Oli Brown _ Beaverwood 19 March 2009

The Oli Brown Band
Chislehurst
Thursday March 19th 2009

We would have preferred just to pootle down the road to the Half Moon at Herney Hill to see Oli but we are away in April when they play there. Chislehurst was not a bad alternative though and far easier to get to than the Boom Boom at Sutton. Pete Feenstra’s website said that doors opened at a rather unfriendly 7.30 so we went down to get there about a quarter to eight.

Once in and with stamps on the backs of our hands we grabbed a couple of chairs to sit just behind the two or three round tables at the front. With no regimented rows it wouldn’t be a problem to see round anyone sitting in front of you. The set up was not the silly stage in the centre position that Feenstra often favours but up the end in front of the back bar that had a back cloth to hide it.

With an early opening we rather assumed a support band and dreaded the worst. Having said that the first time we saw Oli Brown he was playing support. It turned out that there was only Oli’s mon on display so we had a bit of a wait before there was any action. Luckily Pete Feenstra was on pretty good form with odd (very odd) announcements from the stage.

As usual he thanked us for coming out and then told us that the PA had blown up. But we were not to worry as by Herculean efforts they had got another one. It was obviously a bit last minute as there was still some testing going on and that included some quite painful sonic booms. Feenstra explained that the lack of PA meant that the grand intro for the band couldn’t happen (we had no idea what this was supposed to be) but soon enough the band would be on.

It was a touch ramshackle as the band actually walked through the crowd to get onto the stage. The lack of PA turned to the band’s advantage as there were a lot of jokes flying around and it helped relax the atmosphere. They started up and were the same pretty hard driving blues band (with a hint of jazz all the time) that we had seen before. Oli was looking thinner than usual but was still in his trademark pinstripe suit. The drummer, Simon Jones looked the same but Fred Hollis the bass player looked different.

Teresa agreed and he looked like a young brother of the old one. As time went on his obvious prowess (and he is good) made us think that he might be the same bloke but he didn’t look the same. Maybe he had lost weight and done something different with his hair but something was amiss. I clobbered Feenstra on the way to the toilet and he agreed that there was something strange and said he’d check up at half time. As I would see him the next night I thought I’d wait till then to find out.

The band certainly doesn’t lack confidence and Oli continues with his master plan of conquering the blues world. He really is very good and his ‘Vanquish Oli Brown "Signature": Solid’ guitar performed admirably. His amp though was a different matter. Along with the blown PA it was giving problems but once again his chatty, up front & amiable personality did him proud and he got all the audience on his side about it. The amp did make a few odd noises but luckily no great thumps or squeals. He did explain that it had been playing up but they hadn’t had time to fix it.

He does a good mix of old & new with some B B King, Freddie King (Big Legged Woman – Oli said he was a fan of them but he looked too frail to handle one) and some ones he had written himself. He had his little fan club in the front seats. There were 2 guys who were Dumb and Dumber and 2 women who Teresa ungraciously dubbed Godzilla and the Swamp Monster. One of then had a delightful mole or wart behind her ear and had her hair tied back to give it a good airing.

As intimated earlier there was an interval cum gear repair break and a second half of more hard driving blues. He is such a confident (some would say cocky) young man that he actually moved to the centre of the stage to sin away from the mike. One song – Psycho – was about a woman who followed him from a gig and he woke up to find her staring at him through the window while he was in bed. It was a very good show and at the end we had an encore and Black Benny Bam A Lam thrown in at the end for good measure.

The audience loved it and so they should as it was very entertaining. Well done The Oli Brown Band. The next night we have the other end of the blues age spectrum with Stan Webb so that should be an interesting contrast.

http://www.oliselectricblues.co.uk/index.html