Review by Gary Spiller for MPM
Four dates into the UK leg of his ‘Movin’ On’ album launch tour and the cursed luck of the touring musician has struck. Virtuoso South African bluesman Dan Patlansky has been struck down with a king-sized dose of the lurgy, “[I] woke up this morning with total laryngitis. [The] top notes blown but I refuse to cancel” he notes a couple of songs into a typically determined set that clocks in at somewhere in the region of 100 minutes. This is what typifies the fiery soul possessed by this instantly likeable guitarist.
We first encountered Dan some seven years ago at a festival slap bang in the middle of Yorkshire’s steel city Sheffield. Immediately he captured our attention with his perceptive shredding blues; at once he would slam you back against the wall whilst simultaneously holding one in an enthralling embrace. Those who witnessed his ‘jam’ with Laurence Jones in their epic rendition of Jimmy Reed’s classic blues number ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ will no doubt recall the lifting of the O2’s roof that Sunday that this conflagrant duo induced.
With a career stretching back to the turn of the century with a grand total of eleven albums across those two decades this is a musician who has well and truly served his apprenticeship and graduated as an expert craftsman. With a stellar six-string talent that many an individual would trade their very soul for at the prescribed intersection of roads with the appropriate lunar forces at play it’s somewhat criminal that, with absolutely every respect to venues such as The Globe, larger stages are not being trod.
Whilst not at capacity there’s a sizeable crowd gathered within to celebrate the recent release of ‘Movin’ On’ (read my esteemed colleague Taf Rock’s review here). Putting the vagaries and fickleness of the music industry aside we are, on the flip side, so truly fortunate that we can indulge in those high planar blues of Dan in such warm, intimate surroundings.
Called in from the foothills of the Bannau Brycheiniog (otherwise known as the Brecon Beacons to us non-Welsh speaking luddites) this evening’s support The Secret Faces are a new entity to us. “This is the first ever acoustic gig we’ve done” announces frontman Wayne Morgan.
Perched upon three chairs, right at the front of the stage, minus the services of their drummer Anthony Hicks The Secret Faces display no nerves as they rattle through a tidy expeditious seven track set that serves well as an introduction to their gritty and gravelly vibes.
Morgan’s vocals instantly attract comparisons to luminaries such as Cocker and Stewart in the set-opening ‘Trouble On Your Mind’ whilst Josh Collier lays a bluesy solo from his Gretsch. Coupled with bassist Wub Wainwright’s laid-back vibes the resultant overall effect is that of peak-time Stereophonics.
It’s a natural inspiration for these Welsh natives and one which meanders through their set in such numbers as the mellow ‘What Is It Worth (Without You)’ that is plucked off their EP ‘Lovers & Sinners’ released just a couple of weeks prior. With Collier applying touches of Peter Green a connection to the blues is neatly retained and a core identity adeptly announced.
Far from a one-trick pony there’s a folky element which adds a smoky overlay to their output in such numbers as the reverberating ‘Come Back To You’ and standout track ‘Dance In The Rain’, with its hooky chorus, which weaves The Alarm and New Model Army in a mellifluous arena-ready tapestry. The ghosts of the pitheads call across the now quietened valleys, vagabonds anew.
Heartfelt ‘The Game’ brings Springsteen to the Welsh peaks whilst the stirring ‘Everywhere’, a Welsh anthem in the making, soars alongside. Close your eyes and imagine 70,000+ patriotic souls singing this before rugby internationals at the nearby Principality Stadium, it’s a realistic notion from where I’m stood. The up-tempo ‘Songs Of Freedom’ wraps up a glorious half hour or so in which the trio have acquainted themselves with the city crowd and can head back north assured of a job done well.
Although visibly, and to a degree audibly, struggling with the effects of the virus that has afflicted him Dan Patlansky is not about to be dissuaded from taking to the stage alongside his band-mates Andy Maritz (drums) and Greg Van Kerkhof (bass). Swift words of thanks and it’s showtime as the triumvirate shimmer into the ever so aptly titled ‘Lift Off’ – the first of seven visits to the new long-playing studio offering.
Shirt unbuttoned halfway, exposing his tattoos, Patlansky firmly closes his eyes as he expounds the hard driving licks from his heavily road-worn Strat. The lengthy instrumental sees a collective shift up through the gears, a pattern maintained throughout the ensuing hour and three quarters.
Leaning into ‘Red Velvet Suit’ – a 100% tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, a major influence upon Patlansky, and a nod to the Texan’s choice of outfit at his 30th birthday bash at New York’s Carnegie Hall back in ’84 (Thanks to Taf Rock for this gem of information) – Patlansky’s fret is afire with the two smoking barrels of Van Kerkhof and Maritz around abouts. The former bouncing along, hunkered over, to the latter’s beats.
‘Movin’ On’, according to, Patlansky is “the one I’ve wanted to make for ten years” and with much justified visitation to this fine slab of blues-rock is a despatch he’s rightfully proud of. The sultry blues of ‘Who I Am’ bursts into life along a Californian highway with Tom Petty fringes evident. Powering every sinew Patlansky’s Stratocaster sings as does the alluring siren drawing the unwary to a wondrous cataclysm.
The all-out onslaught of ‘Baby’s Packing Heat’ catenates; the band, unified, ebbing and flowing in complete control of proceedings. ‘Humbled’, with a soulful underpinning of Al Green’s ‘Take Me To The River’, takes on a rootsy southern vibrancy as the howling demons scorch through.
Recollecting the advisory words of his father in the country-fringed titular number ‘Movin’ On’ Patlansky bears his soul with a touch of Dylan in his rough-edged vocals with Maritz and Van Kerkhof joining in for some delicious three-way harmonies. Hard jabbing, growling, and snarling ‘On My Way’ firmly grasps a 12-bar shuffle; “lock, stock, fully loaded” no doubt of it.
A hat-trick of ‘oldies’ from the locker-room provide the crescendo of the final with the ethereal blues of 2009’s ‘Big Things Going Down’ taking the first trek down the historical avenue. Patlansky’s long reverberating note off his fourth and fifth strings echoes memories of Gary Moore’s sustain in the ‘Parisienne Walkways’.
The raucous blend of Led Zeppelin and Cream within ‘Backbite’ threatens to “burn the town to the ground” prior to the encore’s seminal blues of the showstopping ‘Heart Of Stone’. Catastrophic, blues-induced structural devastation concluded.
Fair play to Patlansky, where many would’ve folded, he’s faced up to the challenges and ensured that the show must go on in spectacular fashion.
Photography by Kelly Spiller for MPM
