MR SPIDER - "Dundee Blues Bonanza", The Nether Inn, Dundee 01-07-06
Been an amazing year for the band with lead singer Michele so far in 2006 - first ever gig at The Doghouse and now their first appearance at the weekend-long, city-wide Blues Bonanza, this time with a gig at The Nether Inn.
Now, if you're keeping up with this review section, you'll know I've reviews the Mr Spider set before - covers, the odd original and a largely rousing set - but this one was different - and special.
For a start, they - obviously - concentrated on their blues and blues-rock covers, starting with the legendary riff then song of "Crossroads" and then, over two sets, a faultless performance of some classic blues covers, this time the JJ Cale cover of "Cocaine" not leading into the Sabbath track, and sounding just fine anyway. The rendition of "Hey Joe" is still fabulous as the band and, particularly John on guitar, play a storm, while Michele sings the thing better than the original, injecting some serious passion into it. Through two sets and nearly two hours of playing, there wasn't a weak spot to be heard.
About a third the way through this tall dude comes along and sits down to listen stage right - he looks kinda important. Then he gets up on stage and asks John for the guitar - duly provided, and with Michele sitting it out, the guy launches into a trio of blues numbers with some riveting guitar work - turned out to be none other than Little Jimmy Reed (or is it Jimmy Reed Jr?) - actually playing with Mr Spider's rhythm section! Stunning!! He enjoyed it, thanked Paul on drums and Ross on bass, then left the building shortly after. Good stuff!
But, for me, what made this set SO special, was that the band introduced, for the first time live, a fair number of original songs - and they're all superb! There was one that's a sort of smouldering bluesy Sade type of song, and on that's an almost tribal blues with strong drumming from Paul, some wicked guitar work from John and Michele singing some fantastically homourous story-telling lyrics. Then there is "Bottle Blues" which is great - here Michele holds back a bit when she should be really letting go, but I daresay that will come with time. With about three or four more originals and the announcement of an album of originals to come in the autumn, I can't wait to see how this develops - I always said that this band could make it bigtime - and this could be just the start. Oh - mustn't forget - they do this track by Bobby Bland that has this extended instrumental finale featuring John on guitar as the rhyhtm section drives it all forward - and the performance here was just smoking - don't think I've ever heard John on such fine form - it was breathtaking stuff and if ever Lynyrd Skynyrd need a new guitarist for "Free Bird", they need look no further than here! Yeh - THAT good!
