WIB LIVE

Who Is Blues goes to the shows.

WIB Live: 30th Schöppingen International Blues Festival

Vincent Abbate 1 Comment

Peaceful Easy Feeling

30th Schöppingen International Blues Festival

Schöppingen, Germany

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

Without question, the northwestern German town of Schöppingen’s annual blues festival has a special kind of flair. Held in an enclosed grassy area next to a public swimming pool, it’s just the right size for a relaxed communal experience – not so huge and overcrowded that the music becomes secondary to partying and distracted wandering, as at some bigger name events. Instead, Schöppingen feels intimate. As a guest, you can almost always find a spot close to the stage if that’s where you want to be. The food stands aren’t a mile away, so you can enjoy a pizza, a beer or a helping of fries and still see and hear the bands. A small tent adjacent to the stage is the meet-and-greet area; musicians gather here after their respective performances to sign autographs, sell merchandise or simply say hello to their (mostly) adoring fans.

All that – plus the consistent high quality of the music – is what keeps me coming back year after year.

This year’s two-day event was a study in contrasts. It started on a Saturday full of surprises. Continue reading →

WIB Live: Vanja Sky Band

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

What’s The Buzz?

Vanja Sky Band live @ Yard Club

Cologne, Germany

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

You’re seated in a cheap collapsible camping chair at 3 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, scarved and blanketed but still freezing your ass off, doing the math. If we get on the road at five and don’t take too long of a dinner break and manage the 150-mile drive back to Cologne in two hours or so … that’s what it’ll take for you to use the concert ticket currently burning a hole in your pocket. Vanja Sky at the Yard Club. Shows start and end early there. Even on a Saturday night. Under the circumstances, you’ll be lucky to catch the second set.

But then the head baseball coach at your son’s training camp comes through in the clutch. He decides six hours in miserable drizzly weather is long enough and shuts things down 90 minutes earlier than planned. Yippie! You pack up, jump in the car, turn up the heat and though the roadside stop at McDonald’s – a promise to the boys in the back seat – takes longer than it should, you’re home in plenty of time. A quick change of clothes and you’re out the door, onto the #7 tram, change at Rudolfplatz, the #15 to Wilhelm-Sollmann-Straße and the traditional bottle of Kölsch from the gas station for the ten-minute walk to the venue. That and a couple of tunes from JD McPherson loosens you up for the evening.

And boy do you need loosening. Life’s been heavy and intense lately. The ground beneath your feet feels more like quicksand. You look to the heavens for rescue. Rescue in the form of music maybe?

Continue reading →

WIB Live: Blues Caravan 2022

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Common Ground

Blues Caravan 2022 @ Spirit of 66

Verviers, Belgium

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

From its inception in 2005 until, say, two and a half years ago, the Blues Caravan went off pretty much without a hitch. For roughly 15 years, you could count on the annual tour of Ruf Records artists for good vibes and solid entertainment. Along the way, it gave us a first glimpse of numerous artists on the rise who’ve since become staples of the international blues scene.

Then COVID happened.

The 2020 edition of the Caravan (Ryan Perry, Whitney Shay & Jeremiah Johnson) had got off to a spectacular start before having the rug roughly pulled out from under it. A new tour was planned for 2021 but never materialized due to the uncertainty of international travel and the ever-present threat of lockdown. Even the line-up that debuted early in 2022, with Ghalia Volt, Katie Henry and Will Jacobs, just barely came together; again, travel issues forced label head Thomas Ruf to reconfigure the tour several times.

Volt, Henry and Jacobs were good together. Disparate musicians to be sure – but unlike certain prior Caravan line-ups hampered by their stylistic differences, this troupe of young artists, hungry to hit the stage after the long corona layoff, put on one heck of a show. So much so that I decided to go back for more on the fall leg of the tour.

Continue reading →

WIB Live: Tommy Castro & The Painkillers

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

A Bluesman Came To Town

Tommy Castro & The Painkillers live @ Yard Club

Cologne, Germany

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

A bluesman came to town.

I’m surely not the first concert reviewer to use that title since the album of the same name – which Tommy Castro likens to a rock opera, only it’s blues – swept away the competition at this year’s Blues Music Awards ceremony in Memphis. Local fans had waited over three years for this particular visit by Castro and his band The Painkillers. And there was more than enough cause for celebration on both sides, as this Wednesday evening club show coincided with even more accolades from the US: Readers of Blues Blast Magazine had just dubbed The Painkillers Band of the Year.

The chance to see this band on a small stage in a half-full club is something I don’t take for granted. Castro isn’t the star in Germany that he is back home. This is his third appearance at the Yard Club in the past five years. And the audience hasn’t grown. In fact, we’re still living through some kind of weird post-pandemic trauma that is depressing ticket sales most everywhere you turn.

But as they say in the local dialect: Es et wie es et. It is as it is. So my attitude as Castro and his crew launched into “You Can’t Keep A Good Man Down” at around 8 p.m. was to simply enjoy the show. To soak it all in. Wasn’t too long ago we couldn’t do this kind of thing. How quickly we forget.

Continue reading →

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Back to Live

We’ve waited almost a year for this.

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

On Saturday night, I witnessed my first live show in a very long time. It had been nine months, give or take.

All along, throughout the COVID-induced shutdown, I’ve wondered what the first concert after the long drought would feel like. In my wildest fantasies, it was a grandiose, uninhibited affair, with hundreds of ecstatic men and women shouting and swaying and throwing their arms in the air. Like coming out of the darkness into the light. If there were any masks in the scene, they were tossed into the air in celebration, as graduating students toss their tasseled caps.

