Black Stone Cherry @ Barrowland Ballroom, Glasgow (16th July 2019)

with Kris Barras Band and OTIS

WORDS: Joanne Gray

It's been a while since I've been to the Barras. In fact, looking at it now, I was last there two years ago to see Good Charlotte before I was even writing gig reviews. I absolutely adore the venue though, so I was chuffed when Black Stone Cherry announced that they would be playing a show here. This was also considerably smaller than their last gig at the SEC (again, back before I was writing live reviews). Add to that the fact that my first gig at the Barras was actually to see Black Stone Cherry back in 2014 and this was adding up to be a special one for myself. So much so that I ended up missing KISS play the Hydro during the same night on what is supposed to be their last UK run of shows. Therefore I was very much hoping that one of my favourite bands would deliver a great show once again.

Making it in to the venue, we ended up missing the first two bands. There was practically no promotion of the support bands Kris Barras Band and OTIS on the run up to this gig, so I was only able to give them a brief listen beforehand. Getting to the day of the concert, I had had a busy day, it was warm and humid outside, and we ended up missing them entirely. Whoops...

Getting to the main band of the night though, the place was sweating hot before Black Stone Cherry even came on. The old building of the Barras is bad for ventilation at the best of times, but on a day like this, it was almost immediately unbearable. Thankfully, there was a bit of space to breathe as although the gig was officially sold out, there had been a good few people selling tickets beforehand. Probably a combination of managing to get KISS tickets last minute and it being too damn warm, I would wager. Was starting to think that hadn't been a bad trade-off in this heat either. But anyway...

Draped in their now conventional, simple rehearsal space decor of old rugs and banners, the vintage sound of the amps roared as the band came out to 'Burnin', one of the more rocking tunes from last year's album Family Tree. As always, the sound in this venue was great and the crowd was immediately swaying about and singing along to the soaring chorus here. The more intimate nature of the setting meant that you could see the sheer joy of frontman Chris Robertson as he grinned at the audience response. As usual, rhythm guitarist Ben Wells was jumping and kicking about from side to side, drummer John Fred Young was a flurry of hair and arms and bassist Jon Lawhon kept everything together in his more restrained, but equally as exuberant manner.

This energy was maintained over the next two songs, with the heavier debut song 'Blind Man'  getting heads banging and fists pumping around the room; and the wah-infused ode to weed, 'Me And Mary Jane' getting the crowd to singalong loudly. After such a high-tempo entrance, it was then over to a few softer songs to chill things out a bit before everyone in the room expired from the heat.

'In My Blood'  and 'Rollin' On' highlighted for the first time that night the ability of this band to perform songs that would fit both on US rock radio, but never feel too wet or sappy for the live environment. It's the live feeling of Black Stone Cherry that really makes them stand out in this regard as they have a sense of authenticity and soul that so many of their peers just simply don't have. This was shown again with 'Like I Roll's feel-good Lynard Skynyrd-esque southern rock feel good anthemry, but not before they pulled out another high tempo Family Tree track in the form of 'Bad Habit'. This one really could fit on their first two albums with the size of that chorus and it has a ton of energy in the live environment as well. 'Things My Father Said' then pulled on the heartstrings as it always does. Robertson's emotional vocals and lyrics about the passing of his dad alongside the gentle piano lines still manages to sound as affecting in 2019 as it first did a decade ago.

Eight songs in and things were going really well for the band and this seemed like it would continue with the inclusion of 2016's 'Cheaper To Drink Alone'. This one has a bit of a funky feel to things that makes it one of the more fun songs to feature on what has probably been their darkest album to date. It would also be the only song to be played from Kentucky as well. Makes sense they;d play so little here when they'd been touring that album for a few years, but I did wish they'd play more from that album as it's one of their best in recent years. Instead, from this point onward, Black Stone Cherry made some strange, and at time incredibly frustrating, choices throughout their set.

