Vessels
The Albert, Brighton

TotalMusic-Online favourites Vessels made a low-key appearance down our neck of the woods prompting an excellent turn out for a Monday evening and a surprisingly young audience – in fact I struggled to find one single beardy, balding, middle-aged muso 'type' in the whole building (that would just be you then Si? – Ed). Five band members and a multiplicity of instrumentation are barely wedged onto the stage, amps tops balanced on their sides to allow for the double drum kit set-up, various members carefully tip-toeing amongst the carnage to swap instruments and stage positions. Let’s not mince words here, these buggers can really play, they’re not only technically proficient but also exhibit great delicacy and a laudably cavalier attitude concerning how to play seemingly familiar instruments (a violin bow on the bass guitar being but one obvious example). This was a truly majestic performance balancing towering noise with hushed intimacy, the band at one point executing the best full stop to the end of a song ever, moving from ferocious cacophony to cavernous silence on a hydrogen proton. Needless to say this elicited enormous respect from the crowd (during one quiet passage orders at the bar were actually being delivered in whispers). It put me in mind of Talk Talk's more adventurous moments or Sigur Ros in full flow, whereby one is transported beyond the ordinary and it was all over far too soon due to licensing constraints. It’s only a matter of time before they are in your area, miss them at your peril
S Vieler

Deadstring Brothers
King Tut’s Glasgow

Detroit based Deadstring Brothers sent the knowledgeable Glasgow crowd wild when they burst into life with Masha Marjieh in full voice. The set was peppered with songs from their critically acclaimed 2006 album Starving Winter Report and their latest release, Silver Mountain. Sharing the lead vocal was main man Kurt Marschke and his easy going interaction with the crowd went down well although he shouldn’t really have tempted fate by stating that he hadn’t had any whisky thrown at him yet! Guitarist Spencer Cullum is a star in the making and adds that extra touch of class to Marschke’s alt.country songs. The rest of the band are Spencer’s brother Jeff, on bass, E. Travis Harrett on drums and keyboard wizard Pat Kenneally. Highlights for me were 'Lights Go Out', 'Moonlight Only Knows' and 'Meet Me Down At Heavy Load' but there wasn’t a bad one in the whole set.
David Blue

Joe Bonamassa
The Arches, Glasgow

Guitar wizard Joe Bonamassa rolled into Glasgow and filled The Arches with a wall of sound that not many could hope to equal. He said that his love affair with the city started two years ago at The Renfrew Ferry and I was one of the 125 fortunate souls to see him that night, having seen that I’m not surprised that this time around it was an 800 sell out. He has improved his rapport with the crowd although, as usual, some people couldn't staunch their inane chatter during some of the quieter periods, despite Joe pleading with them for silence. His guitar prowess has also improved and, for this reviewer at least, he has now reached the higher echelon of players, the highlight of the night being the title track from his current album, Sloe Gin although 'Don’t Burn Down That Bridge' and 'Another Kind Of Love' also rubber stamped the feeling that we were in the presence of something very special indeed. Throw in an incendiary version of ZZ Top’s 'Just Got Paid' and you can imagine the night we had.
David Blue