Last night was the BBF/Aberdeen/Scots Blues Alliance benefit for the homeless at the Blue Lamp in Aberdeen. Lots of pictures and some video to follow.
It was a 4-band line up, Sandy Mathers band 'the Juke Joint Rollers', PapaMojo, my band and Tim 'dillo' Aves. Doors at 7, and by 7:30 all of the seats were full, by 7:45 it was SRO, and stayed that way for the rest of the night.
The Rollers kicked it off early with a great seat of harmonic-driven blues. Bright Lights, Big City was my personal fave, I'm a sucker for Jimmy Reed. Sandy did a great job throughout leading the band, playing harp and chatting up every woman of legal age in the room. And they all seemed to know him too, there must be a story here.
PapaMojo really fits well in this room, the acoustics are warm and live and at 9 they took over and drove everyone to the dance floor. It's great to hear country blues played well. Stef is a great guitar player with a really dry gravel voice, and Billy and Dave are the most under-rated rhythm section in Scotland. Perfect minimalism, not a not or a hit out of place. And I've got some video to prove it.
Tim and I had the luxury of going next and taking over a room that was red-hot. Having to follow these guys is a great challenge. And the complication was that in the middle of the PapaMojo set I got a call from my drummer who was snowed in and wasn't going to make it. PANIC?. naw, we had a great drumer in the room to sub in! So, with Billy behind the kid we blew through an hour of old raunchy hill country style blues, some old Elmore James and all the raw stuff that seems to connect with the 20-somethings as well as the 40-somethings. Tim is a great harp player who can hold his own on the guitar too, and we traded tunes back and forth. It was a fun set.
From there it was jam time, and the 90 minute jam that mixed up all the bands plus a few ringers from the audience kept the dance floor shakin. Fox stayed in place for most of the jam, he's a great guitar player, and the combination of Fox and Dillo was a good one. I even got a change to play a little harp and remind everyone that, well, as far as harp players go, I'm a pretty good guitar player
Gigs like this are always over too fast. But what I love about them is the chance to hang out with some great people and really good friends. It's too bad we didn't have a chance for a forum photo, but I think the count was (Dillo, Blindman, Barrelhouse, Fox, Dino, OldBones, FishFeathers, me) was 8. Did I miss anyone?
By the time Tim and I had the gear put away and discovered that there wasn't a lick of food in the house it was around 3 am. Long day.
By my count we had around 150 people on the heels of a snow storm. Next stop Dundee for the next UK BBF meet-up and breakfast. Any of y'all that want to crash the party, get in touch with us.....
Oh, yeah, video to follow. Watch this space!
