Bristol’s True Strays thrilled the sell out audience, on their debut appearance, at Temperance in Leamington Spa on their Never Ending Sunset album tour. The line-up was James Cameron (guitar & vocals), Joe James (bass & vocals), Jamie Shaw (drums) and Pete Nicholas (keys), and they were also joined by Demi Marriner on acoustic guitar and backing vocals (Demi also did a solo set before the band of her own songs). The band have a distinctive multi-harmony blues rock sound with a bit a country and rock thrown in.
As James & Joe explained during the show this was an album they had decided to produce themselves, to get the sound they wanted.
To start the evening, we had Demi Marriner as support, who is well known to many in the audience as she is a member of Elles Bailey’s band as well as touring with her own band and many others.
She gave us several numbers from her 2024 album ‘The Things I Said’ which is part of a trilogy with the 2023 release ‘The Things We Didn’t Say’ with the final album due out soon.
This included ‘Sound the Alarm’ a lovely Americana mellow song with great passionate vocals and subtle guitar accompaniment.
With James Cameron joining her on stage she gave us ‘Repeat Refrain’, the title track from ‘The Things I Said,’ a mellow song with solid electric echoey guitar supporting Demi on acoustic guitar and her great vocals.
With ‘Think of Me’ we had Demi alone with strident guitar work and storybook vocals in Americana style with her English intonation, followed by ‘Some People’ (on album with cellist Isabel Williamson) with its very guitar picking style and smooth vocals of great range with strength and passion, and ‘Need to Know’ with its strong plaintive guitar and great rhythm vocals with intricate interplay with the guitar accompaniment. She finished with ‘Good Guys Act’ with lovely picking guitar and very passionate vocals, hitting the high notes.
After a short break True Strays took to the stage squeezing into the tight Temperance stage area at this very intimate venue.
They kicked off with the title track from the ‘Never Ending Sunset’ album ‘Like Tom Hardy’ with lovely close harmonies from Joe, James & Demi with an upbeat song with variations of pace and expressive keys, guitars and drums. Then followed with ‘Young Blood’ a sleazy blues rock song with Joe on lead vocals with its raunchy beat, heavy vocals, multi harmonies and great rhythm section. Also included from the new album in the first set were ‘Light & Shade’ with great bluesy vocals from James backed by Joe & Demi with funky middle section with echoey slide guitar and ‘Sinner’ which was a rocky more intense number again with excellent multi-harmonies. This was the first song completed on this album with the right sound the boys were looking for.
There were also songs from earlier albums including ‘Campesina’ with its country blues music style start with full keys, heavy drums and great slide guitar from James, ‘Salt Dog’ a loosely maritime song with James on steel guitar and more excellent slide guitar work, strong vocals Joe and multi harmonies with James and ‘Desert Sound’ which was a more mellow song with its full blues rock sound. The first half was finished with a Beatles/John Lennon song ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ with plenty of audience participation.
After another beer break, we had the second set with more songs from the new album including ‘Shine a Light’ which is the last track in part B on the Deluxe version of the album was a personal song to Joe as it was about his Mum’s loss of her Father and had great multi-harmonies with a funky beat, ‘Sweet Love’ with its high cadence guitar into multi harmonies with great echoey guitar, solid tempo and expressive vocals led by Joe. Also performed were ‘Promises, Promises’ which was about when promises don’t come true which was a heavy rocky blues number with great multi guitar sound backed by keys & drums with Joe on lead vocals to start switching to James later in song and ‘Some Kind of Superman’ which was a blues riff rock song with heavy beat, gritty vocals from James and multi harmonies and steel guitar breakout.
Also included were earlier songs including ‘Cold Heart’ with funky and bouncy keys from Pete, ‘Matters to You’ which was just James & Joe (on acoustic guitar) and lively multi harmonies on laid back mellow song with strong vocals, a song for looking out for each other.
After great applause the band played a couple of songs for an encore with ‘Let your Heart Lead the Way’ which started with Joe on funky 1960s bass sound via his pedal board and on lead vocals. It had a slower tempo with passionate multi harmonies, with wild slide guitar from James, and Demi with great her great improv vocals with Americana high end.
‘Heal the Haunting’ starting with slide guitar into a heavy blues rock high tempo number with multi harmonies. James with more slide guitar with Pete’s keys break backed by heavy drums. Eerie vocals from James & Joe.