When Rivers Meet // Troy Redfern // Live Review // The 1865 // Southampton
Saturday, April 23rd saw When Rivers Meet embarks on the latest leg of their debut headline tour in Southampton at The 1865.
Support for this tour is Troy Redfern, who has always put on a great show with his wonderful National Resonator guitars and full-on playing which mixes many different styles into one kickass set.
Now over the last couple of years, Troy has released a couple of albums which have all been very well received, and with a new album on the horizon, it was a great opportunity to bring his unique performance to a whole new audience, winning new fans along the way.
It was an explosive opening set with some jaw-dropping guitar playing that had the crowd captivated as he played his own tunes ‘Scorpio’, ‘Waiting For Your Love’ and ‘Sanctify’, all from his latest release ‘The Fire Cosmic’, as well as a couple of unique takes on classics ‘John The Revelator’ and ‘Voodoo Chile.
This performance definitely warmed up the crowd before the main event.
It was 9 pm, and now time for When Rivers Meet to take to the stage.
The husband and wife duo, Aaron and Grace, have been performing lots over the past few years and especially building up a strong reputation with their online presence, making themselves accessible to all. For this tour we see them joined by Roger Inniss on bass and James Fox on drums. This lineup proves to be a fabulous combination of talented musicians that compliment the dynamic duo perfectly creating that wonderful base for them to do their thing.
There was a great crowd in tonight, all looking forward to seeing live what many had only experienced online so far. It didn’t take more than a couple of chords before the band had the crowd in the palm of their hands and delivered a wonderful and varied performance from their two albums ‘We Fly Free’ and ‘Saving Grace’, as well as their EP collection.
It was an epic 18 song set that covered every aspect of their musical journey, from full-on dirty bluesy numbers like the opener ‘Did I Break The Law’ and ‘Walking On The Wire’, to beautiful acoustic ballads like ‘Don’t Tell Me Goodbye’, which left no dry eye in the house. Beautiful track, beautifully delivered.
The cigar box guitar came out for Aaron for tracks like the wonderful ‘Innocence Of Youth’ and ‘Friend Of Mine’ as well as ‘We Fly Free’ which added to a wonderful performance with Grace on her mandolin and violin adding more strings to their ever-growing bow of musical excellence.
This turned into an epic night of musical performance with a fabulous vibe coming from both the stage and the audience who were lapping up every bit of wonderful music flowing from the band. On this performance alone, the sky really is the limit on how far they can go and I would urge anyone who has the chance to go and catch these guys live whilst they are still playing smaller venues, as it won’t be too long after this performance, that they are destined for bigger stages and bigger venues in the future.
Looking forward to the next time I catch these guys live again, and also Troy, who was also on fire this night.
