The Mojo Slide

14.11.2015

It was the launch night of their debut album ‘Twist Your Bones’, where the band played it in full and a packed out venue was there to celebrate with them. With the man who features on the cover also there, the night was one big party.

Setting the tone from the very first note, ‘Addicted’ blasted out through the speakers as it thumped out with its addictive beat, and the entire band sounded on excellent form with the vocals of Mark Wilks soaring out over the crunchy guitars and Mike Fenna launching into a blistering guitar solo. ‘Jesus Don’t Love Me’ continued their epic sound as the crowd danced away to it in delight, and the tambourine was handed out to those at the front to join in with this foot-stomper of a song. With excellent backing vocals from guitarist Matt Legg, the song grooved with abundance before the more gentle ‘Smiling’ captivated the audience. Telling the audience it was time to “shake their arses”, ‘High’ was the song to do just that. With the most infectious guitar riff ever, the song was perfect for playing live and the whole room was seething in a mass of bodies. Winning for the most co-ordinated style ever, Danny Savage totally owned the stage at this point, dressed in leopard print and with a bass to match, his monster grooves during this song were a delight to watch. Michael Graham on drums smashed those skins on ‘Make You Bleed’ to produce a killer beat on this song as the crowd took them up on their statement to “twist your bones”.

Hearing the album played track by track live was already an amazing experience, but The Mojo Slide weren’t taking their foot off the gas with ‘Bad In Every Bone’ and as the slide guitar played its haunting sound, Mark’s vocals took on a gravelly tone, and the song exploded into a groove fest of mammoth proportions. Joining them on stage for ‘Rattlesnake Humbug Blues’, Daisy Bell who had played an excellent first set provided the backing vocals to add more depth to the song, as the rock and roll blasted out and some of the crowd jived along to the music. Raising the bar even higher, ‘The Ballad Of Satan The Devil’ was full of fuzzy goodness with the rhythm pounding out, before the gentle introduction to ‘Little Bird’ filled the room and if lighters were common place these days, they would have been raised during this song. ‘Drunk Dog Blues’ was back to the pure rock and roll the band do so well which brought even more dancing from the crowd before the final song from the album, ‘The Sky Is Falling In’ blew the roof off the venue with the power that was unleashed.

Having played a storming set of the album, the band weren’t ready to stop just yet and were in the mood to continue with the party atmosphere as they were also celebrating four years of the band, so next up was a brilliant version of The Verve song ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ before treating the crowd to ‘Catch Me If You Can’, with more of their upbeat sound the band excel at. Launching into a more bluesy ‘Lost Ship Of The Desert’ every single track they played live was an absolute scorcher and continuing the blues theme, ‘Hoochie Coochie Man’, the Muddy Waters cover was a blues fest that totally suited the vocals, raspy and powerful throughout and continuing the good times of the evening with the appropriately named ‘Good Times’, this song once again showcased just how brilliant the band is live. Wrapping up an evening that had been packed with excellent songs, and had left the crowd absolutely delighted by their performance, ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’, the Little Richard classic brought back the rock and roll, and some serious guitar shredding was going on through that song, as people danced and jived until the last dying moments of the notes were played out.

With the crowd shouting out for more, it was left to the final song ‘Big Black Hole’ to round of the night, once again raising the bar of excellence with their live sound. ‘Twist Your Bones’ is one the best debut albums of the year, and The Mojo Slide put on one of the best live performances of the year with an outstanding set of filthy blues and rock ‘n’ roll. Good times indeed.