NORTHUMBRIAN MUSIC
NIGHTS
What we said about
Bobby Valentino & LOS
PISTOLEROS
Bobby Valentino & LOS PISTOLEROS at
Allendale
Their great reputation preceded them, but good as they were, they didn't quite live up to it. Sure it was a good show, all the ingredients were there, and professional musicians of this calibre know how to make music that is undeniably very very good. But you know that when you pays your money, and for shows promoted by the Northumbrian Music Nights group, you always get at least the goodness that you pay for!
Usually you get more! The trick for the audience is to catch those shows which are superlative, incredibly wonderful, great big amazing evenings, rather than those that are merely good or even really good. You've got to have the really good ones under your belt to really appreciate how great the best nights are!
It might have been too hot for comfort, in the crowded hall, with the big stage lights and the mountainous sound equipment, but when the doors were thrown open, a light balmy breeze sent a cooling zephyr around the candle-lit tables.
An unfortunate selection of taped music cooled the anticipatory audience even further, until big Martin Belmont remembered the band's own cassettes in their travelling van, and immediately the mood in the room changed -- 'Ah, that's better.'
And then onto the stage, from out behind the dramatic black backdrop, as the stage lights came up full, Los Pistoleros and Bobby Valentino kicked off the show. It was a crashing sound, with just a bit too much vocal presence for comfort, but after a few numbers you caught moments of instrumental musicality that offered hope for the night.
Somebody mentioned that Bobby's fiddle wasn't miked properly, but in fact it was only that he wasn't playing it enough. There was a lot of professional courtesy about this evening, as Bobby bowed to Martin for yet another rendition of Johnny Cash's 'Beans for Breakfast (surely at least the fourth time around for this song in this region in less than two years!) and to Kevin Foster for 'One More Heartbreak'. And then Bobby brought out a deep basso profundo version of Willie Nelson's immortal 'Crazy for lovin' You' that everyone knows thanks to Patsy Kline. Nice, super voice, but where was that fiddle?
One felt that B.J. Cole's instrumentals were too few and far between, too. What a superlative sound that man brings out on his little pedal steel guitar! His moments were easily worth the price of admission. It was a good hour of a mixed set, and at the break the libations at the bar were amongst the star attractions of the night -- super real ale carefully set off and nurtured to just the right temperature.
The vocal boom seemed less, and the music felt like more of the band we'd grown to love last time, as the second set brought everybody back. Maybe the brilliant CD sales during the interval elicited a tighter feeling from the band, but the last hour of music, as we were 'Swingin' with the Chickens', was fast approaching the sort of magical experience one associates with a great night. 'Sweet Temptation' elicited loud and insistent demands for encores, and Bobby obliged with his patented version of 'Running Bear'.
Who says you can't have a brilliant evening's adventure of real live music in the village hall? Certainly not the discerning folks in Allendale, who really know how to put on a show.
