Wednesday night shows are hit and miss for attendance, they can be dead or they can be amazing. Fortunately this time a good sized crowd was out for Good For Grapes and bluesman Bill Durst, June 20 at the Slice.
Good For Grapes were a pleasant surprise although a strange double bill for Bill Durst.
They combined a lot of Vancouver indie r
ock a la Said the Whale and Hey Ocean with a touch of ’80s pop, a blasting trombone and some hyper kinetic accordion playing, a little bit of flute and extra tom in front of the stage and a whole lot of energy.
They added some superb vocal harmonies and some keyboards to add variety. She took a shot at playing the battered Slice piano for one energetic number.
For something completely different, Bill Durst played energetic, grittyTexas style blues straight out of London, Ontario, backed by a crack rhythm section.
Bill Durst was impressive, to say the least.
There were approximately 50 people digging the Durst. His eyes twinkled beneath his bald head through his massive beard. And he had guitar chops Bully Gibbons would approve of. He has shared stages with Aerosmith, Rush, Bob Seger, the yardbirds, and Sly and the Family Stone just to name a few and showed it in his music, which combined all the elements of blues based classic rock with perfectly tasteful solos.
His voice had a Blind Willie McTell timbre, especially when playing one of McTell’s songs— amplified of course.
He alternated between his own arrangements of blues classics, ZZ Top covers and solo material from his latest CD “The Great Willy Mammoth.” He switched guitars for some deadly slide and detuned riffs all the while cracking jokes and beaming a blissful style.
The Great Willy Mammoth grinned through his set like a blues guitar picking Santa Claus like he wouldn’t be happier anywhere else. Drummer Justin Burgess and bassist Cam Dowle kept the toes tapping and held the beat while he retuned.
His second set was off the hook as he reinterpreted everything from “Man of Constant Sorrow,” from the movie “O Brother Where Art Thou” to Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster plus ZZ Top. He got the crowd involved scatting along with him then took them back to “Woodstock” by singing the Joni Mitchell penned early 1970s hit.
