Barry's Views

Review:

Frequent visits to Nottingham have established this well-balanced and nicely interactive band as wholly reliable purveyors of authentic-sounding Chicago style blues, leavened with appealing elements of alt-country and rock‘n’roll. A solid and responsive backline provide a great platform for Sam Hare (vocals, guitar) and Giles King (vocals, harmonica) to strut their virtuosic stuff and they took full opportunity tonight, playing plenty of straight blues interspersed with Sam’s own distinctive material. It was all good but first half standout numbers included Sam’s country blues shuffle ‘Going Down To Georgia’, an uptempo ‘Don’t You Know’ and a superb slow ‘Death Letter Blues’.

After the break I liked a well-arranged funky original ‘Early Grave’, the soulful ‘You Just Bring Me Water’, Wolf’s ‘House Rocking Boogie’, another magnificent slow blues ‘Me Myself Alone’, Otis Spann’s ‘What The Hell Was They Thinking Of?’ and Sam conducting the audience in a farewell ‘Bye Bye Baby’.

Hucklebuck never disappoint and tonight their intelligent, relaxed and responsive playing once more took them to a level achieved by surprisingly few British bands.

Dave Kingsbury