Gig Review Poole (Tues), Mr Kyps - By Neil Nicholson

Smokin' Joe! I'm not saying I'm addicted but I will have seen Joe at every Kyps gig he has played by Friday night, as I was one of the hordes who got to this additional date - does any other original act have this much appeal at Kyps?

Joe hit the stage and without warning he galloped away - and dozens off us were sucked towards the stage. Decked in trademark shades, his office work shirt and playing his main axe for the night (his sunburst Les Paul) he led his band straight to Joeland - blues-with-energy-dynamics-commitment-not too many clichés!

With keyboards adding a new dimension and the third bassist he has brought over the first three songs were a departure from his normal openers, though did include old fave "Walk in my shadow" complete with a little bit of sing-along-a-la-Paul Rogers (for those of us old enough to remember Free's Tons of Sobs album where it debuted) and then.....SILENCE - all the backline amps were dead! What a great start - handled well by Joe who, amongst all the head-scratching going on, told us we would get everything we were expecting tonight - AND MORE!

Ten minutes later the band picked up the interrupted song - and finished it. Joe's blistering solo - perhaps reflecting his mood at the cock-up he had endured - was so intense that I though he'd blow the amps again! The set continued with a high proportion of new material before reaching Joe's solo, acoustic spot, kicked off by "Miss You;Hate You" with an amusing expletive aided explanation of its origin! Concluding this section with his rapid-fire picking extravaganza Joe had jaws dropping once again.

Stapping on his Tele-type geetar before getting back to his Les Paul a couple more familiar songs were played before he sported a Custom Shop maple necked, Strat (I reckon I should get sponsored for this technical info you know!) to deliver an instrumental which went into Jeff Beck territory - and worked.

Joe told us how as a "younger, shorter and wider" teenager B B King had advised him "never to forget where you came from" Joe told us that for him, in England "that is Mr Kyps" - unsurprisingly gaining a massive cheer and, for me, a well deserved salute to Kyp and team for the great work in introducing Joe to the UK. Yeah!!!!! Dynamics were core to Joe's playing tonight, as he often palmed his pick and dropped the volume right down to deliver lovely nuanced phrases in contrast to the impassioned soloing delivered elsewhere.

For his encore Joe sported a Gibson B B King Lucille model (before retuning to his Les Paul) as he took us trough the winding blues chord changes of that number, whose title I forget - too much 49er again - before concluding on another instrumental....and then he was gone! Still only another day until I see him again!

He is still smokin' even though the audience can't - great stuff!

Review by: neil nicholson