Tag Archives: Troy Redfern

Live review: Troy Redfern at Forum Basement, Tunbridge Wells 27/6/24

Live reviews, Rock music, , , , ,

I first came across Troy Redfern a good few years ago now, performing at a Mott The Hoople fan convention of all places. I think it was the shared Herefordshire connection that brought him there but, anyway, I’ve followed his career with great interest ever since. Now on to his seventh album, with the latest out last month, Tunbridge Wells was the final night of an eleven-date UK tour.

I hadn’t actually read the venue details properly when I got to Tunbridge Wells and assumed the gig was at the long-established main Forum venue. But no, turning up at a completely empty Forum, I double-checked and the gig was actually taking place in the Forum Basement, a much more intimate venue in the cellar of the Sussex Arms pub in the town centre.

I arrived just in time to see the support act take the stage. With a mixture of originals and covers, local power trio Kinky Machine dished up an exhilarating blast of blues rock. With some great guitar work and nifty rhythms they definitely got everyone in the mood for the main event. It was becoming increasingly clear, however, that in this rapidly-filling 50-capacity venue we were going to be in for one long, hot and sweaty night. And I mean that in a good way!

Redfern’s new album, Invocation, features heavily in the set, with nine of its eleven songs being played tonight. Unsurprising really, given the slew of storming reviews and near-universal praise it’s received, with the album broadening out the trademark blues rock palette and bringing forth comparisons with everyone from T. Rex to ZZ Top to Slade.

From the moment he launched his career, Troy Redfern’s guitar wizardry, his natural affinity for the blues and his rock and roll attitude were never in any doubt, but with the last trio of albums, songs from which formed the entire basis for the set on this tour, he’s taken things to another level as a songwriter. The results of that were clearly on display tonight in an incendiary gig that oozed swagger with the energy levels (and the temperature!) off the scale.

Accompanied by Nicky Watts on drums and Keira Kenworthy on bass, the three certainly make for a formidable power trio, kicking things off with the catchy and adrenalin-fuelled rocker ‘All Night Long’ from the new album. Other highlights included the stomping, glam-esque ‘Getaway’, the moody, psychedelia-tinged ‘The Calling’ and the epic heavy rocker ‘Voodoo Priestess’. There’s a smattering of songs from the two previous albums in the latter half, too, including a mammoth extended work-out in the form of ‘Sanctify’ from The Fire Cosmic album, which ends tonight’s proceedings in spectacular fashion.

In many ways, Redfern reminds me of the late, great Bernie Torme, not so much for guitar technique – although there are parallels, but more as someone who can take the power trio format, inject their dynamic personality, some ferocious guitar-playing and many, many great songs – and make it utterly their own.

Photo credits: All photography by Simon Green

Set-list:

All Night Long

Getaway

Van Helsing

Take Me High

The Fever

The Calling

Native

Ghosts

Sweet Carolina

Come On

The Last Stand

Voodoo Priestess

Dark Religion

Waiting for Your Love

Sanctify

Troy Redfern is special guest on Philip Sayce’s UK tour from November 21 – December 4th 2024. Tickets are available from https://troyredfern.com/dates and https://www.thegigcartel.com/Artists-profiles/Philip-Sayce.htm

Related posts:

Live Review – The Great British Rock & Blues Festival, Skegness, 2018

Live Review – Giants Of Rock Weekend, Minehead, 2017

‘Getaway’ the new single from acclaimed blues-rock slide guitarist Troy Redfern

Rock music, , , , , ,

Blues-rock slide guitarist and singer-songwriter, Troy Redfern, releases a new single from his forthcoming album this week. ‘Getaway’ is the second single taken from his coming studio album Invocation which is scheduled for release in 2024.

Troy Redfern: “Getaway is about cutting yourself some slack. It’s about transforming your life, even if there are difficult decisions to be made.  As they say, from the mud grows the lotus.”

‘Getaway’ follows Redfern’s 2023 summer festival appearances including Steelhouse, Maid in Stone, and Rawa Blues Festival in Poland where he performed to a crowd of 7,000. 

The new single is released just prior to a November 2023 UK tour supporting guitar prodigy Philip Sayce. Tickets available via  https://troyredfern.com/dates.

‘Getaway’ is produced by Dave Marks and mixed by Jo Webb. The new single features Troy Redfern (guitar, vocals), Paul Stewart (drums), and Dave Marks (bass).