I’ve also wondered how I would react. Would I feel like my old self? Though I’ve managed to steer clear of COVID until now, being less active during the pandemic has taken a physiological toll. I feel older, more sluggish. In baseball terms, I’ve lost a few MPH on my fastball.

Could I get back in the swing of things? Or would I feel out of place in a setting that had been second nature pre-corona?

After so much time avoiding other humans, keeping one’s distance … how would it feel to be sharing a space with friends, acquaintances and strangers?

Continue reading →

WIB Live: Women On Top

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Forward-thinking European artists like Ana Popovic, Ghalia Volt & Erja Lyytinen are kicking the old school bluesman ethic to the curb.

Text: Vincent Abbate / Photos: Gernot Mangold, Marcella auf der Heide

Lately I’ve noticed something. At least a third of the live shows I attend are fronted by female artists. It got me to thinking: Have women ever had a stronger presence in the blues than they do today?

Roughly a century ago, when classic singers like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were among the first to record, women were a dominant force in the blues world. But no one reading this was around back then, right? During the past 50 years or so, for every Bonnie Raitt, Irma Thomas, Sue Foley or Marcia Ball, we’ve had to endure a dozen Stratocaster-playing dudes in sunglasses and hats. Most of them perpetually singing about some baby who done them wrong. (In that regard, women – those infamous evil women – have been there all along.)

We’re witnessing a changing of the guard right now. When we listen to the blues, it’s just as likely to be by a young lady from London, Kansas City or Zagreb as by some grizzled veteran from Chicago or Baton Rouge. And it’s not just origin, age or sex. The female performers who are leading the charge – people like Samantha Fish, Shemekia Copeland, Joanne Shaw Taylor and Georgia duo Larkin Poe, to name but a few – have a fresh take on the blues. No deep philosophical analysis here. Women are simply different from us beer-swilling, emotionally stunted, tragically unfashionable men.

Continue reading →

WIB Live: Paul Thorn

Vincent Abbate 3 Comments

Everything’s Gonna Be Alright

Paul Thorn live @ Pitcher

Düsseldorf, Germany

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

So much truth. Soooo much truth.

If you leave a show with that phrase resonating in your head, you know something very good has just gone down.

Turnout for this club show on a drizzly Wednesday night in Germany was light – surely nothing any musician or concert promoter wants. Yet as far as vibe goes, the people attending the performance by Tupelo, Mississippi’s Paul Thorn were perfect, making the event more of a homey gathering of friends than some “us” versus “them” spectacle. Over the course of a glorious set that spanned roughly two decades of material, Thorn managed to make a personal connection with just about every one of the few dozen individuals in the room.

Continue reading →

WIB Live: Rockin The Blues 2019

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Big Boys Do Cry

Rockin The Blues 2019 live @ Carlswerk Victoria

Cologne, Germany

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

Since its inception in 1989, and especially over the past decade, the Netherlands-based Mascot Label Group has become home to many of today’s most popular rock-oriented blues acts. Its Provogue imprint currently boasts an artist roster that includes Beth Hart, Robert Cray, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Eric Gales and Joe Bonamassa. Last year, the label decided to send three of its top guitar slingers on the road under the banner Rockin The Blues. That tour – with Gales, Gary Hoey and Quinn Sullivan – proved successful enough to merit a second go-round in 2019.

Eight dates in four European countries are on the agenda. Show #2 on the tour transpired inside the massive Carlswerk Victoria venue in Cologne and gave the local German audience a chance to witness a guitar-heavy blues extravaganza in Cinemascope. Combine any ten blues shows you’ve seen in the past year and you’ll get an idea of how big, broad and loud this spectacle was.

Continue reading →

WIB Live: The Blues Giants

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

Land Of The Giants

The Blues Giants live @ Harmonie

Bonn, Germany

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

They call themselves the Blues Giants – a group of five musicians from different corners of the USA, all of whom have paid their dues and earned their keep in a variety of band situations. Two years ago, when they toured Europe, Mike Zito was one of the Giants. This time, a slight lineup change allowed us to enjoy the chops and vocals of Nick Schnebelen. The vibe didn’t change much, though. This is a high-spirited, guitar-heavy and thoroughly soulful troupe in search of a good time.

As this is Blues Music Awards week (I still think of it as Handys week) and the indvidual members of the Blues Giants are up for a total of five awards, I thought I’d share a visual impression of each of them as they appeared onstage in Bonn, Germany last Thursday night, along with a few random thoughts. (Disclaimer: I am a bad photographer with a cheap cell phone.)

Continue reading →

WIB Live: Modern Earl / Vdelli

Vincent Abbate Leave a comment

WIB Live Twin-Pack:

Modern Earl live @ Torburg, Cologne, Germany

Vdelli live @ Okiedokie, Neuss, Germany

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

Hi folks! I’m going to bang this one out while the good vibes of the past weekend are still resonating. Two live shows by two bands who, on the surface, have little in common. One’s a blues power trio, the other a rootsy southern rock’n’roll combo. But there is a distinct similarity: Both outfits are based in Germany without being – in the strict sense – German bands. Vdelli’s frontman is a native Australian and Modern Earl has its roots in Nashville.

Let’s start with them, since they were the ones who gave this fun-packed weekend a rip-roaring kickstart on Saturday night.

Continue reading →