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Eileen Rose And The Holy Wreck

Venue: Grateful Fred's
Town: Formby
Date: 3rd July
Website: http://www.eileenrose.com

Only the enigmatic Grateful Fred could celebrate the 4th of July. ......on the 3rd of July ! To be fair, tonight's fantastic celebration of all that is good in Americana music did nearly last into Independence Day after all.

The good-sized audience [in numbers, not BMI] was treated to nearly four hours of great music. Starting the evening, as ever, were the Grateful Fred House Band now bolstered by the considerable talents of Irish fretboard wizard Grateful Ged, whose electric [and electrifying] guitar work adds a new dimension to their sound. Not only that, but tonight GFHB were rejoined for two numbers by Phil on melodeon, thus recreating their famous Tox-Mex sound on "Galway Girl" [complete with extended Irish-Jazz- Funk slip jig] and "Til The Next Teardrop Falls /Together Again". Other highlights of their set included Karine's beautiful singing and fiddle playing on "Out Of The Woods",with great harmonies from Les and Colin and a wonderful version of Christy Moore's "Ride On", complete with masterful solo from Ged. The set concluded with Charlie Monroe's "Rollin' In My Sweet Baby's Arms".

Next up were husband and wife duo Richie Lawrence and Katie Thomas from Sacramento, California. Richie is a singer-songwriter and accordionist, who also plays with the great I See Hawks In LA [ indeed, he played with the Hawks on the following night at their superb concert at The Atkinson in Southport]. Katie is a singer and the duo perform Richie's laid-back, quirky songs about rabbits, flying fish, breakfast and other unusual subjects. Richie is an impressive figure with Stetson and long solver hair and beard. He and Katie charmed the GF audience with their warmth and good humour.

Topping the bill tonight was the wonderful Eileen Rose and her band The Holy Wreck, which consists of The Legendary Rich Gilbert [ of Frank Black and the Catholics fame] on electric guitar and pedal steel, together with Eileen's nephew Nicholas "Pampers" Giadone on upright bass. Eileen and band had only arrived in England earlier in the day, after having had no sleep for two days but such is their professionalism that you would not have realised from their performance.

Tonight's performance marked Eileen's first live date since the release of her excellent new album "Be Many Gone", so she deemed it to be her "CD release party". It was also the first time that several of the songs had been performed "live", so it really was a special occasion for Eileen's fans, many of whom had travelled a long way for this gig.

As one might expect, Eileen played a mixture of old favourites, like "Sad Ride Home" and "Stagger Home" and songs from the brand new album, including "Wake Up Silly Girl", "Prove Me Wrong", "Queen of the Fake Smile" and, most impressively, "She's Yours" a new song but sounding as though it could be by Patsy Cline , complete with gorgeous pedal steel from The Legendary Rich Gilbert. Throughout the show Rich alternated between electric guitar and pedal steel [sometimes within the same song] and was brilliant on both instruments.

Eileen is equally at home singing Country, Tex Mex ["Each Passing Hour" from the new album on which she duets with Frank Black], Rockabilly [ "Borrow Today's Troubles"] and Jump Blues ["Best You Can Do"]. In other words, she is a consummate performer of all styles of Americana music.

Eileen ended her set with the title track of her new album "Many Be Gone" but that was not the end of the night as she invited all of tonight's performers back on stage to form an eleven piece band, to play Hank Williams's 1948 country gospel song "I Saw The Light". A memorable end to a memorable evening.

Peter Cowley