Bewdley’s Crimson Flame enjoyed a hot night at Southbound Bar in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire with their line-up of Chantelle Kimberley (vocals & guitar) and Finley White (guitars), both in there 20s. They are getting a wider following for their unique blues rock sound with their interesting variety of original songs.
For this set Finley was mainly playing his Les Paul electric guitar, switching back to his Sigma acoustic for the last three songs, with Chantelle on her Epiphone acoustic guitar.
In my pre-event interview Chantelle & Finley explained that they had slimmed down to a duo from a band due to time scheduling issues, but “Now as a duo we have time to develop our new music on our own”. For the new single ‘Head in the Clouds’ Chantelle and Finley felt “inspired by a trip to the Cairngorm mountains in Scotland”, and Chantelle immediately after getting back wrote the lyrics to the song. They have now finished creating it and have filmed a video to support the song being released in August 2026.
They kicked off with ‘I Will Always Love You’ with great twin guitars with Chantelle’s plaintive vocals and a great guitar break from Finley. Irishman Rory Gallagher is a great inspiration for many blues rock bands, and they gave a great version of I Fall Apart’ with powerful vocals and more inspired guitar breaks.
Then another track from their ‘Across The Far Side’ album they gave us ‘For My Soul’ with its eerie guitar lead from Finley and Chantelle’s passionate vocals. Another band UK Blues groups take inspiration from is Steely Dan and they gave us their version of ‘Do It Again’ with great interplay between rhythm guitar and electric with Chantelle’s powerful vocals on top.
Chantelle’s Grandad was a great inspiration and gave her lots of support as well as very old guitars and so ‘Fly High’ is her dedication to him with its powerful range vocals and quick guitar picking from Finley.
For the fans in the audience, including Southbound’s Carl Harris, they gave them Portishead’s ‘Glory Box’ with echoey guitar from Finley, with Wah Wah pedal, and low register vocals from Chantelle before she lets rip.
The last two songs of the first set with a couple of originals with a newish song with ‘Fields of Imagination’ with plaintive guitars to start with powerful intense vocals with great guitar riffs. Then for its first time in public we had ‘Head in the Clouds’ written after a trip to the Cairngorm mountains and hiking in the wind and rain.
Here is the Full Image set
Here is the Full Image set
After a slight hiatus fixing Chantelle’s Epiphone the second set kicked off with the classic Jimi Hendrix song ‘All Along the Watchtower’ with great guitar riffs and wah wah pedal from Finley. Followed by Tracey Chapman’s ‘Give Me One Reason’ with its evocative vocals and then the great rock n Roll number ‘Johnny B Goode from Chuck Berry, which is “a great dancing song”.
Then another newish song with ‘Hazey on You’ a great old-style blues song with evocative vocals with matching guitar riffs and guitar break from Finley.
Then a few covers with Moddy Blues ‘Nights in White Satin’ a softer song with twin guitars and Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Hey Joe’ with guitars interplay, powerful vocals and electrifying lead guitar playing.
Then as a nod to Robert Plant (who lives close to Bewdley) a medley of High Rocker (Saving Grace) and Led Zeppelin’s Rock n Roll.
The evening finished with two more originals with ‘She Dreams’ about chasing your dreams, with strident vocals from Chantelle and great supporting guitar riffs from Finley, and then ‘If I Was Your Woman’ a funkier song with strident vocals and great acoustic guitar picking.
After applause they then as an encore playing ‘Poison Ivy’ about two sides of the argument with strident passionate vocals and great guitar riffs and picking from Finley.
This is a band that are going places with innovative blues-rock songs, great dual guitars, great lead guitar from Finley, and evocative and powerful vocals from Chantelle.