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Rock & Blues Festival

Venue: Butlins
Town: Skegness
Date: 27th - 29th January 2013
Website: http://www.bigweekends.com/

Later in the evening I visit Reds for the first time where I catch the very end of Hawkwind's set. The band are running through their 'greatest hit' Silver Machine and are easily upstaged by their silver spandex-clad dancers, but before I know it they're gone. They were never at the top of my list of bands to see but the talk at the bar afterwards is that they played a blinding set and I find myself kind of wishing I'd given myself time to see more. That's one of the problems with any festival where multiple stages run concurrently - however much you enjoy what you're watching you're always missing something else on another stage. Occasionally the only real solution is to skip between stages and try to see a few snippets of a number of different bands. So while I catch the end of Hawkwind and the beginning of Curved Air at Reds I quickly scoot back over to Centre Stage for headliner Mick Ralphs. The downside of this approach is that you rarely see enough of any act to form a constructive opinion though I am able to gather that Curved Air put on a slick performance despite an over-long sound check leading to initial sound problems and Mick Ralphs offers the first real acoustic blues of the weekend in the middle of a set of classy blues rock.

Sunday morning brings about a change of gear for a number of festival-goers who vow to 'take it easy' on this last day after a Saturday spent trying to catch numerous acts over multiple stages. I make this same vow myself but I'm not sure yet how successful I'll be in sticking to it although I make a good start by missing virtually all of Gary Fletcher's Centre Stage opening set. I make up for this by grabbing a front row spot for Dave Kelly's early afternoon solo set. Kelly is steeped in the history of the British blues scene and has also worked with some of the great American bluesmen as well as his celebrated late sister Jo-Ann. He plays acoustic country blues with some classy bottleneck guitar and reminisces about his time recording with everyone from his sister to Long John Baldry to the great Howlin' Wolf and plays songs from Wolf and Son House, amongst others. He is followed by Blue Swamp Band who, despite hailing from the north of England, do a great line in country rock that would have you swearing they were straight out of a 1970s San Fernando Valley hideout. Following on from Kelly this is the perfect laid back way to start the last afternoon of the festival.

Over at Reds Erja Lyytinen is doing something similar for the more rock-inclined audience. Lyytinen is a striking looking Fin whose four-piece band produce a tight, funky version of blues rock that is the perfect backing for Erja's electric slide guitar and another great way to see in the last day. Reds also sees performances today from Band Of Friends with a celebration of Rory Gallagher's music and German guitarist Henrik Freischlader, both of whom put in impressive sets of guitar-based blues rock but my main interest today is again with the Centre Stage acts.

The Blues Band have been together in one form or another for over thirty years and their experience shows in the laid back way they approach their performance. Singer Paul Jones exudes a warm familiarity with the audience and the band themselves are rarely less than slick. Jones also blows a mean harp and occasionally hands over vocal duties to Dave Kelly. It's an accomplished performance that sets the crowd up nicely for the evening's most hotly anticipated act.

The Animals have played this festival numerous times and recently played the same stage as part of the 2012 Great British Folk Festival but today they come with the addition of a genuinely legendary special guest. Steve Cropper was the guitarist and founder member of Booker T. & The MGs, the Stax house band through most of the sixties, and helped write some of the band's and the label's best know and biggest selling singles. Cropper appears for roughly half the set and gives us some of his best known songs including Dock Of The Bay and Soul Man, interspersed with some brief but fascinating anecdotes about recording with the likes of Otis Redding and Sam Cooke. He's no Otis or Sam himself but he can more than hold his own vocally and he has a distinctive rhythmic guitar style. Even for seasoned gig goers it's genuinely exciting to be in the presence of such a legendary figure and he appears the be both touched at the extent of the devotion displayed towards him and surprised at the size of the festival audience.

Cropper's appearance is sandwiched between two short sets by the The Animals themselves whose current lineup features founder member and Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame inductee John Steel on drums, another survivor from their sixties lineup Mick Gallagher on keyboards, younger guitarist Danny Handley and singer/bassist Pete Barton. They're one of those bands you may be tempted to dismiss as nostalgia-circuit fodder but when they launch into first one, then another, then a third of their classic singles you quickly realise they are in fact a great R&B band in the classic sixties mould. You also realise just how many of their classic tracks are lodged somewhere in your subconscious as the run through the likes of Bring It On Home To Me, Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, We Gotta Get Out Of This Place and of course House Of The Rising Sun.

The final act of the night and of the festival are Canvey Island's finest Dr Feelgood, although that description is long out of date as the current band feature none of the original Essex-based lineup responsible for the likes of Back In The Night and Roxette in the late-70s. That doesn't stop this current incarnation running through these and other songs with considerable energy and assurance. If anything, they are responsible for more earworms than were the Animals earlier in the evening and the list of familiar titles - Down To The Doctors; Milk and Alcohol; She's A Wind Up; Down By The Jetty; She Does It Right - is impressive indeed. A great way to end the festival.

Breakfast on Monday morning is a good time to reflect on the highs and lows of the weekend, although with such a depth and variety of acts there have been very few real low points. On reflection I still place Eddie And The Hotrods at the top of my list of personal favourites with The Animals a surprisingly close second. I come away with a list of exciting new names to explore including Laurence Jones and Virgil & The Accelerators and equally vow to re-discover some old favourites like Dave Kelly and the Hotrods. Not bad for a wet weekend in Skeggy!

Kev Boyd