Big Wolf Band from Birmingham really entertained the crowds headlining at the Booze and Blues festival, held in the grounds of Stoughton Grange Farm Park, Leicester. The festival was complemented by the band “The Booze and Blues festival is in a stunning setting. Has real potential to be a major festival for years to come”. This was the first year the festival has run after a number of years.
The Big Wolf Band were promoting their recently released album ‘Rebel’s Journey’ which had gone down a storm and was Amazon’s number 1 best selling blues album in May 2024.
The band’s line-up was Jonathan Earp (guitar & vocals), Mick Jeynes (bass), Tim Jones (drums), Justin Johnson (guitar & vocals), Robin Fox (keys) and Zoe Green (backing vocals).
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Their set was a mixture of quicker raunchy songs from the new album including ‘Living On Borrowed Time’, the first single from the album ‘Empire And A prayer’ with its anthemic feeling, ‘Six Strings Loaded’ and ‘Lay It On The Line’, all with great harmonies and foot stomping tunes. All had the brilliant guitar work from Jonathan Earp & Justin Johnson backed by the rhythm section and great backing vocals from Zoe Green.
The set also included some slower tempo songs with soulful and passionate vocals from Jonathan with brilliant expressive guitarwork. These included ‘Darker Side Of You’ and ‘Standing In The Rain’. These all had great lyrics with the band supporting Jonathan with their powerful stories.
From their earlier catalogue we heard the song that launched the band with its airplay on BBC Radio 2 Blues Show ‘Rolling With Thunder’, ‘with lead vocals from Justin Johnson, Heaven’s Got The Blues’ with its heavy beat and great piano parts and great guitar breaks and ‘Love Isn’t Free’ with its slower heavy blues beat.
The last song in the set was a very emotional one for Jonathan as it was about his son Adam who he lost in 2009 with ‘Darkest Of My Days’ with the personal and extremely passionate vocals.
For an encore they finished with the Joe Bonamassa’s song ‘Oh Beautiful’ with its stunning dual vocals from Jonathan and Zoe which sent shivers down the spine.
