BLACK STONE CHERRY, KRIS BARRAS BAND, Royal Albert Hall 29 September 2001 Review by Dawn Osborne

BLACK STONE CHERRY, KRIS BARRAS BAND, Royal Albert Hall London, 29 September 2021

 

It always feels special to be in the Royal Albert Hall and there’s a transgressive frisson attached to having a rock concert there, so I always kind of pinch myself to be there, but there we are and so is the heavily tattooed Kris Barras kicking off with his new single ‘Dead Horses’. Because of the rarified atmosphere it can be difficult to get the hot and sweaty rock gig atmosphere going, but they certainly do their best with the bass player Kelpie MacKenzie trying particularly hard to rock it up. After ‘Rock n Roll Through My Veins’ Barras takes the opportunity to underline that live music is back and it doesn’t get better than this. We are treated to a barrage of heavy blues licks, tremulo and whammy bar solos accompanied by guitar in the air and expressive faces which gets a good reaction from the crowd. The Barras Band has been accused in the past of having the chops, but not really having the tunes. Maybe they have been listening as they play new songs from the album they wrote during lockdown and even with one listen they seemed to be some of the best songs they have produced, witness ‘My Parade’ and ‘These Voices’ auguring well for the future. Finishing with their signature song ‘Hail Mary’ they express relief at making it all the way here to the last night of the tour after 18 months of Pandemic pause. Indeed it does feel like a treat to be here.

 

BSC obviously understand the UK crowd as they choose tracks for the interval that get the crowd engaged culminating with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which has the whole crowd singing before the band even come on. They invade the stage with the enthusiasm of Viking marauders Ben Wells bouncing and kicking his way to the front for classic ‘Me and Mary Jane’. Drummer John Fred Young must win the prize for the most swipes over his head per song as he stood up to employ all his physical power per stroke. Impressive indeed! Dry ice plumes punctuating from the off as they cut into ‘Burnin’ from ‘Family Tree’ and ‘Again’ from new album ‘The Human Condition’ with stratospheric solo from Chris Robertson. It’s the first time I have seen them with new bassist Steve Jewell and whilst maybe not quite as energetic as Jon Lawhon he seems to fit right in. Robertson described Jewell to the audience  as a brother from another mother. Robertson further addresses the crowd saying he cannot quite believe his country ass is at the RAH. They fist bump the crowd during ‘Yeah Man’ and get them to sing and sway their arms from side to side during ‘In My Blood’. By the time of ‘Ringin In My Head’ a large banner with a Cherry Head logo is being presented in one of the opera hall style boxes with red curtains, a bizarre sight indeed. The band are sounding good and there’s no sign of any fatigue despite this being the last night of the tour.

 

Wells takes the opportunity to express that he feels speechless to be at the RAH as they had reasonably thought the tour might never happen and says it was like Christmas Day for him before they launch into ‘Like I Roll’ and then ‘Cheaper To Drink Alone’. It was interesting before ‘Hell or High Water’ to hear Robertson explain that it was after he saw John Fred play at a school talent show that they decided to form a band that became Black Stone Cherry and I can believe that. Rarely do I note drummers in reviews but John Fred is like a John Bonham and impossible not to notice, such is the power and spectacle of his playing. A drum solo is included in the set and most definitely warranted: he is belting the hell out of the drums and bouncing back from them with the momentum. He is such a heavy hitter: he is impossible not to watch.

 

There was then a very special moment as Robertson performed ’Things My Father Said’ solo as the only band member on stage and the audience turned on their cell phone lights which looked like Fairy Lights around the lush interior of this venue. It was very beautiful and by now we can feel the magic as the band launch into ‘In Love With The Pain’ one of the best tracks for the newest album. As we get into ‘Blind Man’ we see the first crowd surfers, again no doubt a bit of a novelty for RAH security.

 

Wells thanked the crowd and commented that putting the foreplay aside it was time to take the relationship with London to the next level ‘all the way to the tippy top and the Queen’s booth and the only way to do this is with this riff’ as they launched into ‘Blame It on The Boom Boom’ the crowd sings the last line without the band perfectly. ‘White Trash Millionaire’ and ‘Lonely Train’ follow and we see a group moshing in the middle of the standing section definitely a first for me in the RAH.

 

Before encore ‘Peace is Free’ Robertson urges the crowd to believe in themselves and to get over the shit we have all been through saying that music is a point in time and hopes hearing BSC songs will bring people back to this night, iterating that we need to live in the moment to experience life to the full. All that remains is for the band to throw set lists and drum sticks into the audience and we get victory signs from the band before they leave. Robertson said they dreamed of playing the RAH for 14 years and talked about as ‘when’ not ‘if’ that would happen adding they had thought about it constantly for the last two years. It was a special night for the band and crowd alike and so it was lovely to see it live up to the band’s expectations. The band certainly lived up to ours.

 

Dawn Osborne

Photos with kind permission of Ben Gibson