We are back at one of my favourite venues tonight, The Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh, for some blues rock from the powerhouse that is French guitarist Laura Cox. First up, however, we have the Jesse Garwood Band – though even before that, we are all evacuated by a fire alarm! We are not outside for long, thankfully, and the band hit the stage as soon as everyone is back in the room.
For a young man who is not even 20 years old, Jesse can fairly lay down the licks on the guitar and has a great blues rock-infused voice. The band were tight, with some great bass lines being laid down from Ben Hancock, and I really enjoyed the drumming tonight from Elliot Francis, which was tight and had a great tone in the venue. The band cruised through a set of originals and a few covers, including an interesting version of Rory Gallagher’s “Tattoo’d Lady” and a touch of Jimi Hendrix to end their set. I really enjoyed their performance tonight, as did a pretty full Voodoo Rooms. They are definitely a band to keep an eye out for and well worth coming early to catch on their support slot, as they certainly warmed up the crowd.
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The main event now as the Laura Cox band stroll onto the stage. The band play the majority of last year’s excellent album Trouble Coming, starting with the blues rock swagger of “Rise Together”, which certainly got the crowd going before they ask “If You Wanna Get Loud” from their Hard Blues Shot album. What a rocker this one is! What a voice Laura has and what a guitar player, and the band is in full swing as well with Adrien on bass bouncing about. Leo was certainly making those keyboards heard as he moved around, and Antonin kept everyone in check at the back on drums; he and Leo were funny to watch all night with their interactions.
The keyboards really stand out on “Set Me Free”, which is always a joy to hear as I love good keyboards in a band. The song has a nice mellow swagger to it which is getting the crowd dancing tonight. The audience are definitely in the mood for moving as they keep it going with “Bad Luck Blues” and the aptly titled “Dancing Around the Truth”, which is one of my favourites tonight. You can’t help singing along with the chorus as you dance to the hypnotic groove; it is just fantastic with some fabulous slide guitar.
We get the new single “Not Your Story”, a much harder rock song compared to previous tracks but no less enjoyable. We get a few more from last year’s album including “The Broken” and the groove-laden joy of “No Need to Try Harder”, another favourite of mine as it has that rocking blues swagger I love, alongside some tasty guitar. The guitar kicks in with the drums for “One Big Mess”, a real sweat-inducing rock ‘n’ roller. Antonin is crushing it on the drums and Laura is just laying waste to that guitar—a killer song.
The band go off for a minute and bounce back for the encore asking “Do I Have Your Attention?”. Well, they have certainly had that all evening from this very enthusiastic audience and for good reason; the band have been on fire all night. Laura even had a small stint on the drums tonight as Antonin joined Leo on keyboards, which was fun to watch. The band end a truly fantastic night of hard rock blues with “Hard Blues Shot”, with Adrien leading us in on bass before Laura lets loose on guitar. Boy, what a rocker this one is—a fast and furious end to the night.
The band were on fire and bouncing about all night, as were the crowd at The Voodoo Rooms. It was a truly wonderful performance from a band just having a great time on stage with fun interaction. Laura’s voice and guitar playing were superb and the sound was perfect. I will definitely be back next time and if you have not caught the band yet, get out there now while you can. A good time will definitely be had by all.
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Photos by Gary Cooper
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