Larry Garner - Live
at "The Brook", Southampton
Wednesday, June 19th 1997
This was the day I had been looking forward to for a long, long time.
I finished work early and grabbed something to eat and set off on the hour and
a half journey down to Southampton. For once I seem to have time to spare and
arrive outside The Brook with about twenty minutes to go before the doors open!
We were the third and fourth punters to hand over their money and we discover a
good reason for turning up early as there is a discount for the first
half-hour. The draw back is that we spend far more than the discount at the bar
in that time.....
The Brook is a converted Victorian pub in a rather run down area of the city.
The outside is deceiving as someone has obviously spent a lot of money on the
inside. The ground floor has a bar and built in sound and light system, with
the stage raised up about 5 feet. There is an upper gallery with Pool table and
leather Chesterfield - very relaxed.
To begin with the upper gallery is closed. It turns out that Larry and the band
are being fed up there! We amuse ourselves by talking to the roadie, Adi Walker
(Who apparently lives in France).
He tells us that this is the first night of a ten day tour. Five days in
England and then five days in France, before Larry heads home.
The Band for the tour is:
Larry Garner - Vocals/Guitar
Lester Delmore - Drums
Seiji Yuguchi - Harmonica
Jerry Soffe - Bass
At about 9pm the band come on stage in front of a disappointingly small
audience. Those who have turned out are keen and most seem to have seen Larry
here before. The band rip into the first few numbers, all from the recent
albums. At this point I must confess that I forgot to note the running order....
Having got the first three or four numbers out the way and the audience warmed
up, Larry slowed things down and starts to tell stories interwoven in the
songs, about his early years learning the guitar and how his parents took the
news very badly when he signed for an English record company (JSP) to sing the
Blues!
Larry is much more than a Blues singer and is genuinely entertaining. The
humour doesn't come across on his recordings, although he has tried to do so on
the last release "Baton Rouge". Perhaps a live CD would be worth
trying.
Larry on stage
Picture courtesy of Don O. - Visit his
DFW Blues
site
At about 10.30pm Larry announced that they would be taking a short break but
would be back shortly. After a few minutes I decide to take a look upstairs and
just as I get to the top come face to face with Larry who is coming down! It
seems that he is going around chatting to the members of the audience. During
that half hour he covered most of the building saying a few words here and
there. I can think of a lot of other musicians who could usefully take note.
The second set starts at about 11pm and after the first number he calls another
guitarist on stage. I didn't hear his name, but I did hear that he had played
with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and he now lives somewhere near Bath.
Whoever he was he almost immediately broke one of the strings on his guitar and
disappeared offstage, only reappearing much later.
The rest of the set seemed to flash by and the instrumental breaks seem to get
longer. Eventually Larry announces the this is the last number and thanks for
coming. The band finishes playing, the audience applauds, the band start to
leave the stage, but Larry doesn't move. He then announces that they will play
a couple more numbers and there is a short delay while the other members of the
band file back onstage. The band play on and then Larry says good night. This
time the band do leave the stage, but the local compere encourages the audience
to call them back on as an encore only counts if all the band actually leave
the stage!
A lot of noise is made (By a increasingly smaller audience, as it was well past
midnight by now!) and Larry, the band and guest reappear to play a further
couple of numbers to general approval all round.
This time the music really does come to an end most of the audience happily
troupe off into the night, leaving the hardy few to have a few more drinks and
chat to the band at the bar. We, however, have to leave and drive the hour and
a half journey back home, tired, but very happy.
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