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home » festivals » Hard Rock Calling » Hard Rock Calling 2009
Seasick Steve channels the blues through Hyde Park with a triumphant setHard Rock Calling 2009 reviewFriday 17th July 2009 Mooching onto the stage unassumingly, you'd be forgiven for mistaking Seasick Steve for an ageing roadie with rubbish fashion sense, though only if you'd been asleep for the last few years. But despite his understated appearance, and the fact that he and drummer Dan Magnusson are dwarfed by the Hard Rock Calling stage, Steve carries bucketloads of presence with him wherever he goes, and today is no exception. Starting as he means to go on, Steve delivers one foot-stomping, no-nonsense blues riff after another. At times, as during the brilliant 'Cut My Wings', it's a vivid shock to the system, reminding you just how elementally heavy the blues can be. The crowd laps it all up eagerly enough; it's phenomenally entertaining stuff, and the kind of set you’d defy anyone to walk away from halfway through. Storytelling is at the heart of what Seasick Steve does, and there's no shortage of it. The hilarious 'Chiggers', about a particularly nasty strain of insect, is a definite highlight. Aimed squarely at the crowd's funnybone, it has them in stitches with a goofy refrain that spins the blues into pure comedy gold: 'Leave me alone little chigger/ Don't lay your babies on my legs'. Elsewhere there's a more sombre tone as Steve sings about his own hardships in 'Never Ever Go West When You Should Be Heading South'. Even with the festival atmosphere in full swing, it's hard not to get a lump in your throat when he recounts his rocky childhood, hard shaded with a Southern Gothic undercurrent. A large part of Steve's charm is natural, but it's also dependent on our perception of him as a bona fide hick, in a way not visualised since 'Forrest Gump'. It's backed up by a smattering of southern-fried banter through the set, and, of course, that trademark collection of instruments. After all, who can resist a performer who declares his Diddley Bow one-string guitar "a piece of shit", before churning out a truly gobsmacking noise from that very same instrument? Just like Steve’s character himself, there's a gimmick at work here, yet at the same time it's clearly the real thing. Ending on a frenetic 'Dog House Boogie', the show reaches a triumphant conclusion. It's both wonderful and downright bonkers that Seasick Steve's star has risen so prominently in the last few years. Certainly it's a symptom of an ever-more schizophrenic industry, but by the beard of Zeus we should be grateful that this man has become a festival staple. Steve is one of the only high profile artists channelling the blues in a way that makes it accessible to a modern audience, and while what he does is a million years old, it's clear from today's performance that he's a consummate, one-in-a-million showman. review by Nick Hagan
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