Barrelhouse Rams The Gate!

When Barrelhouse visited the Southgate last easter, it was a great affair, though I was surprised to have been among a lesser crowd than a typical night down Devizes’ ever-dependable tavern. Given our blues obsession and this largely Marlborough based five-piece’s exceptional talent for providing exactly that, a clashing evening at Long Street Blues Club, if memory serves me well, is the only logical explanation. This time made up for it……

See, I’ve witnessed the crowd-pulling ability of this band on their home-turf, as residents of MantonFest, and was pleased to strut headlong into the rammed mosh pit, even if it meant accidently tripping over a dog, who got their own back with a nip of my badly executed apologetic hand! Rammed in there for birthday-boy landlord Dave, indeedy, but also, I confirm Devizes has awakened to how good these guys are. So rammed, even, I gave up trying to get a decent photo.

The dancefloor proved my point, Devizes has cottoned onto the Barrelhouse fanatical, and last night they took the packed boozer on their magical journey. Squeezed into our legendary alcove, it’s a good job they’re only barrel by name, otherwise it could’ve gone all Popup Pirate! I arrived fashionably late, plastered in badly grafted zombie makeup, but in time enough for the signature tune, and the one which attracted me to their most brilliant originals, Mainline Voodoo, a track they submitted to our first Julia’s House compilation. And being this was followed by their delta-version of Ace of Spades, I was happy to be there.

It’s when they slide in a cover of The Weight, you know you’re in good company, bassist Stuart jesting to me they only run it so Jim Morrison fashioned frontman, Martin Hands can sing the word “fanny.” And there it is, see, not a band with a standout character, but a real tight teamworking collective, they bind and entertain like clockwork, and the sound they produce is as it says on the tin, “vintage blues with a hard-edged groove.”

An encore was demanded, after Everybody Needs Somebody to Love, they only went and did Honkytonk Woman, and rinsed it with the skill they put into every one of their originals. Much so, you cannot see the seam, there is no wandering off to the bar when they call it, “here’s one of our originals;” no; crowd be like, okay, I’m happy with that. Especially at The Southgate; we like it like that.

It only leaves me to direct your eyes to the poster below, a kind of interim MantonFest, where alongside a Slade tribute, you’ll get the full impact of Barrelhouse on their home turf, and unless you hold out until they’re at the Gate again, you should make a beeline for this Christmassy offering.