When the booking for another venue in the town had fallen through and John Verity’s wife/manager, Carole, put out a call out on social media asking for possible alternatives I suggested Eastbourne’s Printers Playhouse, fast establishing itself as a decent small venue. Given that my off-the-cuff suggestion actually worked out and the John Verity Band were able to secure a booking there I thought the least I could do was get myself along. No chore this though. I have seen the former Argent guitarist at various Butlins weekends and it’s always a highly enjoyable set.
Playing some beautifully emotive slow blues as well as a few well-chosen rock classics, John Verity and his band-mates, John Gordon on bass and Liam Gray on drums, give us ninety minutes of sheer quality in this intimate and tightly-packed upstairs venue. While there are a fair few self-written songs played tonight, like ‘Blues in Heaven’ a beautiful tribute he had written for a former colleague and friend who passed away, there’s no shortage of covers either. Verity has never been at all snobbish about doing cover versions, whether blues standards or rock classics, but he always puts his own indelible stamp on them with his own inimitable guitar sound. As well as a cracking cover of a late-period Etta James song ‘The Blues Is My Business’ we are treated to J.J. Cale’s ‘Cocaine’ and, towards the end an awesome version of Hendrix’s ‘Purple Haze’.
Though he defines himself as a blues guitarist through and through, Verity does tell the audience, he “did have a little diversion at one point” before launching into the familiar powerful chugging intro of ‘Hold Your Head Up’ for a superb version of the Argent classic.
A hugely-talented blues guitarist, a genuine rock legend, an engaging stage personality with a nice line in self-deprecation and a really, really tight, together band it is well catching John Verity on one of his frequent tours.
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