More Than Meets The Eye
Laura Cox is a French guitarist/vocalist and drummer (more on that later) who started playing when quite young, at 14 (I believe). She found an audience doing covers on her YouTube channel before she started writing and performing her own on the site.
By 2013 the urge to get a band together and play live in front of physical audiences was strong enough that she did just that. She then released her first album in 2017 called Hard Blues Shot and has since released 3 more albums, including her latest, Trouble Coming, released last year. She is often seen as part of the blues genre, but as I experienced last night, she and her band are much more than that. The influences are quite far and wide, and all the more fun for it.
An Accurate Manifesto
The 4-piece comprised, of course, of Laura on vocals and guitar, but also Antonin Guérin on drums, Adrien Kah on bass and Léo Cotten on keyboards, who arrived onstage to a very warm welcome by a healthy crowd for a bank holiday Monday in Edinburgh. They opened with a track from the new album called “Rise Together“, which stomps along very nicely.
The song itself is almost a manifesto and has a lyric line about singing “your heart out to strangers” (she does that alright) as she wants to play the blues in a way that it “bleeds” and is “loose“. She certainly does that too. During the very first song I also noticed how much keyboards play a part to the sound of the band, especially live it seems. Harmonies are going on also as two of the band (Adrien and Léo) sing at various points on songs as well.
A Fresh Sound To The Blues
One of the flashbulb moments for me as a listener was during the second song, “If You Wanna Get Loud (Come To The Show)“, and how contemporary the music sounds. It isn’t just old-school blues or hard-rocking blues, it has a modern edge. This almost crosses over into stuff that gets radio airplay these days. Yes, there is an AC/DC vibe running through it, but the keys add an element that is new or at least a bit different. Adrien on bass certainly loves to dance as he showed some great moves on this!
The more contemporary sound came through even more on “A Way Home“, which being from the newest album makes me wonder if she will branch out even further. The blues as such is very much still alive in her music, none more so than on “Set Me Free“, where we were treated to some excellent shredding blues soloing. Longer than the original and with a fake ending (the band did a few of those to good effect), allowing an extended solo. It has a huge groove and at points it is just drum beats and vocals allowing the crowd to clap along to the beat. You could see from the smiles onstage and the interaction that the band were having fun and they were encouraging the audience to join in, which they duly did.
Some Tenderness
“Bad Luck Blues” in parts is a sheer slice of “High Voltage” era AC/DC, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I don’t remember it being like that on the album version, but live, it rocked up, especially the ending, which was really heavied up and raucous.
“Out Of The Blue” featured just Laura on guitar and vocals at the start. Really sparse and emotional. There were moments that made me think of Johnny Cash‘s version of “Hurt” in the vocal lines (I think due to the line “wash it all away” as well, it hints strongly at the theme and melody). There was sadness and tenderness in her voice and gave a different edge to the show. This was another track where after the “ending” Laura played an extended solo which was first class.
“Dancing Around The Truth” had the audience clapping along and the band “dancing around” (including Antonin on drums, who does like to stand when the chance arises) having fun. I did notice that the hall floor was also moving (the gig was in a ballroom with a bouncy floor) due to folks joining in.
Filthy Grooves (And Doom?)
The next 2 songs merged into each other, starting with a new song/single called “Not Your Story“, which has a dirty doomy riff and groove and yet has a very playful fun guitar part to counterbalance the dirty doomy parts. Live, this takes on a new edge that is for sure. Somehow they seemed to blend straight into “So Long” which is another stomper, a filthy groove which hints at both ZZ Top and AC/DC, whilst having a pop edge at times. Again, the floor was moving.
Interesting Choice Of Cover
The next song was a surprise, a cover of a Smiths song. I will admit I never got into them at all, so someone had to tell me what it was. “Big Mouth Strikes Again” sounded really interesting, in fact with the organ it sounded like a hymn and we were in church. The vibe came from left of centre. During this song, Laura took over on drums (Antonin joined in playing more keys along with Léo) and showed she is a fine multi-instrumentalist. As someone who struggles to play one instrument I was and am jealous at the talent!) The keys were very prominent on this.
