Sarah Shook & The Disarmers + Kitty-May
It may be their farewell tour but Sarah Snook & The Disarmers (country) rock out with the best of ‘em.
Waterfront
After a whole 13 days without witnessing any live music, it is down to the Waterfront Studio for Sarah Shook & The Disarmers. SS&TD may have a sound rooted in country-rock but there are elements of punk, alternative rock and even grunge and Western swing.
The musicianship from the five piece - River Shook on vocals and guitar, Taylor Swan on pedal steel, lead guitarist Blake Tallent, Mason Thomas on bass and drummer Ethan Standard - is superb. The moments when Swan and Tallent swap solos are an absolute delight.
At their best, the band rock out like Copperhead Road-era Steve Earle if he donned DMs and was fronting Crazy Horse or Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeo re-imagined by the Clash. Add in occasional hits of Creedence-style swamp rock and it all adds up to something very special indeed. The only disappointing elements are the sparsity of the of the crowd and that this is the Nothing Lasts Forever farewell tour before Shook & The Disarmers disband. On the first of these, the crowd may be small but it is enthusiastic, even breaking into reels and line-dances at times, and it may be down to Frank Turner playing at the UEA tonight. As for the second, well, at least I got the chance to catch them once.
Kitty-May opens proceedings with a set of folk-pop with a woozy, dreamy vibe. Vocally, there are hints of early Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks, whilst the presentation and between song chat brings to mind (almost certainly as a result of convergent evolution) the excellent Laura (She Makes War/Penfriend) Kidd. If I’m being absolutely brutal, some of Kitty-May’s songs didn’t hit the mark for me but she is personable, has a great voice and is someone I will be looking out for in the future.