Photo credit: Jason Bridges

Troy Redfern: “On ‘Getaway’ and the forthcoming album, I wanted to write and record songs that were bigger and ballsier than what has come before. The new songs embrace more of the rockier elements of my writing and playing.  I’ve also given myself the creative freedom to explore and feel out other styles or aspects of my writing that have not been heard on any of my other albums.”

“As an artist I feel it’s important to keep pushing and striving to refine your art, while staying true to your vision.  It is important to know who you are as an artist, and on ‘Getaway’ and the upcoming album, I think I have finally perfected my own contemporary signature sound.”

‘Getaway’ released 25th October 2023

Header image photo credit: Darek Ptaszynski

Troy Redfern website here

Related posts:

Live Review – The Great British Rock & Blues Festival, Skegness, 2018

Live Review – Giants Of Rock Weekend, Minehead, 2017

Live Review – The Great British Rock & Blues Festival – Skegness 19-22 January 2018

Live reviews, Rock music, , , , , , , , , , ,

This review was also published on the Get Ready To Rock website here

I’ve enjoyed various Butlins music weekends over the years but 2018 will be the first where I’ve done two on two such weekends on the trot. My Butlins blow-out started off with the Rock & Blues weekend in Skegness – with just a few days respite before I head off to Minehead for the Giants of Rock weekend in Minehead. With so many bands on a number of different stages, reviews of weekends like this are always going to be one person’s snapshot but I had a fantastic weekend and this is what I saw.

Friday

Friday night began at what was designated the “Rock Stage” (Butlins dividing up the acts on the two main stages as either Rock or Blues, as well as providing two smaller stages: a second blues stage sponsored by Blues Matters mag and an Introducing Stage). The first band, Northern Ireland’s Screaming Eagles, had a great stage presence, some great catchy songs and a handful of great covers, too. A nice, energetic start to the weekend.

Atomic Rooster on next were, for me, probably the biggest surprise of the weekend. They are one of those bands that I’d always been aware of but was never really that familiar with. Other than knowing they were formed by the late Vincent Crane (the guy who did the unmistakable keyboard pounding in Arthur Brown’s ‘Fire’) before this weekend I could have told you very little about Atomic Rooster. But they were absolutely, out-of-this world, stupendously, brilliantly, amazing. Vincent Crane and the rest of the earliest line-up are sadly no longer with us. But the revived band contains both Pete French on vocals and Steve Bolton on guitar who were both in the band in the early 70s and they have been given the blessing of Crane’s widow to reform under the Atomic Rooster banner. They have the songs, the set-list, the charisma and the sound. Really, this band should have been far, far bigger than they were back in the day. Similarly, the modern-day version should be far, far better known than they are today. Absolutely majestic classic rock that stands proudly against any of the rock giants, I will be seeing more of this band for certain.

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The Frankie Miller’s Full House tribute that came afterwards failed to inspire the same degree of energy and enthusiasm I’m afraid and after moving to the other main stage just as the final band were finishing their last song, we headed to the Blues Matters Stage to enjoy the late bar and some late night blues.

Saturday

At lunchtime we caught Southbound on the Rock Stage. Their set combined soulful blues rock with some choppy, Feelgood-esque R&B. The latter they did particularly well.

Saturday evening began for us with the legend that is Bernie Marsden. I’ve seen Marsden in various guises over the years: with a full band playing acoustic, solo playing acoustic, with a full band playing an electric blues set and, back in the day, with the best Whitesnake line-up ever. Whether electric or acoustic he’s a stunningly good guitarist and he gave us a solo acoustic set of mainly Whitesnake material. His is never a showy stage presence but few ever look as contented or as at home on stage as does Marsden playing his music and bantering with the crowds.

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I left my companions to enjoy Roger Chapman Family & Friends while I headed off to the Blues Matters Stage to catch Troy Redfern. With a classic power trio format they deliver infectiously energetic hard rocking blues that just seems to get better and better every time I see them. I thought I might call it a night after that but then came Rainbreakers. They are a group of young guys from Shrewsbury playing a small stage Skegness in 2018 but to hear them they could have been playing some sun-kissed stadium in California in 1971. Channelling the spirit of the classic era of soulful early 70s blues rock they were one of the absolute highlights of the weekend and went down a storm. Great writers, great musicians and great vocals; this was an utterly spellbinding performance from start to finish.

