A rare midweek opportunity for a night of Rockabilly and hard-rockin’ Honky-Tonk Cowpunk in one of my favourite local venues, how could I resist? The Rum Shack is garnering a strong reputation as a much sought after venue for live music, a great size, with great sight lines and sound, and when you add to that a band who are quite obviously in their prime, basking in the success of their superb latest record Broken Hearted Blue and clearly enjoying their performance you’ve got a perfect recipe to counter that mid week slump, injecting a bit of joy back into that gloomy feeling… last weekend was a distant memory and this weekend still seems a lifetime away… On this dreich and cold February Wednesday night, Jenny & Co. were a revitalising force to be reckoned with, bringing an exuberant joy to the party and creating a carefree Friday night vibe to start the weekend way earlier than planned.
Before the group who’d travelled all the way from Portland to captivate Glasgow’s discerning music fans, it was the turn of a band from closer to home to entertain, and that is just what Wild Devils did, the band, whose stand up bass player Dave and drummer Del have previously tread the stage as part of The Hurricanes getting feet a-tapping, and heads a-nodding along to their high octane Rockabilly sounds, sweet guitar licks atop the solid rhythm section, who overcame near disaster with a collapsing bridge on the bass only two songs in. Rosalyn’s purring rockabilly vocals were the icing on the cake from this tight quartet. This was their second night playing with the headliners who were clearly impressed with Jenny taking in their set from stage front.
Talking of sweet guitar licks, the sounds wrangled from his guitar by Jenny’s guitarist Christopher were mind blowing, the garage rock infused country riffs were off the scale, there were times during the show that I was transfixed watching his furious fingers fly up and down the fretboard, his pick plucking the strings as if his life depended on it, all the while there was not a hair out of place on perfectly groomed moustache and his ten gallon hat remained perfectly poised. Meanwhile stage left, bass player Kelly was every inch the rock star low slung bass and rock star poses abounded while never missing a note, reminding people around me of everyone from a young Neil Young to REM’s Peter Buck.
Jenny was clearly having a blast at the front, joking with the audience throughout and acknowledging that there was a football game on elsewhere I town…at which point the current score was conveniently shared from the crowd, and sharing the musical background of her family. As she tuned between songs she related a tale of being bored as a child watching her parents band and resolving never to play in a band, and playing a cover of (second cousin?) Sonny Wallace’s 1955 single Black Cadillac. Every song was executed with an assured aplomb, it felt like they were comfortably improvising the set list, playing what they felt fitted with the vibe of the night, the band looked as if they were enjoying the gig as much as the crowd, whose volume of responses increased as a direct reflection of how well the band was resonating with the gathered Rum Shack punters.
All too soon it was time to wrap up, and with another, Glasgow related (for Tutti Frutti fans), cover Your Cheating Heart kicking off their encore the crowd were already anticipated the promised return to these shores next year. I’ll be first in line to buy a ticket.