Rescue Rooms, Nottingham ~ Support acts can have a tough life, often only performing for what they can make out of merch sales on the night or ‘for the love of it’ but if you have a new album to promote you have to put in the miles and the effort. Tonight’s Support is a little different as he has two new albums to promote ‘The Fire Cosmic’ released in August and ‘The Wings of Salvation’ in September. Troy Redfern is a man with a mission, and he isn’t scared by miles or effort.
He appears on stage resplendent and looking every bit like a dude from Louisiana or Tennessee - until you find that he hails from the English / Welsh border. It matters not though as the music tells it like it is. It’s strong and powerful stuff and belies the fact that there’s only Redfern and a drummer (think White Stripes) to deliver the goods, but deliver they do. Drum and base it would appear, is so last year (if it were ever, for some of us) and drum and slide guitar is the new world order.
We start with ‘Scorpio’ which quickly demonstrates why Redfern is classed as the UK’s king of slide, and ‘Sweet Carolina’, the latest single from ‘The Wings of Salvation’. Nottingham begins to get the measure of what Redfern can deliver, and they begin to show that they like what they can see and hear.
‘Come On’ includes another powerful solo delivered at breakneck speed, which is fair enough as we are on an early curfew that we don’t know about, but more of that later.
‘Dark Religion’ follows, which gives us a chance to get our breath back as it’s a bit slower paced (not by much though), and you only get the one chance because Redfern follows this up with ‘Waiting for Your Love’. We are back at the pace that we started off at and the riffs come thick and fast and his description of “bombastic” and “with a sassy, blues, rock boogie” which didn’t make sense and went over my head before he played it causes the penny to drop. It’s all very well received as was the final tune of the set ‘Sanctify’ which the people of Nottingham are well into with plenty of movement - heads and feet - showing as much.
Redfern worked hard tonight and left nothing on stage, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he did well out of merch sales having gained a new audience. Nottingham was appreciative, and I can’t imagine it will be long before he’s back.
Written for Rock at Night Magazine
