THREE STARS
We got there in the end, with some eye-poppingly good instrumental work delivered by a band of conspicuous talents on fiddle, electric banjo and mandolin plus an ultra-together rhythm team.
But much of former Allman Brothers Band guitarist Warren Haynes’ first visit to Scotland was marred by a poor sound quality that had some people giving up and walking out only a few songs into the set and even seemed to cause an altercation at the back of the hall that briefly diverted attention from the stage.
Haynes is a fine guitarist in the Southern rock-blues style but he doesn’t come across as a natural frontman. He’s certainly not the sort who’s going to introduce the next song with a bon mot or two and the promised “honeyed vocals that cut straight through to the soul” were largely reduced to an indecipherable moan, so there was quite a lot of guesswork as to what was being presented.
Little Feat’s Skin It Back was recognisable by its guitar lick and Elton John’s Madman Across the Water might have cut through the fog but if they were punctuated by skilful instrumental breaks, as appeared to possibly be the case, these weren’t reaching row P.
It wasn’t really until the encore of bluegrass-gospel standard Angel Band that the vocals became genuinely and enjoyably audible and as it segued from churchy five-part harmony into a lengthy medley based on the Allmans favourite Jessica, with its familiar guitar melody enhanced by the band’s kilted fiddle virtuoso, the full swinging, rocking, rootsy flavour of the ensemble became apparent. Little consolation if you were back home by then, though.
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