MONICA & THE eXPLOSION/STEVIE JONES/GRINNING SCARECROWS/DAZ JONES
Soundhouse 6th April 2024
Terrific Saturday afternoon at The Soundhouse and huge credit to Stevie Jones for organising this event to raise money for Musicians against Homelessness.
Opening proceedings was Daz Lynch who delivered a really excellent set. Daz writes some really fine songs and delivers them with a warm strong voice and strident guitar work. He plays with a smile and great spirit and really set the tone for a great afternoon. Excellent set,
Next up was a real revelation... the Grinning Scarecrows. The Scarecrows are Autumn Dawn Leader: Songmistress and Paddy McCullough working together as a duo... and this was a fabulous set.
Autumn performs purely as a vocalist and without the use of her keyboard her singing was raised another level.. There is no mistaking the quality of her fabulous voice but in this context she was more relaxed and fully able to express herself and sang better than ever. One song stands out, a wonderfully powerful piece called "What it is" during which she gave full range to her voice which soared to even greater heights of quality and power.
Paddy accompanied her on guitar, having transcribed the keyboard parts to guitar and adapted them, and weighed in with a couple of fine songs of his own as well.
The duo are scary and wonderful, the maverick shining brighter than ever in this setting and Paddy being a perfect foil as well as showing his quality as a guitarist and songwriter.
A spellbinding and magnificent performance... loved every second
Next up, the man of the moment, Stevie Jones who was playing solo on this occasion. Stevie is one of the most hard working and greatest performers on the circuit and always gives a great performance, whether solo or with the Wildfires, and this was no exception... a really great fully committed performance as always. Playing solo it is easier to concentrate on the songs themselves, and Stevie has a wealth of great songs from his career, and treated us to songs from his early days through to a piece from his forthcoming album.
Speaking of which, Stevie and the band are playing an album launch at the The Musician Pub later in the year... be sure to get along to that...
A really great set of original songs delivered by one of the very best on the circuit.
Finally... a real surprise package.. Monica and The Explosion all the way from Sweden. Monica stepped up to the microphone with an acoustic guitar and proceeded to hammer it with an onslaught of powerful high speed punk style thrashing... She also sang with great style and quality delivering a series of wonderful original songs. High in energy, high in quality and hugely uplifting exhilarating set from a remarkable performer... and a tremendous set to end a really great afternoon.
Huge thanks to Daz, Autumn, Paddy, Stevie and Monica who all delivered great sets and to everyone at the Soundhouse for hosting the event and fully contributing to making it so good
keep music live... keep music real... support your local venues
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