This was my first visit to the Blues Kitchen and had I not been going in to see a band I probably wouldn't have stayed quite so long. However, seeing as they are putting on decent bands, a blues themed bar isn't the worst place you could end up on a Friday night.
These are certainly not the worst bands you could see either. First on were the BLACK CAT BOPPERS playing a mere seven or eight hundred yards from the band's spiritual home the old Black Cat cigarette factory. They sound every bit as old school rock and roll as the band's name suggests and from the opening of Baby Baby Come Home we were back in 1956/7. They never left that territory either, though it didn't matter as they are a great rock and roll act and the second song (a version of Three Little Piggies) made us smile and had a good twangy guitar solo in it too.
They had several songs about the singer's baby as well as a corking instrumental that was followed by a great cover of Riot in Cell Block 9. That was then followed by a stonking version of Brand New Cadillac that was very much modelled on the Vince Taylor original rather than the punkier later covers.
The singer then tried to sound all lovelorn on Come Back To Me and in his bow tie and jacket he did his best to look innocent. They then took us down to the hop for Hot Bop Little Baby which was followed by the band's Black Cat Bop theme tune before they closed with My Little Baby. Overall, they had been great fun and made us smile a lot. Not bad in gloomy 2012.
Then coming on rather earlier than the last time I saw them were KING SALAMI & THE CUMBERLAND 3 who are warming up for their tour of China. They opened with their Intro instrumental to get us all going before launching into Watch Your mouth. Yes, all song titles in this review are brought to you by Dodge Guessomatic, but whatever, it was just about unhinged enough to get the place going to King Salami's demented garage beat. Would we Watch Your Mouth as they suggested or not? Well how could you argue with King Salami.
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Do the Fly is the dance craze that's not quite sweeping the nation but the Blues Kitchen will do especially well as they then did what I believe was a cover of Ronnie Dawson's Monkey Beat. If it wasn't a cover it owed a huge debt to Rocking Ronnie. They then gave us a huge slab of garage perfection in Did You Yeah? By this point, King Salami was looking properly demented as he stared at us and then declared he was "Out For Love."
She's a Cookamunga was every bit as mad as the last time I saw them and was followed by the truly great Hey Prissy Missy. I guess it wasn't about to become the baby in the next song (I Got A Baby) but still soon enough the band were donning Indian head dresses for Big Chief: a song so absurd in places that it can't fail to work. You Gotta Say seemed a bit on the bitter side but then they were ratcheting up the Barrence Whitfield influences to wheel out the King Salami Special, which will be available at all good butchers shops soon.
They closed a pretty non stop speed freak of a set with Everybody and it didn't take too much to bring them back for an encore. This opened with another instrumental and then followed up with a song I can't even guess as what it was called from my notes! Not a problem; they followed it with Hey I've Got Trouble before dovetailing into the closing song (I've got Mojo) which drained the last bits of energy from the crowd.
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