I
headed down to the Guildhall in Gloucester tonight
to catch Huey Morgan head out on a headline tour
of the UK with his new project Huey And The New
Yorkers, I got to the venue just before the one
and only support act of the night Mike Marlin
was due to take to the stage and I was pretty
shocked at how empty the venue was with no more
than 20 people sitting around the sides of the
venue.
Mike
Marlin shortly took to the stage backed up with
5 different session musicians which make up his
live touring band, within seconds of taking to
the stage I was left feeling extremely bored and
Mike Marlin and his band blandly played a couple
of toned down songs but luckily as the set progressed
they started to grow on me as they played through
a wide variety of songs whilst also having a bit
of banter with the crowd which reached a good
80 people before the set finished.
Towards
the later part of Mike Marlin’s set he announced
that he has just released his new album ‘Grand
Reveal’ and he is now going to play the
title track from that album which Mike then jokingly
asked the asked the crowd what the song is called
and a couple of members of the crowd shouted back
“Grand Reveal” which caused a few
laughs on stage as no crowd through the whole
tour has responded to the ‘Grand Reveal’
comment until now. After ‘Grand Reveal’
Mike announced that there next going to play ‘The
Magician’ which led to one member of the
crowd shouting out “yes” with excitement,
this put a smile on Mikes face as he realised
that his constant touring with well profiled bands
is paying off.
Overall
Mike Marlin played a slow starting yet fun 45
minute set, there was a bit of confusion between
the band members on which tracks were being played
in order but this was soon laughed off amongst
them as they managed to play quite a diverse sounding
set.
Moments before Huey And The New Yorkers were due
to take to the stage the now busy looking venue
broke into chants of “Huey, Huey, Huey”
and within minutes the band took to the stage
and Huey wasted no time thanking everyone for
coming out to the show and then introducing the
band members one by one before breaking into the
awesome opening track ‘Stick It To the Man’
which was then followed up by the highly energetic
‘Dirty Bird’ and recent single ‘Let
My People Go’.
Huey
and the rest of the band spent a lot of time interacting
with the crowd from joking about Chris Brown to
talking about the rubbish English weather and
also to address the fact that drummer Frank Benbini
is wearing sunglasses because he is majorly stoned
and has a big case of red eye this was met with
laughter from the crowd and it is moments like
this that make you realise that Huey And The New
Yorkers are a bunch of genuine nice people who
do what they do for the love of music and the
love of their fans.
As
the set progresses the band play some cracking
songs with ‘New York Bluez’ and ‘Let
The Good Times Roll’ standing out the most
due to their energetic ways and the fact that
throughout both songs Huey and co jammed for ages
and could of carried on jamming for the whole
set and no one would of got bored as the mature
crowd in the Guildhall tonight had brought their
dancing shoes with dad dances breaking out all
over the place and even a few couples dancing
in a romantic way to the soulful sounds of Huey
And The New Yorkers.
Towards
the end of the set Huey makes a joke about the
cold weather outside before going on to play ‘Christmas
By The Side Of The Road’ now who else do
you know that can get away with playing a Christmas
song in the middle of March.
As the set came to an end Huey spent time thanking
his fans and shaking hands with a few lucky members
of the crowd, the set may well of started with
chants of “Huey, Huey” but I am pretty
sure after tonight’s outstanding show the
crowd went home realising that each and every
member of the band is so talented as they all
skilfully unleashed a few solo’s and jammed
like their lives depended on it.
After tonight’s show it is safe to say that
another 200 or so people will be counting down
the days for the release of the debut Huey And
The New Yorkers album as there 13 track set was
superb in an all killer no filler kind of way.
Mike Marlin 3/5
Huey And The New Yorkers 5/5
Review By Trigger
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