How do you follow that? Well, you play a couple of tracks that are, yes, heavy, rocking, bluesy but with a punk energy and vibe. You also work the crowd even more, getting hands in the air and get feet stamping.
“The Broken” and “One Big Mess” both punched hard and fast, with one of them having a stop-start finish that fooled half the audience. During one of the songs, one guy had his mate taking a photo looking backwards with the band behind him. Laura noticed and crouched down did some faces whilst rocking out, giving the guy a photo he probably didn’t expect. Fair play for getting involved with the crowd and folks taking photos, which I know sometimes can annoy musicians onstage. She rolled with it, had a laugh, and one fan has a hell of a keepsake!
Bouncing
Laura regularly switched between slide, finger picking, plectrum riffing/soloing, which gave us a nice variety of guitar sounds and playing. In fact, she often switched between them all in the same song. She ended the main set with “Trouble Coming” which had a finger picking opening and slowly the band joined in as the first verse was sang.
With a tasty slide solo and a singalong chorus, which the crowd tried to keep going as the band left the stage (we struggled I think as it was higher than most of us could keep going with, but we did try hard). After a very short break, they were back, and they hit us with 2 more songs
“Do I Have Your Attention“, which I think the answer was a resounding “YES” as the crowd clapped along and once again the floor was bouncing away nicely.
“Hard Blues Shot” kept things going but added “HEYS” from the audience too. The band were working, rocking and the crowd were lapping it up (as far as I could see looking around, they were mostly joining in).
Variety The Spice Of The Band
As I said earlier, I was surprised at how varied the band are. Yes, the basis is blues and hard rock, but they add more to it, the keys playing a big role in that. Someone afterwards mentioned that at one point he thought it was a bit “country”, I have a feeling that was “Out Of The Blue“, I hadn’t thought of that at the time, but with the Cash vibe I can hear it now. They were also quite punky at points with the “hey” moments and the energy they were putting in. I enjoyed it even more than I expected (I had heard good things from others), which was very pleasing. The band have more UK shows and I will link them at the bottom along with a ticket link. If you can get along, please do, you will have a damn fine night.
Young New Band Supporting
Helping on the night was a new band. A young band. I say that as the main man said at one point he was 18 and not long out of school (the other 2 looked equally young), and they were on their first ever UK tour, and this was their first show. If they were nervous, it didn’t show.
Jesse Garwod and his band (if I heard correctly it was Ben on bass looking cool in an Opeth t-shirt…respect and Eddie on drums). They were delayed getting onstage due to an alarm going off in the building but it didn’t seem to affect them. This 3 piece did a great job. The first song (I think) was “Bad Lover’s Blues” and it had good groove, nice tempo and during it they dropped right down, stopped, paused and kicked in again.
Confident performers, that’s for sure. Good blues rock. I really liked the sound of their second song of the night. Possibly called “Torn Out“, it was reaching into 1950s rock and roll, but with a hard blues sound, the sort of thing George Thorogood would do. Jesse had a decent sense of humour, and despite admitting to not being great at general chat onstage, he managed. At one point, when only about 2 folks shouted “Yeah” he took the piss out of the crowd. Scots like that sort of thing.
Two Covers to Finish
They finished with a couple of covers, a very creditable version of Rory Gallagher‘s “Tattoo’d Lady” and an interesting take on Hendrix‘s “Voodoo Chile” where they dropped in and out of the main riff whilst getting quite funky. Very impressive. To see folks so young playing this sort of music with influences like they have (I love that an Opeth fan enjoys playing bluesy hard rock and funk) is a wonderful thing. They are a band or name to keep an eye open for. Great job opening.
Thanks to both Ian Potter and Callum Scott for band photos!
Tickets For Upcoming Shows HERE
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