DUST AND DEBRIS
Musician Pub 21st January 2024
Sunday afternoon at The Musician Pub was a triumphfor the excellent Dust & Debris - UK and especially for their leader, Les Eastham.
The event was a celebration of the first ten years of the band, and also tied in nicely with Les's birthday (i refrain from putting a number in there...) and was about celebrating with memeber of the band past and present.
Proceedings stated with Les solo acoustic delivering a talking blues detailing the history of the band. After that he brought on Sam and Paul (i think... apologies if the name is wrong) who formed the original trio who debuted at a talent night at the Musician along with Bass Player Richard. This set started with a song still in the current set "First time I met Gene (Vincent)".
After a few songs they were joined by the Elaine with her beautiful fiddle pieces.
Next step was the bands second vocalist, Dawn, to step up then to be joined by the current singer, Jade to complete the first section of the show. I cant name the songs, most were new to me but a standout was Dawn's performance of a Robbie Robertson number, "Evangeline"
After a short break up stepped the current line-up of Les, Jade, Elaine, George, Bud and Richard... and the band were on fire,,.,. i have never heard them play better than this... Starting with a rocking "Folsom Prison Blues" before running through many of the key numbers from the current set list... including "Rocky Mountain Belle" (Got it now!), "Wagon Wheel", "Jambalaya" (any country band worth their salt will include a Hank WIlliams number), "Jolene", before upping the rock'n'roll element with the Beatles "One after 909" "Hello Mary Lou" and "Runaround Sue"
The set list alone shows the nature of the gig and for sure the band were playing and singing wonderfully...
Another short break, for the raffle, and the finale started... all the paticipating musicians on stage for a rip roaring sing along section kickin g of with Dan delivering a magnificent version of "Proud Mary" (you need a Creedence number in the set!!) and a storming "Battle of New Orleans" before closing with a lovely reading of another band original "Feels Like Falling in Love Again" which won the collective vote of the band to close the show.
After this superb gig, obviously there were encores.. and the band took us through "Honky Tonk Women" and another Hank classic,"My buckets got a hole in it"
For the whole three hours or so of music it was clear that not only was everyone at the peak of the game, the rapport between band members and was wonderful and the atmosphere created in the room was absolutely lovely. All the musicians were clearly loving every second as well and Jade manged to sing wonderfully despite having the broadest smile on her face the whole time!!... The level of joy on stage, together with the sheer quality of the music from everyone involved was a joy which transferred readily to the audience
Great gig in every respect... a triumph of organisation and vision for Les and a wonderful weay to spend a sunday
Keep music live... keep music real... support your local venue...
And finally... a tad belatedly Happy Birthday to Dust & Debris - UK and especially happy birthday to Les.
