Matt Walker had already come and gone by the time we had arrived (curse these early starts!), which was a great shame because from all reports his new album Soul Witness is one of the year's best. Still, the opportunity to see Alex Lloyd in acoustic mode more than made up for it. When stripped of their production sheen, the songs off Lloyd's sensational Black The Sun long-player sound even stronger than on the record. Sometimes just a man, a guitar, an amazing voice and a dodgy backing tape can be more powerful than a full band, and Lloyd's readings of "Lucky Star", "Snow" and "Desert" had me aching to hear some new material. Hopefully he won't fall victim to the dreaded second-album slump.
Festivall Hall was near-capacity by the time Gomez hit the stage, and didn't the assembled throng go off when the lights dimmed and a muzak version of "Whippin' Piccadilly" with female vocalist was piped through the venue! Rarely does an act incite such unabashed enthusiasm amongst it's fanbase (only Ben Harper comes to mind this year), yet Gomez seem to attract the kind of hero worship that many of today's so-called 'rockstars' would kill for. Then Ben, Tom, Bally, Olly, Blacky and percussionist Dajon Everett strode on stage, triggered the opening synth samples of "Get Miles", and took us on a 2 hour musical pilgrimage which proved that the blues is indeed alive and well, and being channelled through a bunch of 20-something lads from England. All of a sudden, the air was thick with the sweet smell of gunga, as hundreds of joints were simultaneously lit and the crowd slowly sunk into the laidback dirge. The band themselves were also easing themselves into proceedings, with Bally grooving along clapping his hands before picking up his Telecaster and letting out some tasteful melodies while frontman Ben nodded slowly as he kept the groove going with some shakers. Blacky's bassline came in as almost a counterpoint to the main groove, punctuating the off-beats while Olly and Dajon filled in the gaps with some minimal percussive sounds. Then Ben opened his mouth with the opening salvo "I love the silence, but this silence killing me", and I swear, if the PA weren't so loud the sound of 5000 jaws collectively dropping would have drowned out the band. How a voice so seasoned and seemingly dripping with the experience of 50 summers on the banks of the Mississippi could come out of someone who looks so un-assuming is almost impossible to comprehend.
	Gomez had the ravenous crowd in the palm of their hands from the word go. In what must qualify as one of the understatements of the century, Bally noted that "This is a bit of a change from The Zoo bar". Before I had too much of a chance to once again rue that missed opportunity, Tom hit us with the distinctive opening twang of "Hangover" on his electric sitar (coool!), and then the rest of the band roared into action, led by that killer vocal triumverate of Ben, Tom and Bally. Wow. These guys are like the Beastie Boys of rock, trading vocal phrases off each other and finishing each other's lines, with each voice melting into the others to form a whole which defies description. Forgive the hyperbole, but only The Beach Boys and those lads from Liverpool have their measure for sheer harmonic finesse. The first of many magic moments came three songs in. Tom downed his sitar and began to slowly make his way across the stage pasa doblé style as Ben, Blacky and Bally indulged in some free-form jamming, flamenco style. Tom's movements became more melodramatic as the jam reached it's climax with Olly doing some intense cymbal build-ups, culminating in him crouching front-of-stage, head bowed down, clearly overcome by the emotion of it all. Then Bally kicked into the opening riff from "Las Vegas Dealer", with Tom, Ben and Dajon clapping out some syncopated rhythms for the crowd to join in with. The song proper began with Olly unleashing a monster of drum fill, and by this stage even the notoriously low-key photographer's pit was bopping along furiously.
The whole set was awesome, and the Wow-factor didn't let up for the duration of the gig. Even the throwaway ditty "Waster" from the Machismo EP was a stand-out, with Tom encouraging the crowd to join him with some "La, La, La" backing vocals and all and sundry responding with glee. But as far as singalongs go, it would be hard to go past "Get Myself Arrested", surely one of the most enjoyable paeans to the art of drug dealing to be penned since the Cruel Sea's "Delivery Man". The chorus of voices singing "Got a haircut, got a silvertooth....." made the response to "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?" at the Travis gig pale in comparison - no mean feat. In all honesty, it's hard to pin-point individual highlights when each song had moments of brilliance, from the heart-string tugging balladry of "Tijuana Lady" and "We Haven't Turned Around" to the epic, dare I say breezy jam of "Here Comes The Breeze", complete with a snippet of "Pump Up The Volume". Even the video before the encore, featuring David Hasselhoff in full arab garb (?), was hilarious. The new tunes "Machismo" and "Detroit Swing 66" take the familiar blues motifs and fuse them with hip hop rhythms and sampled beats which take Gomez into different musical realms altogther - a signpost for the future perhaps? Who knows, but apart from a few glaring omissions (namely "78 Stone Wobble" and "Bring It On"), this was a gig that many will take to their graves with them - not quite transcendental, but clearly the work of a group with few peers in the world today. ~Kris Swales~ ~Alex Lloyd Pic by Lou Lou~