Birmingham’s Big Wolf Band joined a sell-out crowd at Temperance in Leamington Spa for an evening of blues-rock, banter & humour as well as three new songs in their set.
The line-up was Jonathan Earp (guitar & vocals), Justin Johnson (guitar & backing vocals), Mike Hatton (bass), Arran Shanghavi (keys) & Tim Jones (drums).
Lead singer & guitarist Jonathan Earp suffers from Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) which commonly includes overly flexible joints, stretchy and fragile skin, easy bruising, joint pain, fatigue & balance issues. Due to a recent flare-up Jonathan choose to sit down at this very intimate venue, to protect him for any further damage. Not that this reduced his stage presence, swagger or brilliant guitar playing and singing!
The band kicked off with a great blues-rock number with ‘Heavens Got the Blues’ with its solid rhythm section, great keys from Arran and Jon’s bluesy vocals and then dropped straight into ‘Done Wrong By You’ a soulful number with funky feel, great strong vocals from Jon with matching guitar riffs, great thumping bass with a keys solo from Arran.
One of the elements of a live Big Wolf Band show is the keyboard breaks from Arran, which are rarely ever the same gig to gig, and this was demonstrated on ‘I Don’t Love You’, matched to the gritty vocals from Jon. Another funky number was ‘Just a Little Bit of You’ with passionate vocals and great funky bass line & keys with a great drums climax from Tim.
The next song ‘Darker Side of You’ took the tempo down with a more emotive song with great guitar riffs, solid rhythm section & keys and passionately sung by Jon.
‘Super Animal’ is a great song which Jon demonstrates his guitar wizardry, while checking to see if it is up to standard before the full band kicks in on this rocky song.
The next song ‘Lay It On the Line’ let both bassist Mike & keys player Arran (called keyboard boy at one gig by the organiser!) have great solos showing their mastery of the instruments.
Then to finish the first set we had a new song ‘Unbroken Love’ with Albert King the inspiration for the sound, and the bands highest streamed song ‘If I Ever Loved Another Woman’ with its passionate guitars and gritty vocals.
After more humorous interplay between Jon & Justin, who have been writing some of the new songs together as rwell as some on The Rebels Journey album), with Justin offering some lyrics for Jon to work on. The second set opened with ‘Living on Borrowed Time’ a great rocky number with great keys and excellent guitar riffs to start with strident vocals, followed by ‘Valley of the Fallen Kings’ with its slower tempo but great blues guitar and evocative vocals and interplay between Jon & Arran.
Another new song ‘What’s the Deal (Too Much) was played next which is a keys & guitar led raunchy funky song with spectacular guitar breaks.
‘Six Strings Loaded’ is a blues-rock number where bassist Mike had an extended bass solo going with the great vocals and full band sound.
The next song ‘Standing in the Rain’ is a very personal song for Jon as its about disability and specifically EDS, which Jon’s daughter also suffers with. It covers mental issues and depression as at one point Jon couldn’t lift his guitar to play for nearly 2 years.
Then we had two songs from Freddie King with ‘Have You Ever Loved a Woman’ with its quick blues guitar riffs and Hammond organ sounds from Arran matching the passionate vocals from Jon, and ‘Going Down’ with its audience participation and great Jazz influenced keys from Arran to start.
To Finish we had another new song ‘Money & Run’ about gambling in Las Vegas before the powerful ‘Empire & a Prayer’ which is a full blues-rock song with powerful vocals from Jon.
After great applause the band came back with another personal song for Jon with ‘Darkest of my Days’ about the loss of his son Adam in 2009 with its slower tempo, passionate vocals, jazz keys and gentle guitar breaks. This is a fan favourite and has been brought back into the set on request.