Billy Walton Band Rock Long Street Blues Club

If my Saturday’s entertainment at The Pump was decidedly offbeat and a tad bizarre, what with chap-hop, pith helmets and vintage jazz played through a washtub and kazoo, back in Devizes vast crowds turned up at Long Street Blues Club for something altogether more traditional, east coast US rock, of the highest grade…..

While, yes, the set up was much more run-of-the-mill, a bluesy-rock six piece with drums, guitar, bass, keys and a saxophone, with New Jersey’s Billy Walton Band on their final tour date in control, it was anything but humdrum. Glad I raced back to town to catch the final glimpses of another outstanding night at Long Street, this much was obvious from what little I managed to digest, but then, when has our town’s celebrated blues club ever let us down?!

Never to my knowledge. Yes, roving reviewer Andy is usually on this, and thankfully provided us with his far more knowledgeable tuppence on Billy Walton and his band last time around, back in April, but being he was at the White Horse Opera, it fell to me to poke my snout in, and I returned home wishing I’d heard more.

Reason being, The Long Street Blues Club honours said customary working formula, but what it lacks in diversity it makes up with quality, and besides, they know what their audience wants, it’s a given. Bringing international blues acts of this calibre to Devizes is venerative of the foundation laid by Mel Bush in the seventies, but it not only harnesses the upshot of it and aptly supplies those who remember it with class entertainment, it has built its own legendary status and, in turn, put Devizes on the blues-map, rather than reside in its slipstream.

You only have to wander past the Cons Club on a blues club night to realise this, the immense ambience, the pure bliss reverberating through the carpark. It was so this time, I hurried in. Reminiscent of everything groundbreaking on the seventies Asbury Park scene, of the Stone Pony, where Springsteen, Steve Van Zandt, Patti Smith, and Southside Johnny cut their teeth, the latter Billy earned his stripes playing lead guitar in. And as a lover of the early outpourings of the boss, I must say, there was something undeniably E Street Band about his posture, the band’s delivery and stage presence. Their originals perhaps a tad more sprinkled with blues, and with lots of psychedelic swirls for good measure, but it really was that monumental and accomplished.

They toiled with the crowd, false starting a few ambiguous or cliche covers like Sweet Caroline, or Stairway to Heaven, which they jested to perform in a reggae style, similarly as is the stage banter of Springsteen, but when they were in motion it was a beautiful thing. Female vocalist Destinee Monroe held the audience in awe with her sassy and sensual sounding voice, saxophonist Zack Sandler standing on the tabletops to individually serenade punters, the band tight throughout, wowzers, it was something to behold.

They stretched their encore to the max, put so much energy into it, as if they didn’t want to catch their flights home, and even suggested they deliberately missed them. I was glad and grateful for this being I arrived so fashionably late, and though I wish I could tell you more, about the support and the beginnings of this energetic and proficient performance, at least this goes once again to prove you can be sure of one thing, Long Street Blues Club is worthy of your hard earned cash, and never fails to pull a rabbit from its hat.

Next nights at the club are Friday 13th October with Mike Zito & Albert Castiglia with Band, and Friday 3rd November 2023 with Susan Santos & Alastair Greene.