We are gearing up for a night of rock, Southern style, at the Limelight 2 with the boys from Fort Worth, Texas, The Quaker City Night Hawks. But first up, opening up tonight’s entertainment are Country Rock duo Curran.
Curran are a two piece outfit that hail out of New Jersey, featuring on vocals and rhythm guitar Mark Curran and on lead guitar Jam Moncur.
These two guys never put a foot wrong and made every moment on stage count. With great riffs and blistering acoustic solo’s, Moncur proved to be more than capable and at times, even dazzling on the six string.
As for vocalist and rhythm guitarist Mark Curran. What can I say here except that this guy is a born front man. He has all the tools needed. Voice, charisma and stage presence and he certainly knows how to connect with the crowd.
It’s an opening bands job to warm up the crowd before the headliners take to the stage. By the time Curran had finished their set the crowd wasn’t just warmed up. They were red hot.
I had never heard these guys before, but by the end of their set I certainly would love to hear more.
Next, were headliners the Quaker City Night Hawks. I first got introduced to the music of QCNH a year previous, almost to the day, when they supported Blackberry Smoke at the Telegraph building. I was impressed with them then, but not as impressed as I was tonight.
What followed was around seventy five minutes of Rock N’ Roll, Country Rock, Southern Rock, Blues, Texas Boogie and everything in between.
When they played here a year ago they were the opening act and now a year later, they are headliners of their very own tour.
Albeit a much smaller venue than they played a year ago, that didn’t seem to play into the equation as the band played an outstanding set from their opening song, right to the final note of their encore, regardless of front man Sam Anderson breaking a string the song previous and having to quickly replace it.
Before the show ended they declared that they would be back to play here again and I, for one, will certainly be marking that date in my calendar as soon as it is announced.
Review & Photography by David Stewart for Metal Planet Music