and re-string of the Gibson.      The three piece opened up the second set with a fast tempo version of "I just wanna make love to you", with Joshua joining them part way through for the vocals. They kept that tempo going with "Goin' down". A great addition to the evening's entertainment was the arrival on stage of a local member of the audience to play harmonica on Freddie King's "Tore Down". Young Vic got a great opportunity to strut his stuff and received a well deserved round of applause from the audience.      A slow rendition of "Ain't nobody's business" followed and then Albert King's "Born under a bad sign". It was a funky bash with a frenetic wah-wah bass line to close, but we did just manage to squeeze a slow blues for an encore before retiring gracefully into the night. Hopefully they're re-booked later in the year, and I for one will be there, but will he play that semi-acoustic?

Paul Stiles - Blues in Britain (Issue 45 / September 2005)