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NoJunkNoSoul + Joe Mac |
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The Horse & Groom
17 November 2007
Photos & Review by Pete
As pub venues go the recently refuburbed Horse and Groom down Carholme Road presents serious issues to performers. Firstly the stage area is a shadowy corner down one end of the bar, completely obscured to everyone but the nearest four people. No-one else in the pub has a hope of catching the merest glimpse of what’s going on. In fact one whole side of the pub centres instead around a tasty plasma screen which was showing Kill Bill. Ok, it’s a step-up from Sky Sports and a real cool movie in parts but for everyone on the comfy sofas the music is pretty much reduced to being so much incidental background noise. Talking of which...
... ubiquitous songsmith Joe Mac performed his fiftieth solo gig since the split with his band in the
...No Junk No Soul opened and went flat out to engage the thirty people who’d hung around for them. Sounding like a funky Buena Vista Social Club the jazz and latin vibe put plenty of sunshine into what was a chilly Lincoln November evening. The band had been originally booked to play the Mezz tonight but had to relocate due to a private party taking precedence - RaW promoters Chris and Martin were
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summer. (Only fifty?!) A grafter in the spirit of his holy trinity of heroes Bob Dylan, Lou Reed and Tom Waits, Joe bowls along through his set displaying other yank influences as diverse as Elvis and John Lee Hooker - the sublimated American twang extends to both vocals and guitar. He’s determined in a way that makes you awestruck and even The View would have to acknowledge he ain’t one more fearful Superstar Tradesman, he’s going for it. Come the end of his Uni course he’s promised to take a time out from gigging for a month - to prepare a fresh assault WITH A BAND. Ultimately tonight’s gig turned out to be little more than good practice at taking a kicking and not cutting it short and quitting. He opened well after nine o’clock, when most people had had a few drinks down their neck and were busy having a bit of a noisy natter with each other. Hidden away in a dark corner, out of sight this was always gonna be an uphill struggle to engage a roomful of people he couldn’t even see either - and consequently applause for his well crafted songs was polite but limited. He’s class and I wondered if it was simply a case of there being a partisan crowd until... 
nevertheless still in attendance to add support - but the change of venue meant the flamboyant style of this band was suffocated and it started to show. Their trademark percussive keyboard playing was fine, as too the quality musicianship bass and drums and there is no doubt about the quality of the music - but they like to give it so much more, though and being out of the line of sight nullified the visual aspect they bring. They like to mash it up which heats up their audience and in turn their set no end. They banged on through till half eleven when the self-doubt seemed to have finally undermined the intent when vocal Mart intro’d the last song by unconvincingly commenting, ‘It’s been good’... before turning to his drummer and asking ‘hasn’t it?’ - to which came the briefest reply, ‘no’, hastily followed by the most ferocious drum salvo you could ask for as further explanation. Sorry they didn’t enjoy it, cos we did. Pub venues - not always ideal. This page was last updated Monday, 11 January 2010
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