Dirt Road Band/Milkmen

DIRT ROAD BAND/MILKMEN

Iinternational Artsd Centre 22nd March 2025

What a rock'n'roll treat at the International Arts Centre last night with The Milk Men - Band and DIRT ROAD BAND sharing the bill.. two awesome, though very different, rock'n'roll bands on the same show!!

First up were The Milk Men - Band, making their entrance as ever to Benny Hill's "Ernie" they rocked into their set, featuring mainly familiar material from their outstanding albums.

You know where you are with this band... arguably the best rocking rhythm'n'blues band around... driving music, delivered with energy and a sense of fun and joy with no frills or novelties... just high quality straightforward rock'n'roll delivered by four high quality musicians...

At the back Mike, sartorial and elegant as ever, drives the band with superb drumming, while Lloyd like the other great bass players, stands for the most part rock solid delivering great thundering bass. On guitar Adam plays superbly, with the familiar crouches and occasional duck-walks while Jamie strides around belting out the vocals... the four gel perfectly into a tight rocking unit, and the set builds and builds and keeps the audience rocking throughout...

Impossiblee to pull out highlights, as the whole set is a highlight, but special mention for a fabulous version of "Going Back Home" co-written by Lloyds father the legendary Mick Green and Wilco Johnson... and the wonderful "She Dont Like Rock'n'Roll"

Brilliant band... superb set... absolutely terrific show.

How to follow it... the DIRT ROAD BAND ... again, a no-nonsense rock'n'roll band playing a blistering set... concentrating for the most part on original material from their album, but also some covers including Charley Patton's "Down the Dirt Road Blues" an esptablished part of the set and from where the band took their name.

The band is led by Steve Walwyn, who had a long stint with Dr Feelgood as well as Eddie and the Hot Rods... a superb fluent guitar player and singer, working with two other legends... The wonderful Horace Panter (ex-the Specials) and superb drummer Ted Duggan (ex-Badfinger among others).

The three form a water-tight bnand delivering vibrant guitar-led rock'n'roll from the outset... again... no tricks or gimmicks, just brilliant musicianship and irresistable rock'n'roll...

Towards the end Steve spoke warmly of the late great Rory Gallagher before the band launched into a blistering version of "Laundromat"... The final song was the regular closer, another song associated with Rory, "Bullfrog Blues" which brought a fabulous set to a climactic close....

It wasn't over... the band were joined by Adam (Milkmen) for the first encore and also by Jamie (Milkmen) for the final song of the evening...

Two absolutely wonderful bands... both firing on all cylinders and bringing their A game to the venue gave us a truly wonderful memorable night of rock'n'roll... absolutely wonderful

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