Artists: Walter Trout, Laura Evans
Venue: Frome: Cheese and Grain
Date: 24th October 2024
"Trout and his band gave the best performance I have ever seen them do, and his anecdotes are very funny. Go see them live when you can!"
The Cheese and Grain is situated in Frome, Somerset. It has been in existence for a very long time. It has been through a major internal re-vamp and it now has a better stage, lights and heat/air conditioning. It holds around 835 people standing or 500 people seated. Over the years it has been host to many famous bands, including Robert Plant and more recently, The Foo Fighters and Paul McCartney, who both did surprise warm-up gigs there prior to their appearances at Glastonbury, which is a few miles away.
Playing to a full house, the opening support act was Laura Evans, who was accompanied by the guitarist from her band, Will Edmunds. Doing an acoustic set, she opened with ‘Solo’ and immediately got the crowd to sing along with her. Next up was ‘Fire With Fire’. Her vocals were strong and Edmunds’ guitar playing was very good. She also covered a Chris Stapleton song, ‘Arkansas’, which got the crowd clapping along. After a few more songs from her debut album, she then did Bonnie Raitt’s ‘Love Me Like A Man’; a Blues song with Edmunds excelling on the guitar solo. By this time the crowd had warmed to her and she got fantastic applause. The final song to her thirty-minute set was ‘I’m Alright’, with the crowd joining in with the singing on the chorus. At the end of her set she received tremendous applause from the appreciative audience. Evans has a superb voice and Edmunds is a fantastic guitar player. A great start to the evening.
At 21.00, Walter Trout and his band arrived on stage and launched into the first number, ‘I Can Tell’ from an early album of his called ‘Telling Stories’. The song began with a lengthy instrumental piece before the vocals kicked in. There was a superb Hammond organ solo in the middle of it. The sound mix had started a bit fuzzy, but by the time the song had finished then the Sound guy had rectified it. Following on was ‘Courage In The Dark’ from his latest album ‘Broken’ that had an outstanding guitar solo. One of the songs that got the most crowd response was ‘Wanna Dance’ with the audience clapping along and dancing about. Trout then told a story all about the late great John Mayall, who had employed Trout after seeing him playing in Canned Heat. He was also responsible for getting him out of the drugs and alcohol situation that Trout was in at the time. ‘Say Goodbye To The Blues’, dedicated to Mayall, contained arguably the best guitar solo of the evening, and was a crescendo of sound by the time it had finished.
Trout and his band then performed a few more songs; ‘Ride’ (a song about the railroads where he used to live as a boy and it is also about his father’s struggles who was a POW in WW2) and ‘Follow You Back Home’ (a slow ballad). Trout then introduced the second guitar player who had been playing almost out of view on the side of the stage. On ‘We’re All In This Together’, they each took a turn at the vocals and the guitar solos, and by the end of the song they were both duetting. There then followed a very amusing story about John Lee Hooker, before Trout launched into ‘Bleed’. This featured special guest Will Wilde, a tremendous harmonica player, who usually performs with his own band. ‘Gonna Hurt Like Hell’ also had an amusing story preceding it, and the guest was Edmunds, who again took it in turns to do the solos and then ended up playing with Trout. Before launching into the final song ‘Red Sun’ there was then a very moving monologue by Trout about organ donation; it was an organ transplant that had saved his life ten years ago, having been donated by an unknown donor. During the song all of the band were introduced and took turns playing amazing solos. The impressive band were; Roland Bakker on organ, John Avila on bass, Michael Leisure on drums and new kid on the block, guitarist Brett Smit-Daniels. A short time after leaving the stage, they returned for the encore ‘Going Down’, much to the enjoyment of the crowd, who were ecstatic and dancing about. Trout and the band were joined on stage by Evans, Edmunds and Wilde, who all took it in turns to sing or play their instruments.
A truly excellent evening of entertainment from both artists who performed in a very nice venue, with a free car park. Trout and his band gave the best performance I have ever seen them do, and his anecdotes are very funny. Go see them live when you can!
Review: Paul Gregory Photos: Paul May
Gallery. All photos © Paul May (used with kind permission)
Location:
Comments