This was a classic Saturday night gig at The Garage in Highbury with two great bands from different generations with the young upstarts Vieria And The Silvers on first and doing everything they could to make an impact and blow the headliners off the stage, they are a 6 piece band fronted by the package himself Diogo Vieria Da Silver who from the opening Fire In The Breeze had the sort of presence that makes it hard to take your eyes off him or how tight his trousers were, the band whipped up a Blues rock storm in hock to everyone from Dr Feelgood to the Sensational Alex Harvey band and lots of places In between.
I think the next tune was I guess I Feel Lonely it had a pulsating blues holler rhythm with some down and dirty sax as well as some great breakdowns. The Guitarist hit a hell of a riff and stopped to signal they were about to rollick through Hands On The Wheel that as well as the riff had a truly ballsy bassline, they were immensely tight, taut and action packed. Vieria made clear he was Living the dream and howling the songs at us while he prowled the stage with backing vocals from one of the guitarists, they had pretty everyone with them.
Grasping For Love is something it is hard to imagine this lot are, especially Vieria who was the very definition of Cock Rock God who has so much magnetism to get the love he desires. They closed this blistering set with In The End that had several stops and starts and silences, it built and fell and just blasted away, this is a band we will be seeing again I'm certain, go and see them while they are still in small venues.
After the break it was time for the Jim Jones All Stars to show why Were All Billionaires Now as the 8-piece band opened with a stonking version of Cement Mixer the Jim Jones Revue classic, this time with more brass and sounding way more powerful than The Righteous Mind did. See Me Hurt was blasted through, this super taut garage soul blues stew started to feel unstoppable.
Burning Your House Down saw Jim giving us his finest deranged Preacher routine, Stuart Dace and Tom Hodges sax section really got into the swing of it. Gimme The Grease had Elliot Mortimers insistent piano and Carlton Mounshers guitar locked in sync.
The first well chosen cover of the set was a blistering run through Parchman Farm Blues, they tried to imagine the horror of being on a southern chain gang in the depression, Gavin Jay's bass trying to imitate the hammers falling on the rocks. Jim introduced never Let You Go as being one of the new songs about to be recorded for the bands next album, that already sounds nicely road tightened. Drink Me had some great Intense guitar and wild approbations to the demon alcohol and a need to be kept dry everyone once in a while.
They then made my night with one of the best live versions of Run Run Run I've ever heard, the sax attack was perfect to elevate this Velvet Underground classic to next level status, an absolute stonker of a version. 100 Fire Horns sizzled with intensity. I Want You Anyway I Can had a real frisson to it with if I remember rightly some cowbell from backing singer Ali Jones.
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They tore into the Cramps Human Fly and made it their own. We got a global warming special with Make It Rain which this year is something very few people in England are saying, make it stop raining more like.
Jim then took us on a deep dive by covering Charles Mad Dog Sheffield's It's Your Voodoo Working an original copy of which will set you back over 600 quid! In Jim's hands it was a proper southern soul stew with the horns rising and falling throughout. Satan's Got His Heart Set On You sounded a lot fuller than it did with the Righteous Mind like its really come into its own.
It was then time for a Garage rock classic they re-worked the Jimmy Castor Bunch's Troglodyte into a dynamite slice of sing along Garage soul with the Sock It To Me chorus perfect for some fist pumping.
Lee Dorsey's timeless classic The Greatest Love really needed the twin attack of Stuart Dace and Tom Hodges to take it to another level. They tackled Rock & Roll Psychosis as if they were in the middle of a breakdown that could only be cured by the power of super intense rock and roll.
The Princess & The Frog made clear exactly what sort of man Jim is and it went down a treat. Before they closed with the old Thee Hypnotics classic Shake Down that may well have been in the set the first time I saw Jim back in the day in Thee Hypnotics, this version had less dry ice more brass and loads of sass.
It was in no doubt they would be back for an encore even before Ali walked on stage telling us we weren't loud enough, before they all came back on and went all boy band on us with a cover of Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey that in the grand tradition of Beatles covers was far preferable to the original.
Eddie Floyd's Big Bird was perfect for the garage soul blues treatment and went down a storm, before they thanked us all once more and closed a brilliant night with 512 that guaranteed everyone was left smiling.
This show means that Jim Jones has been involved in my top three gigs of the year so far! Alongside his roles in the Vive Le Rockers and Lenny Kaye's Nuggets band, this show was as close a perfect two band bill as it gets.
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