With the temperature plummeting, it’s good to be heading into a warm place, and places don’t get much warmer than Nottingham’s excellent Metronome, especially when it’s packed from front to back. We’re particularly excited to be here tonight, as well-respected blues artists Troy Redfern and Philip Sayce are repeating their successful touring partnership from last year, bringing their sizzling take on the blues to audiences around the UK.
Troy Redfern, whenever you see him, always seems to have some new and innovative presentation for his music. This time around, he’s opted to tour as a two-piece, with mad animal drummer Nicky Waters in tow. Nicky, who oozes punk rock spirit, plays a stripped-down kit comprised solely of tom, snare, and crash, but you’d never know it from the impressive range of sounds he batters out of it. Playing standing up, he looks more like he should be in Soft Play or Rancid, and he provides Troy with a suitably thunderous backdrop for his hard rocking slide-blues jams.
The set opens with a bowel-quaking beat, before Troy the slide king arrives on stage, peeling implausible waves of blissful noise from his road-worn resonator. As always, Troy is in some strange sphere of his own existence, ripping into the song like a man possessed which, in many ways, he is.
With Nicky laying impressively heavy foundations, it is for Troy to push the boundaries, and tracks often devolve into lengthy, psyche-rock jams that weave through layers of reverb, opening the gateway to the 5th dimension along the way. With tracks like Dark Religion – a blistering blues folk in the style of the Levellers at their darkest, Troy Redfern highlights his diversity. Then there’s Waiting For Your Love, from the excellent Fire Cosmic – a hard rocking blues number via Iggy Pop that finds the solo racing off into the void, eclipsing the studio version by some way. Rounding out this short, but thunderous set, Sanctify – another highlight from The Fire Cosmic – leaves the audience in no doubt as to Troy’s skills, and it’s fair to say that a good number will be heading out to Troy’s headline tour (see dates below) early next year. Having seen Troy in action a fair number of times over the years, he never disappoints, and tonight is no exception.
Following a short break, Philip Sayce calmly saunters on stage, busts out the sort of solo that makes any guitarists in the audience consider quitting, and then asks if we’re ready.
We are.
And then it all explodes.
Clearly in the mood to raise some hell, Philip kicks off the night with longstanding set opener, Out of my mind, (complete with an interpolated section from Ode To Joy). Given the effervescent performance of Philip, bassist Sam Bolle, and drummer Bryan Head, it’s clear that they want to kick the barn doors off early, especially when Philip tears into a bruising coda that sounds like Sabbath fronted by SRV. Nor is this a one-off. The band neatly follow up this torrential blues-rock outpouring with Bitter Monday, a track that pairs stadium-sized drums with Robert Cray soul – which is to say nothing of the blazing solo that finds Philip, teetering at the edge of the stage, sweat dripping onto the monitors, fingers caressing the frets with Faustian skill. That skill remains in evidence as he drives his band into the aptly-named funk rocker Powerful Thing, an early set highlight that is delivered with power and poise.
A pair of well-worn covers follow – Don Covay’s exquisite Blues Ain’t Nothin’ But A Good Woman On Your Mind remains a show stopper, while who can resist the rolling segue from a Muddy Waters track into Sayce’s own Aberystwyth (from Steamroller). An amazing instrumental with Clapton soul it leaves the audience stunned and with good reason, for this uniquely evocative piece never fails to stir the emotions.
Written with Richard Marx and taken from the most recent album, The Wolves Are Coming, we get Lady Love Divine next. Played with potent force, it totally rocks, although only a handful in the audience acknowledge this, the rest standing around like a baffled herd at feeding time. It’s a little frustrating, but Philip has energy and to spare, and few artists work harder to whip up a crowd than this good-natured bluesman. Keeping the pace lively, Philip follows Lady Love… with a track from Spirit Rising titled She’s The Music. A snappy piece with a hook-laden chorus, you have to wonder how he’s not playing stadiums with music this addictive – at the very least it should carry some sort of health warning, as we’re still humming the damn things 24-hours later.
Another cover follows in the form of Jon Lee Hooker’s This Is Hip (dedicated to Philip’s late father) – a joy fuelled blues that has Philip standing on tiptoe as he races across the frets. Bryan’ leads the way into Beautiful with his funky drums, although a crunchy riff isn’t far behind and, by the time we reach the falsetto chorus, we’re hooked.
For all the dazzling musicianship that is on display, Philip Sayce’s appeal lies in his ability to make his songs universal and this is nowhere more evident than on the stunning pairing of 5:55 / Alchemy. Dedicated to his father, it’s a remarkable instrumental that ranges from a dazzling introduction, through a stunning harmonic bass solo, to a climactic section that provides the most emotionally intense solo of the night. At points stripped entirely of amplification in an auditorium where you can hear a pin drop, it may be a technically dazzling piece, but it’s the emotion that lies beneath that is key, and you only begin to admire the technique once the initial impact has worn off.
From there, Philip hits a home run, blazing through the hard driving Morning Star straight into an unstoppable Manic Depression (Jimi Hendrix Experience), complete with snippets of Norwegian Wood. It makes for an explosive ending to a show that runs with the throttle fully depressed almost throughout.
Exceptionally gifted on the guitar and a more than capable vocalist, it would be easy to simply admire Philip Sayce for his skill and leave it at that. However, far more crucial to Philip’s success is his ability to inhabit the blues. Like B.B. King or Buddy Guy, he has the ability to make the blues fun and, while his songs may come from somewhere very personal, his gift is to create something genuinely cathartic that can be shared by the entire audience. Soulful, funky, playful… exceptional – a Philip Sayce show is something to treasure.
