Last year the discovery of the year for me were Schofields support act and local guys “The Grey Goose Blues Band”. I was blown away with their modern twist on classic blues whilst retaining the truth and the depth of feeling contained within their own material. TGBB were by far the best band on the night leaving the song “Sycamore Tree” embedded in my head for many months, so this year the support band have a very high standard to reach..
Well this would have been the case if there had been a support act. Support advertised, but not in attendance, so all of us that turned up when the doors opened at 19:30 were left waiting an hour and half before we had any stage action. To get us through this support less period we had Geoff Achinson in abundance powering through the P.A , so it’s not all bad. For those of you who have never heard of Geoff Achinson he’s an Australian blues/funk genius who manages to get fantastic sounds out of his old guitar without the need for effects pedals.. Just watching him bend and twist the guitar neck to get these amazing sounds is itself worth the ticket price. Geoff’s back at the Robin wed 12th Oct. Come on down and join the fun.. you won’t be disappointed..
http://www.geoffachison.com/
Matt Schofield
This is only Matts second visit to the Robin.. Last time the crowd was minimalistic, but it looks like the word is spreading and the crowd is pretty good for a midweek gig and all looking forward to hearing tracks from the impending CD due for official release next month.
Matt kicks off with “Don’t know what I’d do if I wasn’t loving you” which is one of the tracks on the new CD and I have to confess the only one that I made a note of.. A brave move maybe, but it does set the scene for the night. Traditional and standard blues rhythms in-filled with some ass kicking riffs of pure brilliance.
However, there are a few bum notes hidden in there too, but this is probably due to a quite nasty finger injury from the night before when he sliced his finger open on a downswing.. Matt took great delight explaining to tonight’s audience in graphic detail about how it happened, about his blood splattered guitar and how cool it must have looked.. But tonight he’s going to be a man about it and carry on as best he can.
I also got the feeling that not enough time was spent practicing the new material before going on the road. There were far too many prolonged pauses with Matt often looking quite lost as he tries to remember the intro to the new material.. Hopefully he will get this in the bag before the end of the tour.
In my last Schofield review I commented that there was something missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.. I now know what it is.. When he plays the guitar, throws a riff out for the audience to ponder over or just loses himself in the moment, its full of feeling that just carries you along, whether you want to be carried or not. However when he sings it’s not there.. no emotion at all. It’s not that he has a bad voice it’s just that he doesn’t let himself go the same as he does with the guitar, which is a shame.
In conclusion: I made the comment last time that I came away singing TGGBs “Sycamore Tree” ... Well I’m afraid nothing’s really changed other than this time I left with it playing on my phone.
http://www.mattschofield.net/