Doubling the length of the normally 3 minute song above, the band started to noodle about like they were in rehearsal. This would've been enjoyable if this was the only time the band did this. But alas. The more lackluster track 'Aint Nobody' was one which I would have been happy if they skipped anyway, but instead they tacked a 10+ minute jam session to the end of it (yeah, I was keeping count as it felt like every single one of those minutes and then some). It wasn't even like it was a particularly interesting song to jam over, and the addition of keyboards and additional percussion did nothing to liven this dirge up for me.  Looking around me as well, people seemed initially enthusiastic about this casual jamming but by the end, you could tell that energy was depleting quite considerably. I was relieved to say the least when they closed up this overly indulgent and frankly boring routine, but my eyes were quickly rolling again when the band went off stage to allow John Fred to do his customary drum solo.

I mean, it's not like this was out of the blue or unexpected, as he always does this live. But after the utterly tedious effort from the last song, the fact they didn't go into a more rollicking song first irked me more than I would care to admit. I've seen too many drum solos now to be much impressed by them unless they do something unique, and knowing John Fred, this was going to take up more than a few minutes of the set. I took this moment to go get some water and hope it would be wrapping up by the time I got back, but low and behold, the drum solo was still going for what *felt* like another 10 minutes after this. Again, the crowd seemed to drop off by the end, so it was another relief to get to the end of that. Surely it would be back to playing one of their big hitters then?

Well... not really. Sure, their cover of Willie Dixon's 'Built For Comfort' is a great one on record, and is a cool fun track to play live, but adding another excessive jam session to the song and making it at least twice its original length certainly did nothing to reinvigorate this drooping set. By the time Chris Robertson and John Fred switched roles; Robertson doing a decent job on drums, bouncing off the additional drummer and John Fred taking a harmonica out front, I was thoroughly annoyed at the band for dragging things out to such frustrating levels. Try as I might, by the time this trudging 10+ minute jam ended, not even the killer songs of 'Blame It On The Boom Boom' or 'White Trash Millionaire' could get me out of the totally irritated mood I was in. I knew that there was only about a few songs left for the band to play and it had barely felt like they played anything with all these tiresome additions racking up to at least a third of the set. Sounding (and feeling) like a bit of a child having a strop, I was coming back to the band when they pulled out the heavier, stomping track 'Lonely Train' and was hoping they would play another few songs like this to end things off on a higher note.

And then they pulled out 'Family Tree' and I audibly groaned. Every time I've seen Black Stone Cherry on this album run (as seen with my review of their Download set here), they've played this title track here and it has just gotten worse with each listen. This stodgy, boring track is one which never manages to gain any more vitality in the live environment, no matter how much the band try (and that they really do try), it ends up feeling like another 10 minute jam session. Maybe they added more of that jamming thing as well here. I couldn't even tell anymore as it just felt that long anyway. And that isn't just on opinion I can say I'm alone in here. Looking around me, there was very little movement or engagement from the audience and there was more than a few people who were taking this track to browse social media on their phone rather than watch the band. Never a good sign at all and I really wish the band would stop playing this song live as it is quite honestly a shit song by their standards.

And that is ultimately what had been annoying me the most about their set, and was further highlighted by the addition of the encore track 'Peace Is Free'. Black Stone Cherry are more than capable of delivering awesome songs that sound great live and can get a crowd of people (many of whom are 30/40+) jumping about and singing away to. Hell, they've made their name and career out of doing exactly that and are one of the best of their type at it. I've seen this band 9 times now in venues of drastically varying sizes and they've never not put on a great show for me. Until this gig. I felt like I was watching a band who couldn't be bothered putting on an engaging show for the audience and were instead traipsing round doing self-indulgent jam sessions that were neither interesting or engaging to watch. There's been traces of this in the last few shows they've done, but I don't think it has ever been as heavily handedly executed, or felt as mind numbingly long as it was here.

I really hope that this is just something that the band are doing at the moment to break things up a bit and they don't continue to keep doing this live for the foreseeable. This really wasn't fun to watch and severely impacted my enjoyment of what would (and should) have normally been a feel-good, intimate, energetic hard rock show. It's what I expect from Black Stone Cherry as I have seen them do that so many times before. But for this gig, by the time we had come out of the insanely sweaty room, it felt like the damp walls didn't reflect the show I'd just witnessed. As I saw people with KISS t-shirts on when making our way out of town, I had wished I had went to see them instead. Man, I hope the next one is better as I love this band to pieces normally.

If you want to catch a bit of what I've been talking about here, you can check out the video I took for 'Cheaper To Drink Alone' below.

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