Well about a year ago in a small bagel café in Amsterdam I had a CD thrust into my hand by our good friend Cathy with instructions to “check this guy out – I think you’ll like him” . The CD was “Tijuana Bible” and Cathy turned out to be right, and 12 months down the road Mrs Icon and I end up in a small village hall in Yorkshire with another good friend, Tripsy, to witness our first Jim Suhler and Monkeybeat gig.
What a great night we had! Hats off to the Bronte Blues Club (BBC) who it seems have a strong membership and regularly sell out the venue, and attract some pretty well known names, despite a capacity of only 120 or so. With Jim in mind, they promoted the gig as “Texas Night” , with free shots of Tequila for anyone turning up in Western dress , and the support band, the BBC5, opened with a set of Blues songs with Texas connections.
Jim and his band certainly didn’t disappoint and gave us a great set – opening with “My Morning Prayer” and “Deja Blue”, before cranking up the tempo with the foot tapping slide boogie “Scattergun”. Where we went from there I can’t recall exactly, but I do remember a superb version of “Every Dog Has His day”, and the tale about how the band had played that afternoon in the local primary school where he suddenly realised how inappropriate much of the band’s material was for such a young audience. “With that in mind here’s a song from Tijuana Bible, called Mexicali Run, which is about drug running across the Mexican border”. 
Other tracks from Tijuana Bible included a superb version of the title track, along with “Border Rock”, and Jim’s tribute to Lightning Hopkins, “Po’ Lightnin’”. For me the highlight of the evening was Jim’s tribute to another hero, Rory Gallagher, with “Restless Soul” and “Bullfrog Blues” which featured some great slide playing, and saw Jim leaving the stage and standing on one group’s table to play. Great fun!
Hopefully Jim will be back on this side of the pond again soon with his band. Don’t miss him!
Photos to follow.
Ian
PS........... Thanks Cathy 
Please be in no doubt that this is the REAL ME! Beware imposters........................
Delighted that you enjoyed this great little band as much as I did. I also particularly liked the opening medley and the way he did Rory's 'Religion' when I saw him. It seems that he has numerous Rory songs in his repertoire, which will please Annelies even more!
