Music: The Blues Kitchen’s Big Night Out

The Blues Kitchen, Camden’s home of the Blues, put on a blinding night at The Garage in Highbury a couple of weeks ago.

Son of Dave

Dressed in two pairs of shades and a silk dressing gown which he claimed to have bought off Louis Vuitton on the Champs-Élysées, Son of Dave (formerly of Crash Test Dummies) is Delta Blues meets beatbox-harmonica. Grunting and jerking like Lil Wayne, he looped every sound with a foot pedal until he’d built a multi-layered techno blues beat.

Next were the effortlessly stylish two piece Rodeo Massacre. A boy-girl outfit – think Portishead meets Ennio Morricone. Rattle snake percussion set the mood for a performance made for a Santa Fe saloon.

Rodeo Massacre

Rodeo Massacre

In the Roll and Tumble room upstairs, we caught the utterly mesmerizing Marcus Banfonti. Totally smokin’ on the blues guitar, when he growled Gimme Your Cash, I nearly emptied my pockets. He praised the audience for whooping Muddy Waters: “I’m bringing a child into a world where young people scream for Muddy. That makes me very happy.”

And just like bourbon and two whole floors of Rhythm & Blues, it makes me happy too.

The Blues Kitchen’s Big Night Out
The Garage, 20-22 Highbury Corner, London, N5 1RD

The Blues Kitchen, 111-113 Camden High Street, London, NW1 7JN