Sunday

Over the course of the Sunday lunchtime slot I did a fair bit of wandering around Stray were the stand-out act for me with a great set from Del Bromham and co.

For our final evening we opted to start with some raunchy, good-time boogie from perennial Rock & Blues weekend favourites, Roadhouse, before heading to the Rock Stage to catch Nazareth. With only bass-player, Pete Agnew, remaining from the band’s 70s/early 80s heyday, it’s more a tribute than anything – but I mean that in a positive sense. New vocalist, Carl Sentance, does a superb job handling Dan McCafferty’s vocals on classic songs like ‘My White Bicycle’ and ‘Expect No Mercy’ and the band rock hard paying tribute to those great songs.

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From only one original member in Nazareth to zero in Dr Feelgood, we head over to the main Blues Stage to finish the weekend with Canvey Island’s finest. Unfortunately, there seems to have been some sound problems on that stage all night. The band start much later than advertised and from where we were on the right-hand side at the front the sound was utterly abysmal. All I could hear was the bass-line and the drums, the guitar and vocals being pretty much drowned out. They are great songs, though, and we all know them. Singing along to these was a good way to finish the weekend and I came away being far more familiar with the bass-line in Dr Feelgood’s illustrious back-catalogue than I’d ever been before. Probably the most fun I’d ever had at a performance with shockingly bad sound.

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The verdict overall

When I first saw the line-up I was a little underwhelmed but I was unexpectedly impressed by some of the veteran acts and completely blown away by some of the newer ones. This will go down for me as the weekend when I finally acquainted with the brilliant Atomic Rooster and when I first discovered the amazing Rainbreakers. Thanks guys.

And thanks!

One final word should go to the marvellously helpful Butlins Guest Services staff. Like many previous weekends I had bought a big stack of CDs. But, stupidly, I’d left them in my room in my rush to leave on Monday morning. A quick phone call to Butlins and my CDs were immediately located and sent back to me. Phew!

Related Review:
Giants of Rock Weekend 2017

Review: Giants Of Rock Weekend 2017, Minehead

New Wave of Classic Rock, Rock music, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Giants Of Rock took place at Butlins Minehead again this January for the fourth year running. Apart from the first year (when I was already booked into another Butlins music weekend the week before) I’ve been each time. With three days of music, two main stages and a smaller ‘introducing’ stage there is always plenty to choose from but here are the performances that particularly captured my imagination this year.

Friday

Eschewing both main stages for the first start of the Friday evening programme, we opted instead for The Troy Redfern Band on the introducing stage. I’d seen Troy and co a couple of times before so it was less of an introduction and more of welcome re-acquaintance with the band’s high-octane brand of blues rock. It’s good to see the band go down well.

the-troy-redfern-band-5
Photo credit: Elise Benjamin

Home

After Troy we moved to one of the main stages for a gloriously bonkers set by Dutch flute-playing, Hammond-pounding, yodelling prog-rockers, Focus, which gave all of us in the crowd the chance to let ourselves go wild to a suitably deranged version of Hocus Pocus.

Focus #5.JPG
Photo credit: Elise Benjamin

Accueil

Former Gillan guitar legend, Bernie Tormé, is on next and delivers a blistering set as always. Consistently original, the self-styled glam punk shredmeister has been enjoying a real career renaissance of late with two very well-received solo albums and a third on the way. With drummer, Ian Harris, and bass-player, Chris Heilmann, these three make a classic power trio which is the perfect showcase for Torme’s  guitar wizardry. Not only are the Minehead crowd treated to a great selection of some of the more recent material we also get some Gillan-era classics, too, like No Easy Way and New Orleans and a stonking Smoke On The Water as an encore (the first but not the last time we would be hearing that particular song over the weekend). It was a fantastic end to the first night.

bernie-minehead
Photo credit: Lisa Valder

http://www.bernietorme.co.uk/

Saturday

Live Dead 69 are a reincarnation of The Grateful Dead with original keyboard player, Tom Constanten, currently touring the UK performing the band’s classic Live/Dead album in full. The Grateful Dead are not a band I’m hugely familiar with, although I’ve long been aware of the epic jams which the band are renowned for. A brilliant bunch of musicians, I was finding the initial part of their set perhaps a little too jazzy for my tastes. But then more of a blues rock vibe kicked in and I found myself more and more drawn in. Certainly, I’m pleased to have tasted a little of what this legendary band were all about.

