DANNY GILES Band
Live at Zoom @ The Moon SE24,
The Half Moon, Herne Hill
Saturday 5 September 2009

Review by Pete Feenstra

The heavy end of the rock/blues template might be the last resort for hoary old rockers who have run out of creative juice, but this spirited CD/EP launch by the Danny Giles Band suggested they are a splendid example to the contrary.

For here is a power trio with fresh impetus, real enthusiasm and no little playing ability. Indeed such is Danny’s prowess on the guitar that it is easy to forget the powerhouse rhythm section of Matt Killick on bass and the explosive Doug Ryrie on drums who pushed him every inch of the way. But where many bands might use unrelenting volume and a barrage of solo’s to bulldoze club you over the head, DGB come armed with a batch of well constructed songs, a keen sense of dynamics and above all a thinly disguised musical confidence that can turn anything vaguely pedestrian into unfinished business. That’s not to say they don’t rock out, as Danny has a voice that can follow an arc from the more restrained Johnny Winter moments to a full blown scream from Ian Gillan in his pomp. DGB are undoubtedly a power trio but this is still a band with blues at its heart.

The band set out their stall with the opening unreconstructed blues rocker ‘Hold On’ and quickly tore into ‘I Won’t Let Love’. The latter is the opening track from the CD, and is full of impassioned wailing and some Walter Trout style big toned note clusters, which quickly helped win over the sizeable crowd.

The following ‘Smoking From The Pipe’ proved to be a brooding bluesy stomp. And as if to emphasise a sense of light and shade they neatly slipped into a brace of shuffles, shifting smoothly from the Robben Ford influenced ‘Teachers Pet’ on which Danny excelled with some fluid runs to the more restrained ‘Don’t Go Messing’.

Surprisingly perhaps, the evening’s highlight was the sophisticated cool funk of ‘Shiver’. Easily the best track on the EP, ‘Shiver’ gave Danny the opportunity to run through the full gamut of his repertoire. Opening with a sharp repeated riff he bided his time with some cool chords and jazzy notes over a funky back beat before stepping to the lip of the stage and with guitar held aloft filled every corner of the room with an avalanche of tension breaking notes. The thoughtful jazzy coda at the end was the icing on the cake.

The rest of the set made plenty allowance for some unrestrained guitar mangling, with more big notes and thumping riffs and even a Keith Moon style thrash from Doug Ryrie on the concluding part of the EP’s third track ‘Been There Twice’.

The band earned a deserved encore and chose the brooding funk of ‘Who Knows’ from the Hendrix, ‘Band of Gypsies’ era, which suggests that DGB are an outfit who have carefully charted out their course and have all the talent in the worked to fulfil it.

The absence of the Buddy Miles/Hendrix call and sequence for example, was admirably filled by Danny’s expressive runs as the band successfully crossed over from rock to blues via some low down funk. The crowd roared them off the stage, the lights came up, the CD’s went like hot cakes and the job was done. The Danny Giles Band are a name to remember as you get the feeling they are here for the long haul

Pete Feenstra