Troy Redfern – New Cross Inn London 2024 – Review and Photos by Dawn Osborne

While many were sunning themselves on a beach due to the intense heat of the hottest day of the year, connoisseurs were headed to East London for a different kind of intensity.

Main support were the Ramblin’ Preachers from Milton Keynes – via the South West USA, well,  in their influences, at least. It’s all about the mean guitars and they have the guitar rack to prove it, but the coordinated sandy brown theme, not only guitars, but ankle boots and wide flat brimmed western country hats instantly give the impression of a band with a brotherhood ethos like ZZ Top or These Wicked Rivers and indeed the band has songs with similar influences to both, rollicking western 12 bar blues rock. But they also manage to ring the changes, a memorable one is ‘Jester’ a slower country song written for the singer’s wife with the stand out line “I am the Jester who fell for the Queen” and a crying epic solo to underline the dramatic effect. At this point Troy Redfern appears to check out the support and, it may be my imagination, but I think the guitarist upped his game, well there’s nothing like healthy competition.

Suffice to say they were worthy support to the man who won the ‘Blues Lord’ award at HRH.

 

None other that Troy Redfern that is, ably supported by Keira Kenworthy on bass and the extremely loud Nicky Waters on drums to make your pint shake. They open up with ‘All Night Long’ not the Rainbow song, but a fast paced rocker from the new album ‘Invocation’ with a searin’ solo designed to make you sit up and notice. Following up with the super catchy countrified T-Rextastic  ‘Getaway’ single with its infectious chorus and Troy’s trade mark slide guitar. Single ‘Van Helsing’ follows, before the one that I think should have been a single ‘Take Me High’ (which is the chorus I was singing on my way around London after hearing the album.) This is number four in a streak of a whopping seven tracks from the new album to start the set, showing justified confidence in his most hyped album to date for good reason, and certainly the most commercial. The sultry ‘Fever’ introduced as a Glam number, ‘The Calling’ with its trippy dream like Beatle-esque passages (the guitar almost sounding like a sitar tonight) and the Rockier ‘Native’ with its frenetic solo completed the run of new tracks.

We then go back a coupla years for a version of ‘Ghosts’ that sounds more Appalachian than the recorded version. Troy gets out a beautiful old resonator for a heavy stomping version of ‘Sweet Carolina’ and a Bolan-esque version of ‘Come On’. A smoochy version of ‘Down’ leads into a jam where Troy seems to be doing a bit of improv with Keira carefully watching to stay in step.

We seem to be in the home strait with a rocky driving version of ‘Voodoo Priestess’ which gets the biggest reaction of the night. It’s my favourite track from the new album and I am amazed it has not yet been a single. At this point people have actually stopped in the street to stare through the window of the pub and watch from outside and Troy tips them a cheeky smile mid track.

There’s just a quietly epic version of ‘Dark Religion’ played with another beautiful old resonator, the boogie swamp blues of ‘Waiting For Your Love’ and ‘Sanctify’ with another extended energetic solo before everything is lassooed in again by the chorus to finish.

This wasn’t the biggest audience Troy played to on this tour by any means, but as he remarked he sweats the same amount every night no matter what. This is a man who truly believes in what he does and is causing the biggest buzz I’ve seen recently in the classic blues rock space. Something tells me that ‘ere too long he’ll be playing to much bigger audiences on a regular basis.

Dawn Osborne