Gene Loves Jezebel/Micky Kemp

GENE LOVES JEZEBEL/MICKY KEMP

Musician Pub 6th November 2024

Last night at The Musician Pub was a cracker... Opening up was MICKY KEMP.... i've seen him several times and know how good he is so was looking forward to seeing him again... and was not disappointed... He delivered a really great set. Powerful performer, playing strong powerful acoustic guitar and is a great strong singer. The set is all original songs, ranging in style and content from stories, serious and comic, all excellent and all delivered with style commitment and joy... Micky is really charismatic and powerful performer and has the audience onside from the off... Outstanding performance from a really great entertainer

Headling was Gene Loves Jezebel... the band were formed in the 1980's and i'll confess i'd never heard of them until Chris (bless him!!) persuaded me to come a few days ago... in fact 1980's bands are something i totally missed out on... however... the band hit the stage to a fabulous reception and blasted into their show... after about 30 seconds i was thinking "I'm glad i came!!"

Hard to define stylistically, but post punk goth seems to fill the bill... they rocked from the off and overall got more powerful and rocking as the set progressed...

Never a simple full tilt rock band their music has tons of light and shade and variety, yet even in the slower and quieter numbers they rocked...

Up front singer/guitarist Jay Aston is a terrific singer with bags of charisma and style and is a great front man... to his left is legendary guitarist James Stevenson (the Alarm/The Cult) who plays superbly throughout. In the engine room bass player Pete Rizzo powers away with some terrific playing while Smiley hits the drums with some force and drums up a stylish storm...

The band are musically superb, and play together as a band, not indulging in long self-indulgent solos... but when James did a solo it was outstanding...

Really loved this band... maybe at times the sound was a tad dated, but that doesn't matter... this was a scintillating set delivered by a great highly accomplished band.. loved every minute...

Keep music live... keep music real... support your local venues