Kenny Wayne Shepherd
Powerstation
Review: Nick Smith
A furious squall of guitar noise announced the arrival of this 22-year-old guitar prodigy on Monday night - five minutes of fast fretwork with nary a vocal to distract from the six-string pyro-technics.
Shepherd looks and sounds the part. An emaciated body worthy of Iggy Pop, a mane of blond hair and every blues lick under the sun imbued with a punk energy that truly sends a frisson of excitement down the spine.
A pity, then, that vocalist Noah Hunt let the team down. Looking for all the world like a brunette Fabio, Hunt ran the gamut of styles from shout to bellow.
It was this limitation that hamstrung proceedings - although that view was not shared by the punters who packed the Powerstation. It's an understatement to say the reaction was ecstatic.
But for me, the relentless Texas boogie and blues-by-numbers song construction exacerbated Hunt's failings and led to diminishing emotional returns from each song.
Hunt can hit the notes but his tone is so middle-of-the-road that this listener was left pining for the whiny, fingers-down-the-blackboard sound of Neil Young.
Lyrics such as, "I tried, I tried [but the] woman took everything I own," served to accentuate the feeling that Monday night masqueraded as a men's group meeting.
When the band stepped outside the format, such as in The Last Goodbye, the ensuing heroic balladry was marred by a touch of the Bon Jovis.
Even the excellence of In Too Deep, with its ZZ Top references, and the big hit, Blue On Black, underlined the musical paucity of the previous numbers.
Shepherd's dazzling fretwork also presented its own problems. If music is a sexual experience, he peaked within the opening five-minute extravaganza. After an hour I had to leave, saying, "Not tonight, I've got a headache."
Performance: Kenny Wayne Shepherd
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