Living Dead 69 #20.JPG
Photo credit: Elise Benjamin

Home

To kick things off on the Saturday night, Bernie Marsden was an obvious choice for me. I’ve seen him solo several times before (plus, of course, I saw him with the classic Whitesnake line-up back in the day) but this is a completely solo set – just Bernie and an acoustic guitar. He completely holds the audience for the full hour: some solo blues material, some Peter Green material and, of course, some Whitesnake material, the latter turning into a beautifully intimate communal sing-along to the likes of Ain’t Gonna Cry No More and Here I Go Again. Superb.

bernie-marsden-8
Photo credit: Elise Benjamin

http://www.berniemarsden.co.uk/

With a quick change of venue we were ready for Ian Paice with Purpendicular. OK, Giants of Rock is not supposed to be about tribute bands but here you’ve got the legendary Deep Purple drummer himself, together with a cracking bunch of musicians. They absolutely nail the Mark 2-era Deep Purple sound, from the chugging bass lines, to the majestic Hammond organ, to the blinding guitar solos, to the Gillan-esque screams.

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Photo credit: Elise Benjamin

http://purpendicular.eu/

To round off Saturday we had a non-stop run-through of Saxon classics by Oliver Dawson Saxon. Original Saxon members, Graham Oliver and Steve Dawson, have been touring their alternative version of the Barnsley NWOBHM heroes for twenty years now and, impressed as I am with Biff Byford’s continuing version of the original Saxon, Oliver and Dawson do also offer something brilliantly entertaining. Lead singer, Bri Shaughnessy is a powerful vocalist and a charismatic front-man in his own right and he has absolutely made what might have been a difficult role his own. And as you can never really have too many crowd sing-alongs to classics like Denim And Leather, 747 (Strangers In The Night) and Wheels Of Steel, the fact that there is not just one but two bands out on the road doing this is a bonus in my view.

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Photo credit: Elise Benjamin

http://www.oliverdawsonsaxon.co.uk/odsroot/

Sunday

In spite of a love 60s R&B bands, I’d never actually managed to see The Pretty Things live until now or even listened to one of their albums in full. But front-man Phil May and guitarist Dick Taylor still cut it live after more than half a century together. The two original members are joined by second guitarist/harmonica player, Frank Holland, who has been playing with them since the late eighties, together with a fantastically energetic young rhythm section in Jack Greenwood and George Woosey. Obviously, a band that’s been around since 1963 is going to have a hefty back catalogue to choose from and, while I enjoyed the whole set, I found they had more to offer when they concentrated on their mid 60s R&B period rather than their later stoner rock phase. Fortunately, the former makes up a significant part of the set and anyone who is currently enjoying the Rolling Stones new back-to-basics Blue & Lonesome album and wants an authentic slice of 60s rhythm and blues should certainly try and get to see The Pretty Things live.

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Photo credit: Elise Benjamin

http://www.theprettythings.com/

Still in the mood for more music after The Pretty Things, we headed off to the introducing stage and arrived just in time to see an awesome performance from the band KilliT. Great vocals. Great musicianship. Great guitar solos. Great stage presence. And, importantly, great songs, too. Instantly memorable numbers like Calm Before The Storm and Shut It Down from their debut album meant that this classic-sounding heavy metal band could wow the audience with some classic-sounding heavy metal songs. The best new hard rock band I’ve heard in ages, I was genuinely delighted for them when they were officially voted top act on the introducing stage that day. That means they will be back at Giants Of Rock to perform on the main stage next year. KilliT are a new band that have clearly arrived fully formed and deserve to go far.

killit-mineheadPhoto credit: Sally Newhouse

http://www.killitband.com/

That pretty much wraps up a brilliant weekend of music for me. There were more bands on the Sunday evening and for head-liners that night punters had a choice between Steve Hackett doing Genesis or Ian Anderson doing Jethro Tull. I looked in on both but it was all getting a bit proggy for me and I just didn’t seem to have my prog head on. Reflecting on what a great range of performances I’d witnessed over the weekend, I was happy to call it a night.

A great bunch of bands. A great crowd. A great weekend. Here’s to Giants Of Rock 2018.