Artists: Laurence Jones Band
Venue: Frome, Tree House
Date: 01 February 2025
"They were on fire and Jones never fails to impress me with what a brilliant guitarist and accomplished vocalist he is"
The Tree House is situated just outside of Frome town centre, Somerset, and is above a pub. It holds about one hundred and twenty people and is affiliated to the more famous Frome venue, The Cheese And Grain. The Tree House was just over half full, probably since there were festivals in Brighton and Planet Rock’s weekend in Wales going on. This was the fifth date out of a thirty-two-date tour of small venues in the UK that Jones is doing to support them. There was no support act, and Jones and the band came onto the stage at 20.30.
Playing a Lake Placid-coloured Fender Stratocaster, Jones was dressed very casually in black trousers, and a blue sports top, The band opened up with ‘Don’t Need No Reason’ from one of the earlier albums. The sound was very loud but acceptable with his vocals up in the mix. He immediately showcased how good his guitar work is. Following on, the band launched into Leadbelly’s ‘Good Morning Blues’, a mid-tempo Blues song that sped up to breakneck speed towards the last few bars. ‘Don’t You Leave Me This Way’ from the current album saw Jones hunched over his guitar during an amazing guitar solo, using the volume knob on the guitar to vary the sound to great effect. The band then performed ‘Mistreated’, a song that is very rarely played. The bass player Jack Alexander Timmis was superb alongside the whammy bar skills of Jones during the guitar solo. With a short drum solo intro, then the slow Blues number ‘Addicted To Your Love’ was performed.
A few words about the reason for the tour and to support small venues and the bands that play them were followed by the title track of the latest album, seeing Jones excelling again on guitar. There was then an explanation about the very first song that he wrote many years ago; ‘Thunder In The Sky’ is a slow Blues tune, that I believe is played at almost every concert. It is a tremendous song, full of emotion and containing a very long and meaningful guitar solo. Before performing ‘What’s It Gonna Be’, then a mention was made of one of his long-standing gig followers, Colin Shotter, who was attending his sixty-ninth Jones concert.
‘In Too Deep’ from the album ‘Destination Unknown’ was next. For the first time in the evening, the crowd clapped along to this full-on rocker featuring excellent drumming by Alan Taylor. Then the highlight of the night, as Jones told the crowd who first got him into playing guitar. It was of course Jimi Hendrix, and the band launched into ‘Voodoo Chile’. This was a master class in playing guitar as Jones used all sorts of tricks; harmonics, whammy bar, pressing the strings near the top of the guitar (not sure of the term) to bend the notes, and the Hendrix trick of playing guitar with his teeth whilst holding it up to his face. A stunning performance! ‘Stuck In The Night’ followed and just as the crowd were getting into it and clapping along then everything went dark and very quiet. The electricity supply had cut out! After frantic running around by the house staff, then power was eventually restored after about five minutes, after which the band restarted the song.
The final song of the evening was ‘Woman’; a single taken from the latest album, and a real crowd pleaser which got them clapping and bopping along to it. They quickly continued with an encore of ‘Fooling Me’, another crowd pleaser. The band then left the stage and headed to the merch stand to talk to people and sell and sign albums. The set had lasted almost ninety minutes.
This was an outstanding night of music. It was different to see the band in a small venue after seeing them over the last few years playing in medium to large ones. They were on fire and Jones never fails to impress me with what a brilliant guitarist and accomplished vocalist he is. Go and see them whilst there are still dates left and support small venues. You will not be disappointed.
Review: Paul Gregory
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