There are always it seems new contenders in the ‘up and coming' school of rock-blues guitar players. And while some have already gone on to establish themselves in their own right, there is always room for another potential inductee. So step right up 18 year old Oli Brown from Norwich, England, who charmed his audience, conjured up a phalanx of imaginative notes and ultimately left everyone in no doubted as to his obvious candidacy.
Fronting a razor sharp rhythm section of Simon Dring on drums and bass player Fred Hollis, Oli made light of any pre gig nerves because of the weight of expectation. He has after all already captured people’s imagination jamming with high profile names like John Mayall, Walter Trout, and Buddy Guy and is set to play further high profile shows this Spring with Johnny Winter and Robben Ford. But this was Oli’s first headlining London show and he didn’t disappoint. Indeed he overcame the non appearance the support act by going on earlier and simply extending his own set.
Blessed with an awesome tone, and displaying some nimble fret board work, Oli quickly launched into a powerhouse rock-blues set that never once pandered to cliché and inventively found any number of little creative avenues in which to launch his fluid solos. Better still, he appears to have a raft of soon to be released self penned songs that auger well for the future. Tonight was in fact supposed to be the new album showcase but the event was ultimately over shadowed by the dynamic of the gig itself as the band/crowd interaction took the evening on to another level.
Launching into the powerful ‘Helping Hand’ Oli quickly slipped into several numbers from his forthcoming Ruf records debut CD including the impressively up tempo shuffle ‘Played by The Devil’, the nicely understated relationship narrative ‘Complicated’ and the tumultuous and aptly named ‘New Groove’. He also cleverly punctuated his set with a handful of well chosen covers of which Buddy Guy’s ‘Steppin/Steppin Out', and an intelligently arranged version of James Brown’s Cold Sweat and The Temptation ‘Can’t Get Next To You Babe’ were highlights.
Significantly you could almost hear a pin drop when he brought things down
on the slow blues ‘Missing You’ which showcased his deftness of
touch and intuitive feel for dynamics.
Aside from the expansive solos, the new songs proved to be the equal of anything
else played all night. Oli’s vocals got stronger as the set progressed
and his fellow band members visibly grew in stature. By the time of climatic
closing ‘Psycho’ - another in a long line of relationship songs
- which in this case cleverly segued into a cover of ‘Black Betty’,
Oli had the crowd in his pocket. The following two encores were fully merited.
Oli had obviously set his standards high for this premier headline show and
effortlessly ascended the first few steps on what promises to be a sparkling
career.
Pete Feenstra