Review and photos by Peter Coates – https://www.facebook.com/InsideEdgePhotography
Back in Australia for BLUESFEST once more, Gary Clark Jr also managed to throw in a few sideshows in Australia, and Sydney got the third of these the night before he played the festival. I was lucky enough to see this astonishing bluesman play the Factory Theatre and the Corner Hotel in 2013, and those two shows will long remain burned into the brain.
This was a different Gary Clark Jr to back then when the blues was raw and ragged, and there was a brutal energy to the show. This is an altogether more sophisticated and polished Gary Clark Jr that had more of a Little Steven & The Disciples of Soul, or Michael Franti feel to it – and while some of the guitar aficionados might have relished the show, it left me feeling a little flat.
Melbourne bluesman Hamish Anderson brought his power trio to town as support, and delivered an excellent set to the growing crowd, who had believed the website on the 8pm start time…..and missed the first few songs. Looking like a modern day Marc Bolan with a hint of Tommy Bolin, with Phoebe on bass and Pete (I think) on drums, Anderson delivered a high intensity blues rock set to a steadily building Enmore crowd, who clearly knew their blues.
He is touring his new record, Electric, so we got a few songs off that, including one with a nod to the riff from Day Tripper, the upbeat instrumental rocker of Ramble which slid into the soulful Steal Away. Late In The Evening provided an extended rocked up blues with rumbling bass line and a driving drum pattern allowing Anderson to deliver a stunning solo. Pain featured a bit of slide guitar to open up the track, and an impassioned verse, before the band piles in with a rock solid backing.
The farewell song Strangers, featured HA on the harmonica and was a lilting blues ballad with a laconic vocal delivery. This is a home grown blues rock power trio that we can be proud of.
Gary Clark Jr has brought a full band with 3 backing singers handling percussion, plus bass, keys, drums and rhythm guitar, with the dominant presence of the ‘cat in the hat’ as the clear focus onstage. I may get some of the tracks in the wrong order here, but I believe we got an extended version of Robert Petway’s Catfish Blues, before the atmospheric jazz-rock of Maktub from the new JPEG Raw album, and an epic version of When My Train Pulls In – giving us photographers a longer than usual three songs in the pit!
There was the soulful blues of The Healing, and the gospel styling of Feed The Babies, whose intro sees Clark Jr prowling the stage while the band powers up the beat. The vocal line is more Motown than Delta Blues, and the backing vocals from the ladies are angelic. We get an extended keyboard solo over the pounding drumbeat, and this provides a real Spearhead vibe. There is a spirituality to Church, and Clark Jr has the guitar talking more like a saxophone in parts, while he puts down the guitar for a rendition of Alone Together, and then there is a similar gospel feel to Our Love which I am sure he played on the night.The set closed with the glorious Bright Lights, with a touch of Blak and Blu as part of the intro, and that highly distorted guitar sound which took us all by storm when it first appeared back in 2013, and the mighty Habits. There had to be an encore, and Clark Jr and the band re-emerged for Don’t Owe You a Thang, which had the healthy Enmore crowd howling for more.
