RE: the Julian Sas show in London this week:
Firstly here is the setlist:
Ragin' River
Swamplands
Mercy
Bound To Roll
Lookin' for a Friend
The Blues Won't Stay
Life On The Line
Tear it Up
Stranger Blues
Statesboro Blues (With Larry Miller)
Highway 61 Revisited
30 Days In The Holes
Shadowplay
Hey Joe
The Devil Got My Number
The venue was tiny and dark, as a proper blues venue should be. I'd not being there before but very much liked. Julian played for about 90-95 mins with no break in show or for encore. The audience numbered about 45 people (give or take...), I counted 38 just before he started, but a few stragglers come in during show. The audience may have been small but they seemed to enjoy the show very much, and this far from perturbed Julian from putting a great show for the assembled crowd. I initially thought Larry Miller was doing a guest support slot, but i turned out not to be, however he did come up and play a guitar frenzied rendition of Statesboro Blues with Julian which was the highlight of the evening. As for the setlist, it featured 9 tracks from the excellent Bound To Roll which was handy as this was all I'd really had time to check out in depth before seeing him, due to the time frame in discovering him (through this forum, kudos again Kenny) and seeing him live, whilst also listening to tracks by other artists in run up to show. so the extent to which Bound To Roll was represented was beneficial and pleasurable for me. fortunately I'd also found a setlist from one of Julian's shows in Holland this February so made a point of downloading the few extra tracks from his back catalogue that were likely to be played, so on the night the only song i didn't know was the opening track. Highlights alongside the guitar jam with Larry Miller were Life On The Line and Swamplands my two favourite tracks from Bound To Roll. The best guitar track from Julian was the slow blues number Lookin For A Friend this featured some ten minutes of unadulterated guitar solo, which was very impressive. On a whole the sound was good, the audience was very respectful, not once did you have to suffer idiots talking. The band seemed to enjoy themselves, Julians guitar playing was very prominent and featured a few bouts of excellent slide guitar, including in Statsboro Blues. He has a lovely tone when he plays that more than made the evening worth while. I felt glad to go support an artist on his first venture to the UK, and he was more than good value for £10, and if he returns to these shores anytime soon and is playing somewhere near you, do yourself a favour and go, you won't be disappointed. If you don't get the chance to see him soon, get his album Bound To Roll anyway, well worth the money and time to listen too
I'm going to see Larry Miller in a few weeks time at the Borderline, I've not seen him before, but discovered him six months ago through Classic Rock Blues magazine, and have enjoyed his last 2 albums, so am now more excited about seeing him play some more guitar after witnessing him jam with Julian Sas.
