The Commoners, Madison Galloway, The Grace, 2024 – review and photos by Dawn Osborne

I’ve been pretty impressed with The Commoners on record and been playing them on the show, so when I heard they were playing London I decided to check them out..

But first up is Madison Galloway, also from Canada, who is completely new to me. She’s a little girl with a big guitar and boy does she know how to play. Big riffs tore the audience another orifice from the start.

Even though I didn’t know any of the songs they were very easy on the ear, Bluesy Rock ‘n’ Roll.   She’s got a great voice too. If you like Troy Redfern’s latest record ‘Invocation’ with its mixture of slide-guitar blues and rock, you’re likely to love this too. The Hammond Style organ sound adds a further vintage feel. In one song ‘River’ her slide shot off her hand into the audience, apparently that’s the first time this has happened to her, although it is a tad sweaty inside the Grace tonight on this hot July evening and must be a lot warmer than Canada most of the year.

She happily talks to the audience, indeed each song on the set list has ‘(story)’ written above it and each one gets a little intro, for example a song about her best friend getting dumped by a guy before ‘Devil In Her Eye’.

I loved her original stuff. I perhaps wasn’t so enamoured of the cover of the Black Crowes ‘She Talks To Angels’. Not that it was bad, but just discovering her music I would have rather heard another original. For a three piece (no bassist, just organ and drums) they make a lot of noise, in a great way.

The Commoners are also completely full on and literally quake the building with ‘Shake You Off’. They applaud the Grace for being the first place they ever played and for having them back tonight, and explain that they’ll be pleased to let the audience hear tracks from the new disk ‘Restless’ before launching into ‘Who Are You’ and ‘Devil Teasin Me’ and then ‘Body and Soul’ which takes thing down to a slower pace with hippy trippy guitar.

Before another new track ‘Too Soon To Know You’, which is kinda Black Crowes-y, the band mention that they did an acoustic set at the Gibson store and, although they came with seven guitars they’ll be leaving with twelve. Indeed this track is so loud it sounds like they are playing them all at once.

Before playing the title track ‘Restless’ the band remind everyone that the new album is on sale at the merch desk tonight and introduce it as a song the band wrote about the trials and tribulations of touring. It’s another slower one, very soulful with lots of slide guitar. Drummer Adam Cannon introduced the mammoth single ‘See You Again’ as a song they wrote as a tribute to his father after the first tour in the UK during which he passed away.

It is testament to the quality of the new album that so far every track has been from it. However, we now diverged for ‘Deadlines’ from the first album with its sophisticated harmonies.

But not for long, as singer Chris  Medhurst introduces ‘The Way I Am’ about being the “pain in the ass” singer, although he seemed pretty affable to me. He did, however, literally sweat floods on the stage, more than any artist I have ever seen, so much so he covers up the electronics underneath him with a cloth. The track is a great gospel-y fast paced number and one thing’s for sure the band are working hard for the audience tonight, so I guess we can understand why. He acknowledged the people wearing Commoners’ t shirts and said that the band are stoked that people across the ocean dig what they do. The huge riffs and searing Rock ‘n’ Roll vocal that starts ‘Gone Without Warning’ ensues.

Medhurst tells everyone that today they went and had their photo taken on the Abbey Road Zebra crossing, which is the cue for an old Blues and fast shredding version of a cover of ‘Yer Blues’, the song in which Lennon sent up artists who were not black, but thought they could play the Blues. Lennon is widely credited with actually succeeding in writing a classic, rather than a pastiche as he suggested, and this underlines tonight these men may not be black, but no one doubts the integrity of what they offer.

In the home strait the final track of the main set is the soulful ‘Fill My Cup’, and then for the encore the title track of the first album ‘Find A Better Way’ with its gritty dirty blues solo from Ross Hays Citrullo whose talent Medhurst plays tribute to, before introducing Ben Spiller on bass as a best friend who brings good vices on stage and Cannon on drums ‘who puts up with all my shit AND puts me in my place..God I love him.” They finished with a cover of ‘Feelin’ Alright’ by Dave Mason.

It’s only Rock ‘n’ Roll, but I liked it, a lot. I completed love this kind of rootsy Blues with big riffs, shreds and whisky laden vocals and these boys do it so well.

Dawn Osborne