Hi Pete,
Just to let you know that Cath and I saw The Hook at Barnes last night and they were brilliant. The best band we've discovered since you know who -- the Stuart James Band -- also at Barnes. The audience was, if anything, even smaller (if that's possible), but we did our best to fill the place out!
What a great guitarist Steve Cook is. At one point I closed my eyes and it honestly sounded like a little club gig in Chicago by Jimmy Reed or some similarly rough-edged bluesman like Eddie Taylor or Jimmy Dawkins. It's not easy for an English band to get that raw down-home sound.
Also the role of the harp in the band was just perfect. All too often, if a band has a full-time harmonica player, he tends to get in the way, filling in fussily behind the vocals and/or guitar, but this was spot on. And Paul Sarjantson is a great harp player, too. Cath says it was nice to see a smiley drummer and bass player...
Funnily enough, I was saying to Cath on the way to the Hook gig that the older British guys we've seen at your clubs over the past few months haven't had the cutting edge of the younger stars -- Stuart James, Andy Cortez, and Matt Bullard of To The Bridge -- or of the US bluesmen like Sherman Robertson and Eugene Hideaway Bridges. To our ears, at least, some bands tend to be too polished and over-rehearsed. But I just had a feeling about this band. I betted her that they were going to be the best "older" band we'd seen, and they certainly were.
Anyway, I hope you'll have them back and I may start bugging you about them as much as I do about Stuart -- who we're really looking forward to seeing on his return to Barnes next Monday.
A little warning for The Hook: Since we saw the Stuart James Band at Barnes last autumn we've followed them obsessively to pretty much every gig they've played -- we're definitely into double figures. So if you find two fans stalking you over the next few months, that will be Cath and me.
Best wishes,
Phil