World Blues Revue 2004 at the Auckland Town Hall

By FREDERICO MONSALVE

It's been a long, long road from the railroad days of the blues. Judging by the World Blues Revue, the rules of the classic devil's music have been chucked out the window.

Back in Louisiana you could not wear a suit and have the blues unless you were an 80-year-old ethnic person, and you slept in it.

The opening act, Chris Cain, must have been in his 50s, wore a pristine brown suit and seemed as if he'd slept only in a Hilton bathrobe lately.

Yet his tunes and voice was gritty as last night's bourbon. Tunes like Heartbreaker and the mambo-influenced Baby Got It went from slow, melodic guitar solos to bombastic tours through the blues scales as accompanied by the very tight (as a group, yet somewhat shy when it came to individual performances) Renard Horns section.

Likewise the blues could take place in New York City, but not in California and certainly nowhere near Palmmy. Manawatu's Bullfrog Rata proved what historians have not been able to assert yet: there has to be some missing link between Maori and the cotton fields in the United States.

His acoustic pieces, accompanied by a foot stomping rendition of T-Bone shuffle, had a touching sweetness and a desolate mood.

Norton Buffalo - the man who concocted the infamous harmonica solo in Bonnie Rait's Runaway- wins the award for encapsulating the most universes in a single instrument.

He began the set with a smooth, almost Bossa Nova Puerto de Azul (Port of Blue) and quickly escalated past some uncomfortable solos by colleagues - into the railroad blues of Big Jake and his album Desert Horizon.

Buffalo was without a doubt the most energetic performer, cementing his reputation as the best harmonica player from the Western states.

The main act, Duke Robillard made ripping through blues scales look like a smoko-stroll through penitentiary.

His laidback attitude (in the saloon-styled Lucky Mae) accentuated the complexity and flexibility of his technique.

He was as comfortable switching from a simple C scale blues (Too Hot to Handle) into Fishnet, a more rocky (T-Bone meets Buddy Holly) tune where Robillard slapped the fret, played with his teeth and all without breaking a sweat.

The second half of the performance lasted far too long for a poor man's Tuesday evening. The Town Hall emptied immediately after the last song by Robillard.

The exodus, sans-encore, was perhaps a sign that the event should have been shorter.

That rule of classic jazz that says "thou shall not watch a good strut while sitting down or without strong bourbon" should not have been tampered with.