30 October 2022 (gig)
31 October 2022
It’s been a strong couple of years for husband and wife outfit Aaron & Grace Bond.
They have produced some very well received streams during lockdown, made an award winning album ‘Saving Grace’ to follow on from their ‘We Fly Free’ album. They were the first band to win four awards at the UK Blues Awards 2021 (Emerging Blues Artist of the Year; Blues Band of the Year; Blues Album of the Year; and Most Inspirational Online Performance of the Year) and another three awards in 2022, again including Blues Band of the Year. They have a stack of other awards to fill their Essex mantlepiece and last night’s show was the last gig of their first full band headlining tour.
The Stables was a complete sell out, with additional standing tickets sold (it is normally an all seater auditorium) and there was a palpable sense of anticipation for what was to come.
In short, they were tremendous. With the redoubtable Roger Inniss on bass and James Foxy Fox, on Drums & Keyboards they could come over as a fairly standard Blues & rock band but there is something special about the interactions of Aaron & Grace, very intimate yet extending out to the audience as well. Aaron is a fine slide guitarist, whether it be a regular six string of his favourite cigar-box special and he certainly can do the business live. Grace has a huge voice, full of emotion and passion and adds to that mandolin and violin.
I was surprised to hear just how well she sings the occasional soft ballads as she did on the encore ‘Tomorrow’.
They covered both albums, and the crowd were certainly familiar with the material. Opening with ‘Did I Break The Law’ they certainly had the audience rocking with them from the off.
The performance was brilliantly paced with a few real highlights dotted around – ‘Battleground’, ‘He’ll Drive You Crazy’. ‘Bury My Body’ was sublime, a great version of ‘We Fly Free’ and the final encore number ‘Testify’ which really had everyone on their feet.
Considering that it was the last show on a tough tour, they really put everything into the performance and gave the capacity crowd something to send them home buzzing.
Earlier, the support act was a young Scottish lady called NatiDreddd. And her cheeky comments to the crowd really got a warm reception along with her (very) personal songs. Someone to watch methinks.
Picture by Laurence Harvey
