Belfast’s award-winning blues guitarist thrilled the sold-out Temperance audience (the first of two nights), with his acoustic set, in Leamington Spa. He was joined on stage by his bass player Ben Graham (who has been performing with him for four years and who he met at a festival), who also played keyboards too. The acoustic sets are quite different from his full-on electric guitar full band tours.
Dom Martin has been a regular performer at Temperance with his first visit in 2019. At that point this was owner Adrian Gains first ‘International’ act even though only over the Irish Sea. He was booked by Adrian after a recommend and he was shocked to see attendees coming from a wide area even Manchester. After wowing Adrian, he has booked him regularly since.
The very successful UK/Ireland Acoustic tour 2026 has played to packed crowds in Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland as well as venues in Wales, England & Scotland.
The support act was the Americana/Roots band Seafoam Green with Dave O’Grady (guitar & vocals) & Muireann McDermott Long (vocals). Originally from Dublin & Wicklow they met in Liverpool and have been playing together 10 years. Their set had blues; gospel & folk influenced songs.
They kicked off with ‘Small Town Love’ with Dave on lead vocals supported by Muireann with great intertwining harmonies which was a feature throughout their set. This was followed by ‘For Something to Say’ and ‘Working Man’ with its eerie harmonies with Celtic inflections.
A more rocky number was ‘Whisky’ with evocative vocals and a foot stomping beat, followed by ‘Heavy in Love’ led by Dave in country blues style with eerie middle before going upbeat with great harmonies. Next up we had Muireann on lead vocals on ‘Better For You’ which is a passionate song. The set was completed with lots of maracas on ‘Hiss’ with its quick beat and lovely upbeat harmonies in an upbeat song.
Then we had Dom Martin on stage on his acoustic guitar who started with ‘The Fall’ with echoey guitar on slow but powerful opening with brilliant guitar picking and then strong evocative Celtic vocals.
This was followed by ‘Belfast Blues in an acoustic version of his classic song about his hometown, with great guitar picking and his gruff powerful bluesy voice.
‘Echoes’ which was a song about his parents with slow melodic opening with great Celtic vocals and supporting lovely guitar work.
‘Easy Way Out’ was an early song written after seven-day meth session, though he has not taken drugs now for over 10 years with eerie feel with echoey guitar picking. After a slow start drops into powerful vocals telling the story about his past life and drugs.
Next, he played an unrecorded song ‘Haunted’ with its different weird tuning with heavy beat with Dom’s trademark gruff and intense dark vocals.
Next was a song Dom found many years ago but didn’t know who wrote it. This was ‘Alethea’ by Robin Trower (who he toured with recently) played with Cry Baby wahwah pedal on acoustic with slower but powerful guitar breaks and evocative strong vocals.
He was then joined by his long-time band member Ben Graham (from Port Rush) on bass and keyboards.
The duo kicked off with ‘The Train Came’ with Ben on bass on a song Dom wrote when a 17-year-old teenager with its great story telling with powerful and emotional vocals with guitar picking and Ben’s support on bass.
Followed by the Albert King song ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ with its bass line start and intwining guitars and gruff echoey vocals.
Next up was a Ralph McTell song ‘Last Train and Ride’ which was videoed by Ralph’s grandson at the Half Moon in Putney and sent to Ralph, who found the version a bit dark. So, this was the re-imagined version.
The encore gave us the acoustic version of ‘12 Gauge’ with Ben on bass with quick guitar picking from Dom to start, before pace picks up and you feel Dom’s vocal passion.