Cardinal Black // Nathan O’Regan // Live Review – Midnight At The Valencia Tour // The Limelight // Belfast
Here we are once again back in the limelight, Belfast, to catch our favourite Welsh lads once again as they roll through Belfast, the home of live music. Cardinal Black I am delighted to say are no strangers to Belfast, I’ve seen them each time they have came through our lovely city, first a headline show at Voodoo Belfast to a packed out crowd, then an upgrade to The Empire Belfast where they once again played to a packed out venue, then here at The Limelight 1 supporting the glorious Myles Kennedy before returning to this very venue once again tonight to headline their own show for the ‘Midnight At The Valencia Tour.’
In support, the one and only Nathan O’Regan, who previously supported the lads on their Irish headline run, is also helping out across the UK dates. Nathan has a glorious voice; he can sing the phone book, as he says, as he takes us across a snippet of his songs with a short but sweet set that allows the Belfast audience to get to know the Cork-born, Belfast-based artist. He plays tunes about the birth of his baby boy and surprised us with an acoustic rendition of AC/DC’s Thunderstruck! And by the time he’s wrapped up, Belfast is on board. I highly recommend checking out Nathan’s socials, especially since he was telling us about his recent album release, due to drop in Sept, but alas, the record label folded, and so did Nathan’s dreams of this release under its guise. So do the right thing: check him out and support him anyway you can, and you can thank me later.
https://linktr.ee/nathanoregan
Photography: Mark McGrogan
@flashartmark #flashartmark
8:50 and the lights drop as Cardinal Black hit the stage, opening up with ‘Ride Home’, the opening track of their latest album. From there, you are taken on a sonic rollercoaster ride unlike anything you’ll hear in a while. Cardinal Black is pretty special. In a world packed with cookie-cutter bands and manufactured plastic figurines, these guys are the real deal. A live band packed with soul, the blues seeping from their pores and with every breath they take, they bring you along on this fantastical journey that you can lose yourself in for the length of their set.
The guys envelop you in this glorious musicality, a rock-textured tapestry that you have to hang back and admire. The roars of approval from the crowd every time the bands stretch and pull at your heartstrings with their hefty emotive songwriting is just a thing of beauty.
Fuse that with one of the UK’s finest guitarists, Chris Buck, and sweet baby Jesus, it all goes stratospheric! Chris’ sound is just a thing of beauty in itself; his ambient tones and long trailing delays and reverb swallow you up and spit you back out as he unleashes unholy hell at just the right moment … never too much, he has always been, and I am sure always will be a classy bird! Long may that last. There will no doubt be a sizeable number of guitar players of all levels in the room, standing in admiration of the man and his technical ability, but goddam, his touch and tone are magical and part of what makes this band so unique.
Of course, he’s not alone up there, and together they are just a sublime package. Vocalist Tom Hollister is a man who could rightly sing you to sleep with his dulcet tones. His range is fantastic, and his ability to add dynamics across the songs adds that little bit of ‘Je ne sais quoi’ and takes it all over the edge. Actually, Chris’s backing vocals and vocal harmonies help the dynamics immensely as they fill the room with a soundtrack to shake off that mortal coil and kick in the weekend on the right foot.
As we progress through the set local lad Nathan O’Regan takes the stage once again to join the lads for “Morning Light’ and as Tom is telling the Belfast crowd that Nathan has a beautiful natural singing voice, aul Chris over his shoulder hits the floor like a tonne of bricks and bounces back up again hoping nobody saw him as the other bands members burst into fits of laughter! We, of course, get treated to a beautiful rendition of the track with Tom and Nathan duelling over vocal duties.
As the song builds the guys up front on the mics create a moment of real beauty as it builds into a crescendo, the Belfast crowd not to miss an opportunity get involved and are in great voice also, this has to be one of the highlights of the show as they just spill out for all to see what this band can really do on the live stage.
Right after Chris apologised for hitting the deck as he never expected it to happen in Belfast …. Oh, how we laughed!
But as the band move through the set, Chris showcases his six-string wizardry again and again. I am just lost in admiration for what he can do —how he makes that instrument sing. His playing is just breathtaking. It’s a musical education in itself; the choice of notes, runs, and phrases has to be admired.
The set grows and grows, each song larger than the last, and before you know it, we are literally at the end, the guys close up a beautiful performance with ‘Tied Up In Blue’, and that’s a wrap! I went from a savage feast of extreme metal on Thursday night in this very venue, which fed my angsty teen post-teen desires as I grew up on rock and metal. Still, tonight was about one thing: a band that is a pure joy to watch, one which you can lose yourself in for a bit and reminds you why you love what you do so much. As a more mature article these days, Cardinal Black is a band that feeds my very soul; they are indeed my ‘Soul Food’. And tonight I am as full as a man can be.
Till next time.
https://www.thecardinalblack.com
Photography: Mark McGrogan
@flashartmark #flashartmark
