Review and photos by Peter Coates – www.facebook.com/InsideEdgePhotography
Mike Ross, whose album we recently reviewed, doing a low key solo show as part of the Jimmy C Blues Sessions at the Princess Alexandra in Crouch End – just him, a left-hooker with a bunch of guitars, one 12 string acoustic and two steel resonators, and showing his versatility with the rawness of the performance.
With Mike on a stool, no lights and the simplest of setups, we got 90 minutes of superb blues and steel guitar versions of the somewhat heavier band-delivered material, opening up with The Reason This Railroad, and Face By Your Window, and then into Cool Water, which is a discordant clash of guitars and pure vocals, very apt on this hot humid North London night, that highlighted some old-school Led Zep vibes from the acoustic work.
Kicks Like A Mule has another Jimmy Page ballad feel to it, but with a trad rock structure, but it is the guitar-driven segments that are the key to this one.
The Loser was written mid- pandemic as a piece of self-affirmation and positivity among all the upheaval and uncertainty, and provides a personal insight into the impact on artists during that time of isolation.
Ghost Hound Rider, written with Jack JH for the Redfern Hutchinson & Ross project, is a classic rock track with Mike showing real dexterity on the guitar playing as well as in the vocal delivery. Another off the Third Eye Open album in Falling Down sees Mike stretching his voice while conjuring some raucous blues from the guitar over an extended version, and he closes the first set with the latest single off album, Ugly Brain, which reminds me of Thunder in that classic British blues rock way, and Mike absolutely lets rip on the guitar in the mid-section.
The second set kicks off with more songs from The Clovis Limit Part 1 sessions album, being steel guitar renditions of earlier recordings, and we get Driftwood , Grow In Your Garden and Young Man. This is where Mike comes into his own solo, with the impassioned vocals laying over the lush steel guitar tones, minimal effects involved, just superb guitar playing. The blues version of None of Your Business is miles away from the psychedelic rock version, but is equally powerful. There is some terrific finger-picking in Fixing To Die which is straight from the Crossroads in terms of southern Delta Blues pedigree. There is a similar feel to The Only Place You Ever Take Me Is Down, with a standard structure but a non-standard delivery.
Then we get the 12-bar boogie of Harpo before a corking slide-guitar version of Statesboro Blues, that wonderful blues standard. The set winds with Don’t Worry No 1, before the epic Leviathan that provides an impressive close to a superb evening of high-quality blues. This has some effective use of echo and reverb that enlarges the overall sound and impact, but the real star is the sheer class of Mike’s guitar work – a real gem of the British blues world.
We got an extra encore in I Love You Baby which rounded out the night in style.
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